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“We have to send out Christmas cards, Tom!” cried out Harry, outraged. “I love sending out Christmas cards! And this is our first Christmas together as husbands – we can’t skip this!”
Tom and Harry may have both been orphans with miserable childhoods, with neither really getting to make any positive Christmas memories until they had started boarding school. However, their horrible upbringings had resulted in very different mindsets.
Tom, being very practical and reasonable, obviously knew that Christmas traditions and the huge inconvenience of them all were asinine and pointless, a waste of time that not even a child should look forward to, let alone adults.
Harry, being overly sentimental and absurd, thought that buying into Christmas traditions as an adult was “healing” and helped him to “show his loved ones how much he cares for them,” and Tom mourned his husband’s gullible acceptance of the consumerism-driven holiday inanity.
Usually, Tom was happy to go along with Harry’s silly ideas, whether it was his brief fixation on monthly movie dates, their matching pajamas, or their tradition of breakfast in bed to celebrate special occasions. He loved Harry, not because of the connections Harry provided him or the inheritance he had received, but because he was Harry, with a heart of (mostly) gold who always saw the best in him and in everyone, a constant source of support that never stopped pushing him to be better, a force of nature leaving his mark on everything he touched. He enjoyed making Harry happy, even if he didn’t understand the appeal of cooking heart-shaped pizza or the fresh bouquets of flowers that Harry loved.
But Christmas had gotten insanely out of hand.
First, it had been getting a Christmas tree. Not only had the woman helping them pick out a tree been very obviously hitting on Harry, but even after they’d gone through the whole effort of transporting it back to their house, Harry had insisted on decorating the tree, with lights, tinsel, and the most motley collection of tacky ornaments imaginable. Tom had lost hours of his life surrounded with grinning plastic Santas and the grating lyrics of Last Christmas blaring through the house, though he did feel quite proud of himself at how Harry’s face would light up every time he saw the tree.
Then it had been all of the shopping for presents. Tom’s own social circle was very easy – it was no trouble to buy Abraxas’ favorite whiskey or Nott’s go-to cologne or an engraved fountain pen for Rosier. But this year, Tom had been included in Harry’s social circle, and though Ron and Hermione weren’t necessarily the most difficult to shop for, finding the perfect presents for their two younger children was exhausting, and Tom still wasn’t feeling completely confident in how Rose would receive the doll he had picked out.
But the worst part of Christmas by far had been rigging up the Christmas lights. Naively, Tom had offered to lead putting up the lights for the both of them, and he was lucky he had lived to regret it.
Harry had heard the noise, running out of the house to see Tom dangling upside-down from the roof of their home, legs completely wrapped up in Christmas lights, completely failing to hold onto his dignity as he screamed for Harry to get him back onto solid ground right now that very second.
Harry had been very sweet, of course, helping Tom get down safely and making him some hot chocolate, and he had finished off the lights himself while Tom enjoyed the feeling of being indoors on a sofa instead of hanging off of a roof. But it had been obviously humiliating, and Tom struggled to think of it without blushing furiously even days later.
And now, after all of the painful chaos of Christmas, Tom was not feeling receptive to going along with another foolish tradition if he could at all get out of it.
“I have nothing against Christmas cards,” said Tom, lying through his teeth. This was a risky play – Harry had a way of making him regret any falsehoods or attempts to avoid “husbandly bonding activities” – but to escape the misery of another Christmas activity, he was willing to resort to taking a gamble. “But perhaps you can take the lead on this little project?”
Harry paused his rant, contemplative. “Really? You’re okay with me doing whatever I want on these Christmas cards? You don’t think you’ll have any input?”
“Really,” Tom nodded, working to keep the tentative hope rising in his chest from showing on his face. “Whatever you think is best, dear.”
Harry seemed to take a few seconds to really think about it. “Alright. I can do it. If you’re sure you don’t want to participate in this lovely holiday tradition with me.”
Surprise and sweet, sweet relief swept over Tom, and he felt himself finally begin to relax. He could have a healthy distance from Christmas. This was fine.
~~~
And it went exactly as Tom had agreed to – Harry led the creation and sending of the Christmas cards, never requesting that Tom touch any part of the process, with Tom pleased and stunned that Harry wasn’t dragging him into another one of his beloved “Christmas traditions.”
He would soon find out it was too good to be true.
Only after all their cards had been sent out to all of their shared acquaintances (not just the Weasley-Grangers and Lovegoods and Lupins of the world, but also his own associates, like the Malfoys and the Rosiers and the Rookwoods) did Harry decide to show Tom the card he had sent out to everyone the pair had ever spoken to.
The front was a candid, sweet picture of the two of them from the first dance at their wedding, one that Tom had always personally loved. Innocuous text reading “Season’s greetings from the Potters” in an overly fanciful cursive sprawled over the bottom of the image. It may not have been the most tasteful Christmas card he’d seen, but it was sweet, and he was sure that anyone who had met Harry would expect nothing less.
Unfortunately, the back of the card was a blurry picture of him hanging upside-down from the roof of their house, held in place only by the Christmas lights wrapped tightly around his legs that he had struggled so passionately to put up around their house.
Staring down at the card in shock, Harry’s uncontrollable cackling ringing through his ears, Tom vowed to never try to get out of a Christmas tradition again.