Holy Day and Winter Night, Twilight Eve Golden [best color ereader .txt] 📗

It had become a sort of tradition. Every Christmas Eve, Sadie and Daniel's families and others gathered at Sadie's house to celebrate. If anyone had bothered to look in one of the windows, they would have been greeted with a very odd sight.
Because none of the families were ordinary families, oh no. Sadie's father, Kyand'r, was a demon, her mother a half demon, making Sadie three parts demon, and one part human. And of course, one of her mother, R'bekah's friends, was a girl named Light, from a planet far away.
In contrast, Daniel's family was somewhat ordinary. Well, not really. His grandfather was Saint Daniel, making his father half-saint (or something like that, as neither Daniel nor Sadie could really make sense of the explanation that had come when they asked). Daniel's mother was fully human, as was, somehow, his younger sister. And Daniel himself was half Saint, a quarter human, and a quarter ghost.
The friends that Daniel and Sadie had met along their journeys were there too. The Lady Knight called Jay, her daughter Anna, the half-angel superhero Danica or 'FrostAngel', Katie Williams and her family...
There were many, many others, demonic beings and holy beings, mortals and immortals, old enemies and allies, and even other ordinary humans.
Yet they all gathered in one house, without any more conflict than any other family. And they were a family, somehow. No one knew exactly when the distinction had been made, just that it had. So all the children played together, and for all their many years, Light, R'bekah and Kyand'r were still little more than 'children' in some ways themselves. They all ran and sung and flew and laughed together, while Jay, Saint Daniel, Daniel's and Katie's parents, and the other 'adults' looked on in amusement, with small smiles on their faces.
Later they would gather for presents and a story, and then dinner, before finally going to sleep. The house was big enough for everyone; it always was, but it was small enough not to feel empty, for everyone to be well within shouting distance. The next morning, Katie would wake first, immediately pulling her brother Caleb out of his room and then starting for Daniel's, and then Sadie's. Eventually everyone would be awake, and, having been dragged downstairs half asleep, all the 'children' would stare in wonder at the great number of presents sitting under the Christmas tree. Katie would open the first present, and then it would become a free-for-all, finally ending in Daniel opening a mysterious book he would receive. It would show the story of each and every person in the room, with pictures and notes and sometimes yellowed pages. After several moments of silence, there would be small smiles, and shared glances, before the happy atmosphere resumed. There would be visits by other friends, some of whom would stay for dinner, and others who would not.
And as the mortals of the group grew old, these traditions would continue, and even when one or another died, their spirit would visit, just for those two days, for the family to be whole again. And, long into the future, when it was time foe even the immortals to depart the plane of Mortal Earth, there would be one last Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, when Daniel and Sadie and R'bekah and Light, Kyand'r and Yasha and Kassandra and Dana, and every one of them and their descendents would gather in the then-ancient home, to exchange gifts from places old and new, and to be as they were in times long ago again.
But for now, as they ran and sung and flew and laughed, and those with the gift of prophecy pushed it away, they knew nothing of this. They were simply children and parents, bosses and partners, friends and siblings and soulmates, in one great big extended family. It was a strange family, true, but through all of the differences, all of the magick and weight-of-the-world, they were really no different than any other family, gathered together to celebrate a holiday that means different things to different people. Hope, rebirth, faith, and hope again, and other reasons that we cannot begin to fathom... Still they were united. And later, after dinner was eaten and prayers to God and gods and demons were said...

It was the night before Christmas, and all though the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Text: I do not own the cover photo. It belongs, presumably, to this website.
Publication Date: 12-29-2009

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