Loose Screws [Video 4]

[hands4healing]

[Locked from Edward Elric]

Have Winry, dressed in comfortable Mid-Florida clothes, sitting outside in the sun, with a cute black and white dog running around her. Winry is throwing a tennis ball inside of a sock - kind of a home made fox tail toy - and Zoey is retrieving it with some discussion via dog barking involved.]

Hi. Can anyone explain to me about Christmas? I mean traditions, besides the Santa and the gifts. Are we supposed to feast again? Tell stories? Do we make up our own?

I didn't really understand Halloween, or Thanksgiving. I'd like to understand Christmas.

We had some local solstice celebrations back home in Risembool, for the seasons, but I lived in a farming community.

[Maybe Christmas is something that's done in the cities?]

We'd light fires on the longest night of the year, and try to stay awake all night to watch the dawn. I guess it's different here.

And, uh. [She rubs the back of her neck, blushing cutely.] What kind of gifts do you give to people [best-not-boyfriends, she means], anyway?

Comments

video

[dogsled]

The traditions of Christmas vary, and yet retain a certain running theme. I can explain it to you, if you like.

As for gifts, I find that at this time of year it's best to gift something that comes from the heart. I like to five wood carvings, myself, but that's not for everyone.

[video forever]

[hands4healing]

Hello, Mr. Fraser! Yes, please, I'd really like to know more about it.

[Winry pauses to take the toy and throw it for Zoey again.]

Hmmm...from the heart?

[video forever]

[dogsled]

My father once told me a story about a friend who had lost his pack, blind in a snowstorm. He came across a fisherman struggling to build a dug out in the thrashing storm, and they stayed there throughout the night. In the morning, the man gave him dried fish, and directions back to town, and in turn, he gave him a silver dollar, an antique he'd always carried with him. Three years later he made the same trip, and he found the fisherman's son walking along the shoreline, wearing on a leather cord around his neck the silver dollar he had given his father years before. When they spoke, the son told him that his father had given him the coin as a gift, and that it had belonged to a man who had once saved his life in a storm. He gave it to his son because it had value for him, and because he hoped that one day it would protect him, too.

The point is that the monetary value of the gift is irrelevant. If it is all you have, the gift of a cup of rice is precious enough.

[hands4healing]

[Well, she kind of did that on a daily basis...or at least, every time she tuned Ed's automail. But maybe she could think of something.]

I see. That helps, Mr. Fraser, thank you.

So, tell me about Christmas. [Maybe that'll be easier, though Winry doubts it. So very little of this world made sense to her.]

[dogsled]

Well, let me see. The story of Christmas is primarily a religious one, although the holiday as it is celebrated today is a combination of religious belief and winter festivals much like the solstice celebrations you mentioned. There is feasting, and singing, and gift giving, masses--a variety of practices, really. The stories of St Nicholas and the tradition of decorating trees originated in Central Europe, from whence they spread worldwide.

[ He paused for a moment. ]

Tell me if I'm going too fast.

[hands4healing]

Trees get decorated? [She sounds confused.]

[dogsled]

They do. You'll see them in a lot of the stores, and the windows of people's homes, decorated with colored lights and ornaments, sprigs of holly and poinsettia.

[hands4healing]

Hmmm.

[She's very thoughtful.]

I guess I'll have to take a look around then! Thank you, Mr. Fraser, that helps.

[dogsled]

I think you'll enjoy this time of year very much, Winry.

Can I answer any other questions?

[hands4healing]

Maybe.

Um. Do you know what I could get for a boy my age?

[Who she totally doesn't love like whine?]

[dogsled]

[ That's not an easy question! Fraser is a little flustered almost straight away, shifting on the spot. ]

Oh well...that depends entirely on the boy in question, of course.

Perhaps you can make him something?

[hands4healing]

[A chuff. Sort of a cross between a chuckle and a huff.]

I've already made him an arm and a leg!

[Seriously, Mr. Fraser.]