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Their first Christmas season in the post-Armaggedidn’t is an exercise in compromise and snark. They are spending more than half their time now in the delightful cottage they'd found in the South Downs, so they're effectively living together and that does require some adjustments for them both. Crowley snarks at the angel’s decorations, Aziraphale sniffs at and then pointedly ignores Crowley’s very evident disdain for the rampant good cheer that seems to flood their little village every time they take a walk to the shops or the pub. Both of them have cause to doubt its sincerity. They know perfectly well that there are various resentments and petty feuds simmering below the surface. Mrs. Cranwell and Miss Bolton have barely spoken since the Great Cake Judging Fiasco at the summer fete; Bob Taylor and the oldest Higgins boy have had more than one punch up over Ellie Berkin (who ironically is indifferent to both of them since she far prefers the company of Bob’s sister, Kate); and the Murchisons who live at the manor and the Swifts who live in the other big house at the opposite end of the village have an ongoing albeit icily polite family feud that apparently goes back generations. But Aziraphale of course, wants to believe that the seasonal goodwill can overcome all of this while Crowley merely scoffs (and occasionally can’t resist stirring the coals – old habits die hard and he is still a demon, after all).
They’re both happy to indulge in the obligatory feasting – although Crowley’s indulgence is mainly focused on the alcohol and watching Aziraphale nibble his way daintily but with relentless zeal through all the mince pies and marzipan-covered cakes that abound at this time. (Not to mention the chocolates, dates, cherries, plums, chestnuts - candied and otherwise, and every other known delicacy displayed alluringly on counters and racks and supermarket shelves; many of which experience moments of existential surprise over their sudden improvement in quality just before angelic teeth bite into them.)
It’s the carol singing, however, which most reveals their complicated attitudes to the season.
Theoretically, of course, Aziraphale loves carol-singing on principle and Crowley hates it. And it’s very true that Crowley does intensely dislike many carols. Aside from anything else, carols first came into vogue during the 14th century and anything linked to that time brings back very bad memories.
But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Because once recorded music had become a “thing”, Crowley had figured out how to weaponise carol-singing. And the development of popular music during the 20th century had expanded that from carols to common Christmas songs. The weaponisation took several forms. Take, for instance, The Twelve Days of Christmas. It’s long. It’s repetitive. And very few people can remember the whole list of poultry and people, (and those who can get quite irritated with those who keep getting them wrong “For God’s sake Gladys, it’s geese a-laying and swans a-swimming, there are no damned ducks!”). Left to itself, it would probably have died a quiet death, depriving the world of all the inherent irritation it embodies. But in 1909 Crowley had inspired a guy name Frederick Austin to change the tune of the “five gold rings” line. Just that one little tweak had an astonishing effect. People might get bored chanting the rest, but they absolutely love, love, love singing that line; so much so that they’re prepared to mumble their way through all the rest just so that they get to bellow “Fiiive go-old rings” at the tops of voices – eight times over if they make it through the whole song.
Then there are the kids’ songs. Things like Rudolph, and Santa Clause is Coming to Town, and, especially, Jingle Bells. Again, repetitive (most kids never learn anything beyond the chorus) and really requiring professional-level vocal efforts to make any of them even vaguely palatable. So having kids squealing them over and over, leaping happily on and off key in the close confines of the family car as their parents drive in circles looking for the last park in the Christmas-crowded parking lots is, from Crowley’s perspective, an incredibly good return on the small amount of time he invested in getting the songs written. Some were even written without any effort on his part at all. And of course, the simplistic tunes and lyrics lend themselves to many … er … inappropriate parodies which kids love to sing at the most inopportune moments just to embarrass their parents.
His biggest triumph, however, happens in stores and shopping centres where a comparatively narrow selection of carols and seasonal songs are repeated endlessly for weeks. The effect on shoppers is to add another degree of irritation to an already delightfully demonic experience. But the effect on shop assistants and cleaners and security staff – ah, that is a whole other magnitude of irritation and it builds and spreads and infects every interaction they have all through the Christmas season.
Since the second half of the 20th century it’s been recognised by Hell’s hierarchy as one of Crowley’s finest accomplishments. He’s still enormously proud of it.
Of course, it means he can’t go anywhere near those places himself without being driven crazy but as he’d never shop in a mall or chain store that isn’t really an issue for him.
Aziraphale is also free now to avoid such venues as much as possible. But he has very unhappy memories of being instructed to spend just about all of his time in such places for weeks prior to every Christmas for more years than he wants to think about; being constantly bombarded with the latest crooner inviting all and sundry to “have yourself a merry little Christmas” at least 3 times an hour all day every day. Heaven firmly believed that all the lovely Christmas music must be elevating the spirits of all concerned (they love Sound of Music up there, remember) and couldn’t at all understand why overall there seemed to be an opposite effect. So every year they’d send Aziraphale in to try to single-handedly counter the miasma of small evils resulting from the greed and commercialisation and stress and tiredness and desperation and – of course – the endless damnable canned carol singing.
Well, not any more. One of the many blessings of having Our Own Side, is that Aziraphale is free of such ridiculous and pointless activities. But it isn’t just the recorded stuff that Aziraphale wants to avoid this year. He’s not all that fond of the endless carol services, either. He’s not that fond of “organised religion” in any form, if he’s honest. He’s seen too much of the harm done in the name of “righteousness”. And, although he’s sure that they have a role to play, he does his best to avoid any event involving children. He likes children in theory, of course he does. Loves them. He’s still an angel after all. It’s just that he likes them much better at a distance. Especially around Christmas time when they all seem to be hyped up on what he’s read is a “sugar high”. And their singing! It’s bad enough that they take every opportunity to replace the lyrics with the most inappropriate doggerel, but so few of them can actually sing. They screech, they shout, and at some point in their development their voices begin to do very strange things indeed.
So, to sum up, while in theory, Aziraphale should have a positive attitude towards carol-singing and Crowley a negative one, in reality, this is largely reversed, and in practice they both try to avoid the whole business.
Which makes it all a little complex when they’re invited to Tadfield to attend a “Holiday Celebration” at Adam’s school. Crowley and Aziraphale had visited a few times since the young anti-Christ had saved the world. They figured that there were compelling reasons to keep an eye on him – not least of which was to make sure that both Heaven and Hell weren’t trying even now to use him to restart The War. He’d done a pretty good job of protecting himself (and the world) from that when he’d “reset” things, but it didn’t do any harm to cast a more experienced eye over things occasionally.
Adam’s “reset” had somehow included a cover story for them, so that the Youngs accepted them as long-standing family friends with a god-fatherly role of some kind in Adam’s life. Thus, the invitation.
For both of them, their first instinct had been to decline. But there were reasons why that wasn’t all that simple. For one thing, Adam had started secondary school at the end of that memorable summer, and he was finding the increased discipline and constraints of his new school a little hard to take. His harassed parents had already expressed an embarrassing level of gratitude for their visits, since Adam was always much more tractable for at least a few days after each one. (Aziraphale had a calming effect, Crowley was brilliant at coming up with just enough mischief for Adam to be able to blow off steam without getting into any real trouble.) Along the way they’d both become genuinely fond of the boy, and, perhaps surprisingly, of his parents also. Mr. Young might be a little stodgy, Mrs. Young a little feather-brained, but both of them had a rock-solid sense of decency and kindness that commanded respect from two ethereal beings who’d had to deal with far too many human beings in whom such a faculty was totally missing.
So the invitation couldn’t simply be ignored. They owed Adam a huge personal debt – for their restored bookshop, Bentley and (in Aziraphale’s case) bodily corporation aside from anything else. They also owed him a duty of care. They’d stuffed up the whole “godfather to the anti-Christ” thing completely for his first 11 years (perhaps fortunately) but now they both knew it was time to step up and do whatever they could to provide a type of guidance that the Youngs, great parents as they’d turned out to be, simply couldn’t deliver.
None of which in any way alleviated their distaste for the whole thing. At least – Aziraphale’s distaste. He had a sneaky notion that Crowley actually wanted to go. Although the Serpent of Eden would have professed to being completely affronted by the idea, the truth was that Crowley liked children. He was savagely protective of them, and while he revelled in the chaos they could create so effortlessly, he was also subtly ready to intervene to ensure that their mischief never escalated to the point where they would do real damage or get hurt when he was around. Befriending Adam - and the rest of the Them had given Crowley the perfect opportunity to hang out with a bunch of kids, and even allow himself to like them. So for him the invitation was possibly more welcome than it was to his angelic counterpart.
It had come first via text from Adam. That was followed by a card from Deidre Young, enclosing a printed circular from the school. So far, they’d ignored both.
But Adam had just texted again: ‘U guys are coming, R?’
So now they had a choice to make.
*****
The text arrived when they were sitting in front of the fire enjoying a rather nice bottle of red (that had found itself “liberated” from the cellars of a particular politician who neither deserved it nor had the palate to appreciate it). When Crowley’s phone buzzed with the baying wolf tone (nearest he could get to a Hellhound) he’d set to alert him to Adam’s texts, he glanced at the screen and then handed the phone to his angel.
Aziraphale wrung his hands. “You know it will be simply dreadful, Crowley. So you simply mustn’t make it any worse. If we do go, you have to behave yourself.”
Crowley gave him a knowing look over the rim of his wineglass. “Angel, I am not the one who gave half those kids singing at the mall an instant case of laryngitis.”
Aziraphale bristled. “I’m sure it wasn’t half. Just that little girl who kept screeching those dreadful lyrics. And the boy whose voice kept cracking the notes in half.”
“There were only six of them, angel. And they were collecting for charity.”
“Well, I did give them a substantial donation.”
“That isn’t the point. The point is … it wasn’t me who did it.”
“Well …” After another huff, the angel sighed. “You’d best let the boy know we’ll be there, then, I suppose.”
Crowley studied the phone with far more intentness than was strictly necessary to send a text. “If you really don’t want to go, I suppose I could …”
“No. No, no, my dear. If we go, we go together. That way we can …”
“Keep each other out of mischief?”
“I was going to say, ‘look out for each other’.”
Crowley nodded. “It mightn’t be that bad, angel.”
“If we’re there together, my dear, then I’m sure it won’t be.”
Crowley did his best to bite back his smile, but the deep dimple in one cheek betrayed him.
*****
The Youngs greeted them warmly at the steps of the school. Adam, they explained, was already in the hall with his fellow students.
“He’ll be so very glad that you were able to come,” Deidre told them. “He seems to have some special role in one of the carols but he won’t tell us what it is. But when we were at his parent-teacher night last week, his music teacher did say that his singing has really come on this term.”
Arthur grunted. “Used to sound like some kind of frog.”
“Oh, Arthur, dear, you know that’s just while his voice was breaking.” She turned again to her guests, “That happened really quickly, you know. Just at the end of the summer.”
Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged looks.
Right after he had to find the balls to stand up to Satan, Crowley thought. Well, that figures.
I suppose early onset of puberty was really the least that could be expected, Aziraphale thought. Aloud he said, “I don’t think we realised that Adam would actually be singing today.”
“Well, he’s just in year 7 so of course he doesn’t have a solo or anything, but he has been hinting that there is something special we should watch out for.”
Aziraphale looked a little worried. So did Arthur Young. Crowley just looked interested. Which made Aziraphale worry even more.
They made their way into the hall and took their seats. The whole audience took on a slightly resentful and long-suffering air as the speeches began, but these were all mercifully short. That may, or may not, have had something to do with Adam’s two guests - one of whom would have had no compunction in using whatever means came to mind to cut them short and the other who did not entirely trust that his companion would show suitable restraint in his choice of methods.
Be that as it may, the speeches were soon over, to be followed by various musical and dance presentations and finally the dreaded carol singing which was to be the finale of the event.
The singing was at least in tune, Aziraphale had to admit. And they hadn’t picked any of those dreadful modern Christmas songs which he seemed to hear absolutely everywhere these days. Crowley was pouting a little over both, feeling that his own efforts at Holiday mischief were being unfairly ignored.
But he was to have his moment of pride.
The final carol began and his eyes gleamed as a somewhat gangly female-presenting figure sang sweetly, “On the first day of Christmas …”
As the performance moved to a roundish coloured boy singing “On the second day …” Crowley felt the audience bracing themselves for what was going to seem like an endurance test. This was more like it. He settled back in his seat to enjoy the frustration simmering in the audience but was jerked out of his self-satisfaction a few lines into the song as a rather familiar voice sang, “On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …
To his own surprise, he felt his heart swell a little with pride – and not at his own cleverness in keeping this carol alive to annoy the living daylights out of another generation. That was his … well … for want of a word that were better left unthought, let alone unspoken … godson up there.
He felt Aziraphale’s hand clasp his, and squeezed it in response. He didn’t even have to look at his angel to know that he was glowing with delight. He felt the waves of it each time“fiiive go-old rings” rang confidently through the hall in Adam’s rather pleasant tenor.
They were both on their feet clapping loudly at the end of the performance and were rewarded with Adam’s delighted grin as he spotted them from the stage.
They made their way out of the hall, somehow enveloped in the happy (if slightly bewildered) pride that the Youngs were feeling, and were embraced exuberantly by Adam when he managed to make his way through the throng to them. So when Deidre invited them back to the house for a light supper before their drive back to London, and Adam gave them his best puppy dog eyes, they happily agreed.
They’d visited the Youngs before, but this time something was different. The moments of shared pride in Adam’s singing had created a new bond with his parents; and their attendance at such a mundane event had clearly meant a great deal to Adam, reassuring him that they really were prepared to be an ongoing part of his life.
They were both very glad they’d overcome their initial reluctance. Who knew that the dreaded carol-singing could make two eternal beings feel like they had become part of a family?