Cas was sitting in the bunker's library when Mary Winchester, of all people, approached him.

"Hi Castiel," She smiled. Cas smiled back.

"Hello." He still wasn't exactly sure what he was to address Mary as. Mrs. Winchester seemed far too formal, and yet Mary felt too informal. 

He'd have to ask Dean later how to properly address her. Dean would know.

Mary sat down across from him, fiddling with her hands, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Is something wrong?" Cas asked, tilting his head. Mary sighed.

"It's just...." She trailed off, thinking. "You've spent many years with my boys, haven't you?"

"Yes." Castiel confirmed. He'd been with the Winchester for several years, as a friend, and as a brother. A brother to Sam, that is. 

Dean was a little different.

"Well, what do they normally do for the holidays?" Mary asked. "Because Thanksgiving came and went, and they never even mentioned it, but now Christmas is coming, and they haven't said a word about it." Mary sighed again. "And I don't know if they have any traditions for Christmas, or even what I should get them."

Cas thought for a minute. In all the years he had been with Sam and Dean, Christmas had very rarely been mentioned. All holidays in general had usually been discarded, with the exception of their birthdays, of course. Dean hated his birthday, they knew, but Sam always ignored that fact and made sure he and Cas got Dean a present, just as Dean would make Cas get Sam a present and bake him a cake or something for Sam's birthday.

"I don't think they celebrate the holidays." Cas admitted. Dean had told him once about the pathetic little Christmas that he and Sam had had the year before Dean went to hell. They're thrown up crappy decorations in a motel room, drank beer, and swapped mediocre gifts they bought at a gas station.

And yet, that Christmas sounded like one of Dean's favorite memories.

"They rarely celebrate anything." Cas went on. "Thanksgiving is mentioned by Dean sometimes, but that's only on the day after the holiday, when he goes to the store and buys all the half-off pies. And I've never seen them celebrate Christmas- I don't think they have in years."

"But surely when they were boys, John would give them some sort of Christmas, wouldn't he?" Mary asked. Cas made a face and she dropped her head.

It was difficult, he imagined, for Mary to have to hear how awful of a parent John had really been.

"Not this year." Mary declared suddenly. "I'm giving my boys the Christmas they deserve."

"I'm not sure that's a wise idea-" Cas started.

"Screw wise ideas, I think we should celebrate the best holiday there is. Will you help me?" Cas paused. Dean would probably like the idea of him getting along and spending time with Mary....

But if she went all out into a holiday frenzy, the Winchesters might panic.

Maybe Cas should help her, just to make sure she didn't overwhelm them.

"Okay," he agreed. He frowned. "Although I don't understand how my half brother's birthday is the best holiday there is."

*~*~*~*~*~*

Dean raised his eyebrows as he walked into the main room of the bunker, where there was a tree.

Mary had a bunch of boxes spread out on the table, and was smiling. Cas was holding more boxes, looking confused and slightly nervous.

"What's going on?" Dean asked.

"I got us a Christmas tree." Mary explained. "And decorations, obviously." She gestured to the boxes. Dean blinked in surprise.

"Well....that's....." 

"I did try to tell her that you don't normally celebrate holidays." Cas insisted. "She did not hear me, apparently."

"Oh, I heard you, Castiel, I just didn't care." Cas scowled and set down the rest of the boxes as Dean stared at the tree, his mind wrapping around the idea.

He slowly started to smile.

"Okay," He offered. "Maybe it won't be so bad to actually celebrate this year." 

"Wonderful." Mary declared. "Now get your brother- he's tall enough to put the star on the top of the tree."

*~*~**~~*

Cas slowly realized he had no idea what humans did for Christmas. He knew that children believed in a Santa Claus, who would bring them gifts if they were good, and that there were hundreds of Christmas songs, but that was about where his knowledge ended of human traditions.

So he did not understand why Dean thought it would be funny to put Cas on top of the tree.

"We have a perfectly good tree-topper," Sam insisted, holding up the plastic gold star Mary had found at some store.

"But why put some stupid star on the tree when we could put Cas on it!" Dean exclaimed. "A real angel on top of the tree." Cas eyed the tree warily.

"I don't think I could sit up there, Dean." He offered.

"Course you can, we just have to shove the tree up your-"

"DEAN!" Mary exclaimed. Sam looked mortified, but Dean only smirked.

"I got it." Sam announced suddenly, running out of the room, still clutching the tree-topper star. Cas turned to Dean.

"What other traditions are there for Christmas?" He asked. Dean thought for a moment.

"Well, you put up a Christmas tree, and wrap presents for your friends and family and put them under the tree so they can open them on Christmas morning. And there's caroling, which is where you go bother people by singing Christmas songs in the freezing cold. Some people make special foods or watch Christmas movies or something." He shrugged. "Mainly, it's just time you spend with the people you love."

"I think you are forgetting a valuable piece of Christmas." Sam insisted, waltzing back into the room. He smirked deviously. "Mistletoe." Dean rolled his eyes.

"No thank you." 

"Oh, we gotta get some mistletoe."

"What's mistletoe?" Cas asked. 

"It's a special plant," Mary explained. "That you hang up in doorways and on ceilings during Christmastime, and if two people are under it at the same time, then they have to kiss."

"Oh." Cas frowned. Humans had some weird traditions.

"By the way, I fixed the tree-topper." Sam commented, giving the star to Dean, who burst out laughing. 

There was a picture of Cas, looking confused as always, taped to the star.

Best tree topper ever.

*~*~*~*~*

"Hey mom?" Dean asked one day, as Christmas got closer.

"Yes?" Mary replied.

"Would it be okay if Sam and I invited some more people to Christmas?" He questioned, knowing a few people would have no one else to spend the holiday with.

"Of course!" Mary smiled.

And that was how Charlie, Bobby, Kevin, Ellen, Jo, and, for reasons unknown to Dean, Gabriel, ended up in the bunker for Christmas.

Charlie brought mistletoe, of course.

Rowena and Crowley were also invited, but Rowena was apparently off on some Hawaiian vacation, and Crowley never responded.

*~**~*~*~*~*

It was three days before Christmas the first time that Dean made the mistake of walking under the mistletoe, conveniently just as Jo passed under it.

Dean had groaned, but Jo had just laughed and pecked him on the cheek before walking away.

The mistletoe seemed to follow Dean after that, forcing him into awkward kisses on the cheek from Charlie, Ellen, Mary, and, bizarrely, Kevin.

Dean was pretty positive that Gabriel had forced the little plant to follow him. It didn't go away, until finally, on Christmas Eve, when he stopped, catching Cas under the mistletoe.

Cas eyed the plant and smiled at Dean.

"It's following me, I SWEAR." Dean insisted. Cas shrugged.

"I don't mind. Merry Christmas Dean," Cas offered before grabbing the hunter by the collar and kissing him full on the lips.

Charlie had screamed in the background.

The small family- because, face facts people, they're totally a family- stayed up nearly all night, ditching the piss poor eggnog for beer and laughing as they lounged on couches in front of the Christmas tree, which was rightly decorated with anti-possession charms, beer caps, and bullet casings, a pile of newspaper wrapped presents underneath it. 

"Okay, humans," Gabriel declared from his perch on the top of one of the couches. "What's the best Christmas you've ever had?" He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Sam's neck, who rolled his eyes, but didn't shove the archangel away. Kevin, who sat on the other side of the couch, slid away further, slightly uncomfortable with Gabriel.

Dean thought for a moment, laying sprawled out on one of the couches, his head resting in Cas's lap. The angel didn't mind, and he unconsciously played with the hunter's hair while everyone thought of their answers.

"I've got one!" Charlie insisted. She and Jo were squished together in a recliner they had dragged from Dean's man cave, while Bobby, Ellen, and Mary sat comfortably on another couch.

"Spill, Weasley." Gabriel insisted. Charlie grinned.

"I got locked in a library." She nodded. "Three days of books, free wifi, and no people but the characters in my head." She sighed. "It was glorious."

"Awesome." Sam said wistfully.

"BORING!" Gabriel declared. "Jo, you go next." Jo grinned.

"When I was a kid," she began, looking over at Ellen. "We used to go to a shooting range for Christmas Eve, and we painted our bullets green and red and shot Christmas themed shapes into the targets."

"Good times," Ellen agreed.

"That's.....badass." Gabriel admitted. "What about you, Deano?" Dean thought for a moment.

"The last Christmas I celebrated before this one." He offered, smiling. Sam scoffed.

"But it was awful!" He objected.

"No, it was perfect."

"If by perfect, you mean we got tortured by the Kringles and almost got turned into dinner."

"Yeah, that happened too." Dean agreed. "But then we went back to the motel we were staying at, and you put up decorations- even had a little Christmas tree-"

"The decorations were crap, and the tree was in a bucket."

"And we drank eggnog,"

"Which tasted like shit."

"And then we ditched the eggnog for a beer, exchanged the gifts we bought from the gas station, and watched football." 

"That's your favorite Christmas?" Mary asked. It was almost...... sad.

"Yeah." Dean grinned. Sam smiled softly. That had been a nice Christmas. Melancholy, considering that the only reason they had celebrated was because Dean was going to be in hell for next Christmas, but still. 

"What about you, Sammoose?" Gabriel poked at him. 

"Um, I think I was about nine," Sam offered, grinning. "And I was so excited for Christmas, although I have no idea why. I had a present for Dad and everything." Dean's eye's widened.

"Oh my god, this was the worst." He declared. 

"No it wasn't!" Sam objected. "I was looking forward to Dad being home for Christmas, and well, Dean knew he wasn't going to show,"

"Which he didn't." Dean said ruefully.

"So, this brother of mine goes out, and gets us a Christmas tree."

"It was pathetic." Sam laughed.

"It was straight out of Charlie Brown."

"It really was." Dean agreed, but he was smiling.

"And he strings it with lights and puts presents under the tree- presents that he stole from someone's house, mind you." Dean cringed.

"I really should've picked a different house."

"And he wakes me up, and says that Dad had come home, and that he had brought presents, but I didn't wake up when they tried to wake me. So I go and open the presents,"

Dean started to laugh.

"And I got a Barbie doll, and like a magic fairy wand or something." Sam smirked.

"I didn't know I stole little girl presents!" Dean declared. 

"But you tried." Sam insisted. "You gave me a Christmas, and I gave you that amulet for it, and it's just one of my favorite Christmases." 

Mary thought she might cry. These were really the best memories of this holiday they had?

No wonder they never celebrated it.

What almost made it worse was that everyone else thought those stories sounded like the greatest Christmases ever. No one in the group had ever experienced something better.

It was one of the costs of the hunting life, she presumed. 

*~*~*~*~*~*

The next morning, Cas, excited for his first real Christmas celebration, woke up the whole bunker.

Well, technically, he woke up Dean, who cranked the loudspeaker of the bunker, and blasted Van Halen into everyone's rooms until everyone showed up in front of the Christmas tree.

"Whhhhhyyyyy?" Jo whined, obviously not happy to have been woken up early.

"I'm too old for this." Bobby grumbled.

Sam yawned and rubbed at his face sleepily, and Gabriel took full advantage of the second long view that Sam's raised arms gave of the Winchester's abs.

"Merry Christmas to me." Gabriel sang, eyeing his moose.

"Shut up, Gabriel."

"All I want for Christmas is you, Samsquatch. Wearing a pink bow. And nothing else."

"Gabriel, you can have that anytime you want. Minus the pink bow." Sam commented. The archangel's eyes lit up.

"Time to open presents!" Cas declared, passing out small newspaper wrapped packages to everyone.

"Why is there a picture of Cas taped to the tree-topper?" Jo asked. Dean and Sam burst out laughing, letting Cas roll his eyes.

"Don't ask." He muttered, handing gifts to everyone.

Jo got Christmas bullets, much to her delight.

Charlie got a full set of all the Harry Potter books, and she sang angelic music like the books were to be worshiped.

Sam got hair products, and a pair of moose antlers, along with a pink bow from Gabriel.

Gabriel got a ton of candy, naturally.

Bobby got some Whiskey that the boys had found in the bunker. It was old, so that made it taste better.

Ellen got bullets and beer, and laughed.

Kevin got the Lord of the Rings books, and he spent an hour freaking out with Charlie over books and movies.

Mary got, for sentimental reasons, some handmade presents from Sam and Dean, to make up for all the Christmases she'd missed. She nearly cried at the thought. 

Cas got a new tie, and bee slippers. He screeched and put the slippers on instantly, vowing to never remove them as he crawled over to Dean, urging him to open his presents.

Dean got some stuff for his car, and a stack of new classic rock cassettes that Cas had somehow managed to find. 

******

Mary thought that the Christmas was a little pathetic at heart, but no one seemed to mind. 

In fact, as she looked around the room, it looked like the best Christmas anyone had ever had.

They were gathered around a cheap card table, playing poker. 

Bobby was serious over his cards, but he was splitting his Christmas Whiskey with Ellen, both of them laughing. Jo was trying to teach Kevin how to play poker, while Charlie kept screaming about ships and throwing poker chips at them. Sam was attempting to deal out the cards while Gabriel braided his hair and whispered obvious dirty things in the moose's ear until Sam's face went redder than a stop sign.

Dean was counting out poker chips and explaining the rules to Cas while the angel sat in his lap, listening intently as Dean kept an arm wrapped around the angel's waist.

Mary smiled. 

They might not have traditional Christmases in the hunting life, but that didn't mean that Christmas wasn't as good.

Happy Holidays everyone.