#who will win me being amused by imagining the aftons/emilys doing stupid traditions vs The Agonies

[bravevolunteer]

winter/christmas related hcs dump !

young michael on snow days? MENACE. he's causing chaos he's throwing projectile snowballs and no one is safe. yes he did just... startle liz and evan on purpose with it, but he didn't hesitate to get into a proper snowball fight

so sorry but he IS a cheesy terrible christmas movie enjoyer. he canonically watches a terrible vampire soap opera, he's GOING to be watching the worst holiday movies you've ever seen. good luck getting him to admit to enjoying them, at least... until it's one of the only traditions he DOES keep, then he says he likes the predictability of them.

michael's opinion on most christmas music ranges from neutral-negative, but his favorite is last christmas. he's gay, watches cheesy soap operas, and it released in 1984, he's decided this one hits

the aftons used to decorate the tree together... and it was SO dysfunctional— the kids were arguing constantly, william was micromanaging the entire thing, michael rolling his eyes, multiple shattered ornaments, the tree had to have fallen over at least once. despite this, it's the kind of memory he looks back on with nostalgia even knowing things were far from as perfect as they pretended.

with that said, cursed fazbear ornaments.

michael is so bad at ice skating. so humiliatingly bad. he thinks he's going to do fine EVERY time and then falls on his ass within the first minute

type of kid to nurse a candy cane until it's a spike and poke his siblings with it

the aftons celebrate secularly ( up to interpretation, however i don't view the kids as being raised overly religious... we all know william's got some shit going on ), however they MIGHT be the family that goes to church once a year on christmas eve. to keep up a reputation. i can see it. and it would be an Absolute Fucking Disaster

imagine the aftons making gingerbread houses. just imagine the chaos. Yeah. once again william is micromanaging everything ( "this is ridiculous," he says, mid-building a gingerbread recreation of fredbear's family diner down to every last intricate detail ), elizabeth is just trying to make it look nice, michael's looks like a WARZONE, evan's has fallen apart for the fifth time now. they're all arguing over the icing and candy.

instead of a mall santa photo they have an extremely cursed photo with william and henry in the spring bonnie and fredbear suit wearing santa hats and beards

the house and diner were decorated every year.... this, of course, began to fade in the house ( decorations outlasting other traditions, putting them up to still give the appearance of normality while celebrating became dimmed to nonexistent ) until, after elizabeth's death, they just stopped going up entirely.

on michael and gift giving.... he's really not one for big grand gestures, but his gifts do show that he listens. he doesn't usually think they're much, figures he isn't very good at it, but they're always something that he knows the other person would genuinely like, he cares!

this is more referring to the corporation than the early days, but fazbear christmas album is so real to me. just... so many terrible parodies. there's multiple installments there IS one for the glamrocks. michael is sick of it

michael and . warm cozy sweater. That's It.

Fazbear Patented Mistletoe Garland (tm). in the home. thanks @comfrtcrowd

christmas in the afton household, while holidays were relatively normal in the years leading up to 1983... often highlighted a dissonance between the celebration and the growing dysfunction. the kids got whatever they asked for, they had more than enough, but material possessions don't automatically hold real emotional weight. to michael, while william's attention consisted of basic needs and whatever item he gave him on a list, sometimes it only seemed to make the emotional neglect and favoritism clearer.

following 1983... the holidays deteriorated significantly. a lot of celebrations vanished and the little that they attempted to keep alive rang hollow. putting decorations up only stood as a reminder that nothing was the same. having dinner together was grief-ridden and cold, tense at best and confrontational to explosive at worst. michael didn't ask for anything, never felt as if he deserved to celebrate after ruining his family. by the year of elizabeth's death, every attempt stopped entirely. with just michael and his father, the house felt hauntingly empty... and lonely.

when michael moves out ( both the few years before SL & when he's scooped ), it remains a time of year that tends to emphasize his loneliness. in zombie isolation, he made a few small attempts as the years passed: a little bit of shitty decor in his apartment, he watches a LOT of movies. some years, he visits liz and evan's graves, though that only results in more hopelessness more often than not

scooped michael? IMMUNE to the cold. to temperature in general ( aside from extreme heat ), he still likes winter more because of the excuse to wear more layers without getting stares

he WILL be spiking hot chocolate and/or eggnog. absolutely snuck off to do exactly this during whatever attempts to celebrate were made when he was a teenager. it's the only way he will be drinking eggnog.

@braveburned already posted about it but i'm reiterating that michael and gregory have the SHITTIEST tiny christmas tree. the lights are a fire hazard, it has a paper star, glamrock ornament, it's so ugly. michael is amused by it

ultimately, the only thing that will really get him to celebrate after the tragedies is... being around other people. he's so used to the holiday season becoming a representation of loneliness, grief, and resentment, that the only thing that can really pull him from that is found connections...