A Sacreligious Hearth's Warming

Applejack was increasingly depressed about not having any customers.  They were all in the indoor and outlet malls, nobody was interested in her Apple stand, which was a shame: She prepared Apple Pie, Apple fritters, Apple cake, Apple perfume, and even an Apple aphrodesiac.  Then one guy who was collecting the garbage to make up for a lost Thanksgiving found himself rammed by what felt like a freight train: POW! Applejack, who pounced on him, desperate to keep a potential customer, proceeded to hog-tie him and then drag him to her stand.  "Well howdy-do there Sugarcube! So glad I could bring a willin' customer! Now how would ya like some Apple pie? Well, stand up n' say somethin'!"

Unfortunately, tied and gagged, this "customer" could neither rise nor explain to Applejack why exactly he cannot rise and why he was not necessarily intent on being a customer.

"Aw, yer so happy yer just speechless, ain't ya?"

Now this garbage-stallion wore an expression that said just the opposite, but Applejack, having sat outside for hours with high hopes, was far too delirious to see this.

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"Okay Flutters, I've got it all covered! I'll teach you how to use this-" Twilight stopped cold when Fluttershy was not there to hear her out "-bazooka" Twilight added with a heavy heart.

Having lost track of Fluttershy, Twilight went into one of her incredible panics, which resulted in a sort of pyschotic shopping spree: "Oh dear, I don't want to be late! Oh, Rainbow Dash would like that! Pinkie's gonna die for this!" By the time she went to a

Pinkie Pie, evading angry store managers and mothers, decided to stop at the toy store, for the Cake twins, herself, Spike, herself, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and herself.  Now one of the most special things about the Hearth's Warming Season is that it's the season in which you meet many friends, and as such, she also met friends of her own!

"Lyra! Bon-Bon!"

Lyra and Bon-Bon were in the middle of a long line, but Lyra bounced right out of it to greet her friend Pinkie Pie (much to Bon-Bon's chagrin).

"Pinkie-Doodles!" shouted Lyra, and then the two embraced intensely.  "Bon-Bon and I are Christmas shopping!"

"What shopping?" asked Pinkie.

"Christmas! It's the human holiday in My Little Human: Friendship is Bullshit.  It's hilarious! It's history is so funny and convoluted! Okay, so it was to ensure old Pagan Gods would keep the year from always being like the Solstice, kapiche? Then, since it was hard to get those darned Pagans from celebrating that Holiday, guess what? They Christianized it...even though Jesus, their Celestia figure, was almost literally born on the opposite end of the year!"

"Ugh, Lyra, don't-" but Bon-Bon was cut off by Lyra's enthusiasm.

"Then, you know what happens? There's lots of Church services that come before, you see, but a huge feast afterwards, you following me so far? Then..." she began to chuckle "they removed all the services before hand because they thought they were boring, so they skip right to the feast!" Pinkie giggled at this.

"It gets even funnier! Then, loosely based off of Odin, there's this Father Christmas guy, and he's really popular in England, the land with the humans with the really bad-looking teeth, in-your-face dispositions and a morbid sense of humor.  And there is this other guy, St. Nicholas, who was a guy who gave cash to poor brides and poor grooms to ensure they have to resources to provide for families, but somehow, he got associated with children and next thing you know, he's part of Christmas.  But get a load of this: In America, the land with all the fat humans in it, who have a higher standard of living and more privileges than most but always complain about their country anyway, the two get fused into a character called...mmmhfff! Ghhft!" (Lyra was now stifling giggles) "...Santa Claus!"

Then Pinkie burst out laughing, and Lyra laughed with her.

Then wiping tears from her eyes, Lyra went on: "Then, you know what happens next? Humans start looking at Jesus and say he is 'offensive', so they make him harder to show on Christmas in the media."

"What?! Why?"

"Oh, they make up lots of reasons, but the writers imply it's because the humans don't like him because he's too 'mainstream';humans are so shallow, and looking for deep reasons behind their actions is really reading too deeply into them.  I mean, disliking a few of followers of Jesus, I totally understand, Jesus got himself some fanboys, but in the case of Jesus himself, he was really a great guy, at least, I gather that from what is shown."

Pinkie just stared at Lyra remarkably blankly for a Pinkie stare: "MLH is not a happy show, is it?"

"No, it's a funny show! There's a difference! ...Oh, and by the way, I don't care what the writers want us to think, I think the name 'Mittens' would suit Mitt Romney better."

Then something caught Pinkie's Eye: A toy Nativity display, with the little baby Celestia and her parents, Tau Sunflare and Orbash.  Now Pinkie couldn't resist a chance to play, so she bounced all the way to the Nativity set and began to pretend by means of the little toys.

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PINKIE'S LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE

"Moo!" the cow went! "Shh!" scolded Orbash!"

"He-haw! Hee-Haw! Hee"

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"Hey!" I want to join!!" whined Lyra.

"Why sure Lyra! Join up!" grinned Pinkie Pie.  Bon-Bon facehoofed.

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PINKIE AND LYRA'S LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE

Sheep were everywhere! There were so many sheep! It began to reek.  Luckily, the sheepdog was there to keep them under control, and to make matters better, a shepherd arrived.  Then a major anacronism occurred: A large truck came by to collect the sheep.  All except one, who was utterly forgotten by mistake.

The lamb, thought it would live long and miserably, all alone on the pasture.

But it thought wrong.

It's life would be a rather swift one.

A Dalek approached the scene, Blast Gun in hand...well...if it had hands, that is.  Anyway, Dalek comes in, shouts "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!", electric blast kills the lamb, and the Dalek turns away chortling.

Then, Fluttershy went back to the realm of make-believe and continued to play: She imagined it's head peering through the stable, a Tyrannosaur eyed the Little Baby Celestia rather hungrily; perhaps she would taste good fried and wrapped in a bready substance, and then dipped in Barbecue sauce.  Orbash was swift to warn the Virgin Tau Sunflare about Celestia's potential demise.  Tau slowly examined the Tyrannosaur, and gasped as one would when something fairly shocking, but not too shocking, occurred.  But as the Tyrannosaur bent over to eat the little baby Celestia, the sound of tank treads came in.

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The Real world

Lyra began to sing her favorite MLH musical number:

"Deutchland, Deutchland,

Uber Alles,

Uber Alles in de Vorld!"

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The Nazis attempted to save the Baby Celestia by rapid firing their artillery shells at the Tyrannosaur, but to no avail! Luckily, who should come along but the Daleks!

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!"

With shots from their blast guns, the Daleks eliminated the dinosaur.

Then, to defend the Baby Celestia, a Dalek approached once more: "EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!" Several electric blasts emanated from it's blast gun, and with that, the Tyrannosaur was dead! But the Dalek was not satisfied with the demise of the dinosaur: It then trained its gun on the little baby Celestia: "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!"

But then a voice piped up: "No! The Dalek can't exterminate her! Don't worry little baby Celestia, I shall save you with my helicopter!"

All were surprised to see that the voice was none other than Octavia's.

Then Octavia brought a magnet attached to a helicopter, and made would helicopter sounds.  The magnet lifted the metallic baby Celestia, and so the helicoptor managed to bring Celestia to safety.  Then Octavia placed the Baby Celestia where she deserved to be: In a crib, in a very nice (doll)house.  Then she put Tau Sunflare and Orbash in the house as well...and right after that, the sound of a clearing throat echoed and a toy policemare was put in the house.  Octavia looked up and saw that a clerk, looking down on her with a scowl (and probably the one who placed the policemare there), was also holding her bags, which apparently had things meant for younger cousins of hers.

It was not long after that when Twilight came with a heavy heart, in utter certainty that she had failed to get good presents for her friends.

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After they had their laughs, and Applejack was sure the garbage stallion was no longer threatening lawsuits, they all treated themselves to a human-drawn sleigh: "On Olga! On Thomas!"

"Hey, my dad's human is named Olga!" Scootaloo shouted.

"Really? I didn't know you had a human...or a Dad.." Rainbow Dash replied.

"Well...he's not my dad...exactly..."

"What? You're adopted?"

"No, well...you see, he was my mom's last coltfriend...before she, well..."

"So he took her place?"

"...yeah...."

It occurred to Rainbow that perhaps a stallion who would gratefully and lovingly take up some other stallion's foal when no other pony stood up to claim her, a foal that must have stirred a bit of jealousy for being a reminder he wasn't the first, must have been a very nice and loyal stallion indeed.

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And that day was what led up to Rainbow's first meeting with Sukhbataar.  She first met him many weeks after that Black Friday...almost the following year in fact, but it was that day that made the match possible.  Though Rainbow found the human, Olga, quite fascinating, she had to admit that Sukhbataar had a few merits of his own, and that observation was the beginning of their extremely unromantic romance.

After hearing Rainbow finish her story, Sukhbataar gently caressed her ear, in realization for the significance of the whole thing; the ear twitched in a wiggly way in response to the sensation.  He chuckled; it was one out of many adorable things regarding Rainbow Dash.  Then he heard a small voice ask him something, but in a voice too quiet to hear.

"What did you say, Scootaloo?"

"I said, um, well..."

Sukh's gaze was meant to be piercing, but he failed at this with his cutie-pie face and he made a puppy-dog face instead.  Scootaloo felt compelled to tell him out of pity of his epic and utter failure to make a scowl.

"Do you...love each other?"

Sukh knew what she meant, and he answered quite simply: "Yes."

Scootaloo was a little perturbed at this, and then she asked another awkward question: "Daddy?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Will you to, um, well...get mar-mar-"

"...Married?"

Then Rainbow, still wide awake, but her eyes still closed simply said "sure, why not?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, we argue a lot, and I abuse you a lot, and it's very hard to conveniently argue and abuse without being married."

"Aw, I wouldn't say you abuse me much."

"You're a tolerant wimp.  Anyway, I think you're sweet, and I don't want to argue with anypony else but you; you're far too submissive."

"Well, um, I'm honored, I guess."

And so the unromantic engagement commenced, which would turn into an unromantic marriage.  Of course, Rainbow still argued and used Sukh a lot, but they were perfectly happy to do so, as Sukh did not want to be abused by anypony else.