Rapunzel! Rapunzel!

"I am!"

Allie was quite literally excitedly bouncing where she was sitting. She'd had to sit and wait through the getting the tree into its spot since she obviously wasn't tall enough or strong enough to do that part.

This part? She was so ready to help with.

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"Haven't really decorated a tree in ages." He remembers when he tries to help Lynne Vega, years ago, but she also invited three of her fellow Feds to help, and ended up watching. "Heck, I usually just buy a Charlie Brown special.

"What should we do first?" He inspects the lights, and smiles at both Raps and Allie.

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"Well, lights go on first. Allie should be good at this, since they get wrapped around the tree, and she's small enough to walk all the way around."

At least for the bottom half.

"I kind of miss the old days, when we put little candles on the branches. Dangerous, but pretty."

She shakes her head.

"Anyway, why don't Alex and I keep them untangled for you, Allie, while you thread them around the tree?"

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"Real candles would be beautiful," Allie said, leaping up from her spot and finding one of the the loosened ends of the light strands.

She started wrapping them in around the branches, carefully; as she didn't want the tree to suddenly scratch her or for them to fall off from her not paying them enough attention while they went on.

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"We'll light candles later. After we set up the tree and the menorah." It's still odd to him to mix the two, but then, he's a mix, isn't he?

Alex begins to fight with the coils of lights. "What else did you do in the old days?"

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"Well, apples were traditionally hung from the branches to symbolize the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden...there was usually a huge meal of traditional dishes, we sang songs and make gingerbread houses."

She helps keep the strings of lights moving upward around the tree as she remembers Christmases past.

"Gifts weren't really so much a part of it until more recent years."

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Allie looked up, from around part of the tree, listening as they talked. Or maybe it was just the movement of her hair that could be seen really, or possibly her eyes through branches.

"Traditions change so much as the world changes," she commented. "People wouldn't understand so much anymore why they'd symbolize getting removed from heaven on the main symbol of the year."

Diametrically, it made sense. It one took into account the time, the meaning of the time, and the impetus.

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"Errr." Alex looks a little sheepish. "I really don't get it either." Hard to forget sometimes what a whiz kid Allie is. "Let me guess? Something to do with Jesus making up for the sin in the Garden?" Theology was never his thing.

"But we still eat. And dinner smells good already."

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She laughs.

"It's not going to be ready for a while yet. If Adam and Eve had never been expelled from the Garden, then none of us would be here, would we?"

She notes that Allie is rapidly getting to the point where someone taller is going to have to take over for her.

"And there's apple strudel for later."

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Allie might have to be told she's going to need help as she's attempting to be subtle about standing on her tip toes to reach branches above her head.

"I'm going to help make the mashed potatoes," Allie added in, with a grin, wiggling the strand as if finally giving in that he might need to come take it.

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"Mashed potatoes and latkes? You two are going to spoil me." Alex moves behind Allie. "Need a hand?"

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"I've never made latkes before, so we needed a back up, in case they're terrible."

They had tasted good to her while she'd been making them, though.

"And the challah turned out just fine, since I'm good at bread making."

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Allie nodded to Alex's question, if only with a tiny pout, as she held out the light string in question to let him take it.

"Are we going to light the candles for you, too?"

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"I think I should do that myself. Since I'm the closest thing here to a Jew." He smirks. It's not like he has any problem with who he is. He just never really thinks of himself as a real Jew. Not compared to his grandparents.

He starts working the lights up and around the tree, "We got a stepladder, honey?"

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"I think so...let me check."

She goes to the kitchen and finds one in a cupboard, and brings it back.

She watches as he finishes stringing the lights with a smile and a wink for Allie.

"I think we're almost ready for ornaments!"

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Yay!" Allie stepped back looking up at the tree, with it's lighting, starting to feel the glee building in her, getting to watch it go up, piece by piece (again, finally).

"Do you have all sorts of ornaments?"

It was possible. Rapunzel had been around a while linearly, with different world counts, and might have nearly anything.

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"Yeah. what have we got? I have a couple of things at home. But I don't think you want a 1986 World Series ornament, do you?" A prized possession, but somehow, not right for this place.

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"Unfortunately, I don't have anything from home. I've been bound since the first time I came to Milliways. We'll have to make do with the things I bought in Gotham. I got a nice selection, though, so dig in and hang them wherever you think it will look nice."

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Allie popped open some boxes, not seeming daunted by this revelations but to gather more curiosity.

"There are some bigger balls over here. Those go on the lower branches, right?"

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Alex looks through some other boxes and bags. "I think so. Like I said, I was never good at this.

"Raps, wanna offer your expert opinion?"

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"I tend to just put them wherever I think they'll look pretty. Then, when they are all on, I stand back and let my vision blur a little to see if any colors are to concentrated in one area and rearrange accordingly."

She is enjoying this. She normally only puts up a tiny tree in her place, and enjoys the bigger ones around Fabletown.

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"My mom would have loved your way of doing it," Allie said with a laugh, first without thinking about it.

Then she stilled.

For as true as it was, because her mother would have loved the approach in her crazy fashion -- she didn't talk about her mom, and suddenly she wasn't sure she was really supposed to. Not here, with them, doing this, since Alex and Rapunzel had been so much like, and this was so much like...

Allie shuffled up from her seat, cheeks a little reddened now, without looking up now, and started affixing a bulb to one of the lower branches.

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He noticed Allie's awkward pause. And wondered whether he should say anything. Fact is, he wondered a lot about Allie's parents, and her home life, and the holidays. And his curiosity did tend to get the best of him.

"You okay, Allie?"

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Rapunzel immediately goes to Allie and wraps her arms around the girl.

"It's normal to miss your parents, sweetheart. Alex and I love you, but it's not really the same thing, huh?"

She understands missing loved ones, so recently taken around the holidays. Her own family had been ripped from her so long ago...

"Would you like to do something special to honor them?"

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