Chapter 5 – Christmas Morning

Christmas morning found Ian and Max out of bed before anyone else, busy as could be moving all the presents they had brought with them from the states and placing them under the tree. It also found Jor moving like a snake through the waters to the little island, his sister and brother sitting comfortably on his head. The smells of fresh pine, the still burning fire, and soon, thanks to Ian, pancakes and hot chocolate filled the house. The live fire cast dancing shadows all around the room, making everything look alive. The tree was dancing, the presents were softly bobbing in place, the many windows caught the flickering light and reflected it, making it seem like the entire house was surrounded by a magical circle of fire to protect and warm the inhabitants. 

Sleipnir came running out of the forest to greet his half siblings, and with the knowing help of Hel, Max and Ian managed to open the window panels in the wall around the door, making the entrance big enough for Fenrir to walk through, and for Jor’s head to come through, even though the rest of the world serpent had to remain outside (the body continuing back into the ocean, and curling up somewhere on the bottom of some great ocean, maybe poking Australia a bit with the tail just for fun). 

It didn’t take long until Vali and Nari joined too, coming down both from Nari’s room, and both soon running upstairs again to fetch the presents they had bought and add them to the pile. By the time Loki and Sigyn had added their presents, it was no longer a pile, and it most certainly didn’t fit under the tree. The presents Nari alone had gotten for Hel would not have fit under that tree. Looking at the small and suddenly insignificant looking tree which now stood in front of a literal ocean of presents, the thought that the family sure adapted to commercial Christmas fast flowed through Max’s head, but then he noticed the chewed up star hanging on the tree, now finally dry, and he knew this family would never be overtaken by the stress and pressure to spend money, they would buy only that which they thought would truly bring a smile to the receiver. 

They agreed to eat breakfast (pancakes, eggs, sausages, bacon, toast, the whole nine yards) around the fire before starting in on the presents, but Fenrir kept eyeing the presents and toning out of the conversation. In the end Sigyn got up with a laugh and started rummaging through the pile to find something for her step son. Turns out, in all their Christmas shopping extravaganza, they had forgotten one little detail. While stores will generally wrap the presents for you, they will not address them – so now they had a giant pile of wrapped presents, only a very few (the ones from America) with labels on them to instruct in who they were for and from. Had this happened – not that it ever would have, but for argument’s sake, had it ever happened when Max and Ian were with Max’s family for the holidays, Max’s mom would have declared the who day a fiasco, considered herself a failure, and very likely sent Ian some angry side eyes as if to blame him for the corruption of her family (she had always hope her lawyer son would marry well, possibly a doctor – but never in her wildest dreams would she have pictured her intelligent, handsome, successful son marrying an ambulance driver). 

But today it was an other picture entirely unfolding before his eyes. Max watched, gleaming with pride and happiness, as Loki broke with a huge smile, the chaos being the best present he could have ever received, and as Sigyn resigned herself to laughter as Nari led Vali around the sea of presents to try to sniff out what is what in them. 

Ian put a hand on his husband’s leg and squeezed gently, inclining his head towards the pile of presents lying neatly under the tree. Max nodded, and together they dug out the present they had brought for Fenrir. To be honest, the both of them were a bit unsure about this present – Fenrir would likely either love it, or be tempted to eat them for it. It was with their breaths held that they placed the heavy box in front of the giant wolf. Fenrir eyed them uncertainly, looking them up and down. 

“What is this?” Fenrir asked, being able to smell full well what was inside the box, and not being all too pleased with it. 

“It is… eh… well…” Ian fell quiet again, hoping that somehow Loki would step in and stop his son from eating them. 

“It is a Christmas present,” Max stated in an even tone, as if he was in court again and addressing an unapproving judge. “It is given in good faith, well intended, and if you do not like it you are free to not use it.” Fenrir looked over Max, pursed his giant lips, but then looked back down at the present in front of him. With a claw he carefully slit open the present and let the paper fall from it. Inside was a plain wooden chest, which Fenrir pulled the top off with ease. He stared down into the box, unmoving, not speaking, for what seemed like an eternity. In the end, curiosity got the better of Loki and he got off the couch and climbed around the very full room to look into the box. Upon seeing the content he let out a howl of laughter and padded his giant son on the leg. 

“What is it?” Nari demanded. Fenrir reached down and with a single claw held up the long chain of iron links forming a full circle, and two giant, flat pieces of metal hanging from it. 

“They are called dog tags,” Max informed them. “Soldiers wear them in war, as a kind of identification in a way.” 

“They say the best way over a trauma is to face it,” Ian added hesitantly. “We thought… Well, I thought, mainly, that the necklace could be a way of reclaiming your freedom from the chains that bound you.” There was a moment of hesitation in the room at the mention of Fenrir’s binding. 

“And those tags are just funny,” Max stated in a light, though slightly uncertain, tone. In giant runes one of the tags read “Son of Loki” and the other read “Eater of Thor”. With a look on his face that could be either a smile or a snarl, Fenrir slipped his head through the chain, and the dog tags fell neatly on his chest, the chain the perfect length – to Ian’s immense relief. Fenrir turned his head and opened his mouth, but rather than “thank you” or, indeed, any sort of words, what came out of the wolf’s mouth was his giant tongue as he proceeded to lick the two gift givers from toe to head. Ian closed his eyes firmly as the rough, wet tongue soiled his clothes and messed up his hair. Max tried hard to keep in a laugh until at least the tongue had cleared him, but once that happened, he let out a huge smiling laugh. 

“I’m glad you like it,” he said. Fenrir held the tags out from his neck and studied them, his eyes growing fonder and fonder with every second. 

This started the great battle of “who is this for” as people took turns trying to identify the presents they have bought and present it to whoever they were intended for. After Nari had hauled eight different presents over for Hel to open, each of them containing a board game – everything from Sequence and Partners, to Set, Code Names, and Black Stories (one and two, of course), Jor gave an indignant splash of water to indicate wanting a present too. Ian indulgentantly dug through their labeled presents and found one of equal size to Fenrir’s, but significantly lighter. Fenrir and Hel both assisted in guiding the present up so that Jor could slice through the paper with a tooth, and eventually they unraveled a box filled with something yellow. That was all they could see, literally just yellow plastic. At Ian’s instruction they carried it outside, and Max and Ian took turns blowing into a small hole before Loki decided it was taking too long, and in three great huffs, he had blown up the rubber duck which was almost as big as Fenrir. Jor eyed it for a moment, but when Max and Ian put it out on the water and it floated, Jor’s eyes lit up with excitement. First, the duck was attempted drowned, but happily popped back up again. Then it got a head bud and flew across the waves with the force. Jor rose up high above them only to fall back down on the stomach, smashing into the poor duck – which somehow, miraculously, survived the attempt on it’s life and bobbed up again happily a bit further out to sea. Ian just had time to wonder if maybe they should have tied the duck to shore, cause it was getting pretty far out, Jor chasing it and crashing down on it delightedly, but then, as Jor was smiling wide and gleefully, the duck was speared on a long tooth from the serpent’s mouth, and the air quickly whistled out of it. The giant serpent looked back at the shore, the yellow duck impaled on the tooth. 

“That was a long lived present,” Max mumbled sadly, afraid that, like a child, Jor would soon get annoyed to see everyone else getting to keep their presents. 

Jor disappeared beneath the waves and popped up again at the shore line, the duck still in mouth and on tooth, and surprisingly a wide smile too, almost as if to say “Look guys! I killed it! I killed the yellow thing!” Max let out a relieved sigh as Ian took his hand and gave it a reaffirming squeeze. No spoiled brats here. 

As the evening progresses, Jor received several more bath toys, some small, some big, but none as giant as the duck. It turned out though that smaller was definitively harder to kill – and the following few days Jor could be seen in the ocean by the little island, happily chasing an army of rubber ducks, all of them smaller than one of Jor’s eyes, and none of them inflatable. With each attempt Jor made on one duck, the rest scattered on the violent waves. It didn’t matter how many times Jor tried, the ducks would simply float in between the deadly sharp teeth, and not once did Jor managed to kill one of these ducks. In the end, Jor resigned to simply keeping all the ducks together, like a mother hen and her chickens. Hours, days even, were spent in this manner, and no one was able to call Jor back to shore – unless by going out in the little boat and gathering up the ducklings and bringing them back to shore first. 

Sleipnir received an obstacle course from the entire family, each member adding something new to the beginner set Max and Ian had brought. 

From Max and Ian, Hel received a giant box of candles in an array of colors, sizes, and scents. From Nari and Vali she received no less than 23 different board games, some new, some bought used, but all welcome in Helheim. And that was her present to the whole party, free entrance in and out of Helheim anytime they wished to come and get their asses kicked in a game or two. Sigyn got Hel four framed pictures of horror maidens – a vampire, a corpse bride, a zombie, and a ghost. Hel smiled as she looked at the beautiful women, and smiled even more when Loki handed her the matching, empty frame, so Hel could hang her own portrait to go with the others. 

As the day progressed, the pile of presents slowly diminished. Both Vali and Fenrir received huge dog beds, not to mention squeaky chew toys, giant bones, dog treats galore – which were promptly and generously spread over the entire island to be sniffed out and gulfed down. Vali too got a set of dog tags from Max and Ian, this time reading “Son of Sigyn” and “Survivor of Hel”. 

At Max’s and Ian’s suggestion, Sigyn bought a Blue Ray player for Loki, and Loki bought a TV for Sigyn – which fit perfectly, since Max and Ian had bought the entire MCU collection for Loki. The idea of Loki’s face as he heard himself described as Thor’s brother and Odin’s son, not to mention the luxurious prison his Marvel alter ego had been confined to, or the idea that Hel was his sister – all of that had been too tempting for Max and Ian, and they had thought it a great prank to show Loki just what people thought of him in these modern days. For Sigyn they bought a sewing machine, which was more greatly appreciated than they had imagined. For his husband Ian had bought plane tickets to Denmark and back with no dates set, and for his husband Max had bought plane tickets to Denmark and back with no dates set. 

Nari had been tougher to buy for, having spent so little time with him, but Max and Ian had gotten him a pair of jet skis, so he could go out on the water with Jor. From his parents Nari received every book from the Wordsworth collection that had been available in the book store, everything from Sherlock Holmes to Jane Austen, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Oscar Wilde, from Wuthering Heights to Moby Dick, from Dracula to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide – and he eagerly dove into them the second the wrapping paper was off. 

The whole day passed like that, opening one present and immediately diving headfirst into it, before digging out another present to give someone, and the whole family engaging in it. Nari even read the first few chapters of A Christmas Carol out loud. Morning turned to noon, and breakfast was replaced with an array of different meats to put on rye bread. The sea of presents turned into an ocean of wrapping paper – which Vali happily claimed as his as he rolled in it, scratched at it, chewed through it, and generally just had the time of his life. Sleipnir joined in, stomping and jumping and squashing the paper as Vali dug his snout into it and threw it up in the air. Soon Fenrir joined too and started piling the discarded wrapping paper over Jor, who could barely move within the house. Loki, thrilled by the chaos, pulled Sigyn up from the couch and swung her around in a dance on the table, her skirt almost catching fire several times as she twirled around and the fabric blew over the fire. Max pulled Ian close and together they danced around in the wrapping paper confetti flying everywhere. Hel inconspicuously picked up Ian’s camera and filmed the whole beautiful chaotic scene with a smile on her face. Christmas morning with the family, extended and all, what could be better? 

It wasn’t until Loki and Sigyn tried to politely excuse themselves and go to bed that Ian remembered something important that had yet to be done. 

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked Loki with a falsely innocent smile on his lips. Loki paused with a wondering glance around the room. 

“What the Dickens,” Max told him gleefully. Loki grit his teeth and nodded in defeat. 

“I will get it,” he vowed. “Someday, I will get it.” And with a smile, a wave, and an annoyed huff, he turned around and ascended that staircase. 

Will Loki ever figure out how to swear like a modern human? Will Jor ever get sick of the ducklings? How long will it take Nari to run out of books? There are seven days left of Yule to find out.