AN: Yay! It’s Christmas Eve, and my first day on break! Merry spirits and happy holidays to you all, my festive readers!

DC: All in the lightest of humors, and not once meant to be taken seriously, both in the terms of religion and physics.

Enjoy!

Voldemort pranced into the TV room.

“Guess what, everybody!”

The Death Eaters remained stone-like on the couch.

“It’s a very special holiday tonight!”

Lucius blinked for the first time in ten minutes.

“Guesses? Anyone?”

A fly landed on Bellatrix’s eye. Nothing happened.

“You’re right!” The Dark Lord clapped his hands together. “I’m so glad your ready for it!’

He pranced out. The Death Eaters only moved their eyes to exchange glances. This was not a good sign.

“Minion!” Voldemort called, skipping into the kitchen. “I have a special baking request!”

“Really?” Snape was shocked, if not overjoyed, that his talents were finally being recognized and appreciated.

“Yup! It’s for the very special holiday tonight!”

Snape frowned. “But sir,” he said, “Christmas isn’t until tomorrow.”

Chortling, the Dark Lord slapped the Soy-Reincarnation Faster genially on the back. Being frail and with a slight case of osteoporosis, Snape heard two of his vertebrae snap.

“No, no, no, Minion. Tonight is the third night of Hanukah! I want you to make me a nice batch of latkes!”

“Latkes?” Snape repeated, puzzled.

“Potato pancakes!” the Dark Lord sang, pirouetting out of the room.

Snape looked at the recipe that had been magicked into his hand. “’Ingredients,’” he read aloud, just for kicks, “’20 peeled potatoes. Five cups of oil. 16 ounces of butter. Two tubs of Crisco. A pound and a half of lard. And one salt mine.’”

He stood in the kitchen and looked at the list. Then he looked at his kitchen cabinets.

“I may need a bigger frying pan...” he pondered out loud to the tea tins.

“Sir...” whined Lucius in the living room, “what is Hanukkah even about?”

“Why, candles!’ Voldemort replied cheerily. “Lots of candles, and oil, and fire!”

Bellatrix raised an eyebrow. “Sir, you’ve never even mentioned you were Jewish until five minutes ago... the only reason you want to celebrate Hanukkah is because you’re a pyromaniac!”

The Dark Lord blinked mildly. “Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yes! It’s part of their religion!”

“I though it was sort of a ‘come one, come all,’ deal.”

“No,” Bellatrix said firmly, “it’s definitely a religious holiday.”

Voldemort scowled. “Party pooper,” he muttered.

“Look, I’m not saying you can’t appreciate it,” Bellatrix said. “But it you’re going to celebrate it, you should at least look up the prayers.”

“... prayers?”

“Recited when you light the menorah?”

The Dark Lord scrunched his face slightly. “Menorah...” he repeated, thinking with a furrowed brow.

“Sir!” Bellatrix exclaimed. “How can you possibly be hoping to celebrate Hanukkah without a menorah?!”

“I just thought you needed candles,” Voldemort shrugged, motioning the corner of the room, which held a huge mound of candles, lighter fluid, matches, and fireworks.

“Fireworks...?” Bellatrix managed.

“All part of the fiery festivities!” the Dark Lord said brightly, digging through the pile and finding a set of candles. He held them out for the Death Eaters to see.

Peering closer Lucius groaned. Bellatrix nearly died right then and there.

“Sir... those are advent candles. And they’re still on the wreath!”

Voldemort’s facial expression was that of an innocent, happy-go-lucky child that had just said a sexual reference without even realizing it.

“So?”

Lucius and Bellatrix decided it was in their best interests to leave the room, before it was struck down by lightening.

Postman was having a rough day. Actually, he’d been having a rough month.

“I hate the holiday season,” he muttered, trooping up yet another walkway to deliver yet another package to yet another house. He had been called back to his postman duties to help with the extensive amounts of mail that needed to be dealt with because of the holidays. Thus his UPS blazer with the embroidery that had been crossed out with Sharpie and replaced by ‘DMV’ had been patched over with the UPS logo, though the Sharpie still showed through slightly.

And of course it was always snowing when he walked up to the house. It was sunny when he was in the van, but the second he opened the door, oh no, it had to start blizarding. Just his luck.

As he drove along, hunched against the cold, listening to the radio, he began to mutter...

“All those boys and girls will wake bright and early... they’ll rush for their toys and then... oh the noise, oh the noise, oh the noise, noise, noise, noise... if there’s one thing I hate, it’s all the noise, noise, noise, noise! And they’ll make squeaks and squeals racing ‘round on their wheels, they’ll dance with jing-tinglers tied onto their heels! They’ll blow their floo-floobers and bang their tar-tinkers, they’ll blow their bloo-bloobers and bang their gar-ginkers! And then they’ll make ear-splitting noises deluxe, on their great big electro-Whocardio-flux! And then they’ll do something I hate most of all, they’ll – ow!”

Postman stopped mid-rant to look at the ghostly figure that just smacked him.

“Are you Christmas Past, come to renew my Christmas spirit?” he asked, agape.

“No,” said the ghostly figure grumpily, “but I sure hope you don’t rip off Dickens too!”

“What?”

“You’re reciting directly from ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’! That’s mine, thank you very much!”

“Dr. Sues?”

“Yes, and you’d be wise to remember that!”

“So you’re going to be picky about copyrights even on Christmas? It’s just one day a year!”

“Okay, pal, look at a calendar. Today is Christmas Eve.”

“So I can recite the Grinch’s lines tomorrow?” Postman asked hopefully.

“Not a chance,” the Ghost of Dr. Sues said primly, and popped out of existence.

Postman, still miraculously driving on on the road, scowled.

“Well now what do I rant about?”

At Malfoy Manor, it was looking like another catastrophe involving fire.

Within the kitchen, Snape was trying desperately to prove his culinary talents, and to do so by frying potatoes with so much saturated fat it appeared as though there was a large, dead walrus sitting atop the stove.

Snape could swear he could feel his arteries clogging by being within five feet of the grease.

Voldemort waltzed in, holding five candles in each hand. “How goes it, Minion?”

“Fine,” Snape gasped, attempting to take oxygen into his lungs instead of smoke, but failing miserably.

“Say, Minion, you don’t mind if I light my candles in here, do you?”

“No... not... at...” gasp hack choke “all....”

“Good, good... I’ll just stand out of your way over hear by this large pile of grease and light away with this open flame...”

Humming, Voldemort popped his lighter. He paused, about to do the first candle.

“What’s that hissing noise?” he asked, head cocked.

“Just the latkes, sir.”

“And the bubbling.”

“Latkes.”

“... and the crackling?”

“The, um, latkes.... I think.”

“Ah well!” the Dark Lord shrugged, gesturing slightly with the fire. “Carry o-”

OOOMMM.

“Tell you what, Minion,” Voldemort hacked, completely covered in soot and burnt potato, while watching the mound of fat turn into a tower of flames. “Latkes are kind of overrated hash browns, so let’s just make some Christmas Cookies, hm?”

“Thank you,” managed Snape, feeling his eyebrows crumble into little piles of ash at his feet.

AN: Honestly, I need to find a better comedic premises than fire and explosions. This will hopefully be the last chapter involving the generic explosion, although you can never tell what with all the Christmas lights and flammable wool sweaters hanging about.... Happy Hanukkah and Christmas Eve, guys!