A Very Special Canterlot High Holiday.

"Okay easy, easy...just line them all up along the paths and plant them." Starlight Glimmer said to the teams of movers as they set row after row of dwarf pine trees along the sides of the cobblestone path to Starlight manor. The tress were all covered in baubles, with glowing starts atop them. The falling snow had not impeded the effort of the landscape workers, while she did intend to do some more hands on decorating inside, and for obvious reasons.

Long ago, this place didn't mean much around the holidays. Sqme dank emptiness and dismal facade, the only guests were university trustee board members, local businessmen, and politicians. All looking to rub elbows with each other in the hopes of greasing palms, maybe hope to buy an election or two. She had gone into the elegant dining room where the old professor, her father had held these dinners. The long marble table was covered with dust, webs had been pun in between the wine glasses, silverware, and fine China plates. The once proud room had gone dank, musty air thick with the pungent aroma of neglect.

In her eyes, Starlight saw a shaow of a little girl, herself, hiding behind a door to this room because it's an important night fir daddy and his "special friends." She peeked through the door in one corner of the room, watching the grown ups as they socialized. These tall grown men with graying hair and greasy moustaches. Their chatter as alien to her as another language. Not a single decoration in the room, only gibberish as expensive foods disappeared into maws. That little girl turns to look at the man in the only white suit among the sea of pinstripes, he said nothing as he was unto the lord of the land, his subjects on the high to low tables.

True, everyone in this room was only a memory, an echo of the past, a shade that has long come and gone from this place, bymut to her the memories never leave. You can redesign frpm the ground up and destroy everything that reminds ypu. But some thing will always make these lost memories and echos of time return to you, often we must face these shades for better or for worse.

All while the little girl was left alone to watch, alone and scared in a strange gathering, a world she wouldn't nor couldn't ever understand it. No family members gathered to talk about what they had in common or reflections of what makes the family whole. Instead of reading his little girl a timeless classic snug in her bed to help her sleep and await good Saint Nick. Starlight wanted only to be able to tangibly see and hold her past self and say..."it's okay, it will get better, trust me, I know."

Starlight placed a hand on a lever by the windows, when she flipped it it made all the windows in the dining room open their oversized shutters. The winter days may be short, but there was no denying that the sun rising over white capped snowny woods and the light flooding into a formerly darkened room is a beautiful sight to behold. New life seemed to be bequeathed into that dining hall, the sun's rays making shadows of the grim past fade away, as the silverware began to shine and glisten once more.

Starlight smiled as new shadows, shadows of light began to fill the room, from the echos of the things that had been, to the shadows of the things that may be...no will be. Now the girl began to see in the new light and light of this place, the friends she'd been given the pleasure to know in the time since. They existed only as a precognition rooted in her past experience of having them here. Only this time instead of being in her abode to revel and break about a hundred social norms. Her dearest of friends were gathered at the table, that girl now grown happy to have them with her.

The food is bountiful and the laughter echos as the echos of the future all raise the now shining and filled wine glasses in a toast. To their friendship, the fellowship, their unity at this the mosy wonderful time of the year, and most of all, to Starlight Glimmer herself, a great host, and a girl like no otiiher to open her home and coffers to her friends.

When the premonition ends, and even as she finds herslf back in the dusty old dining hall, Starlight Glimmer realized what must be done. She took her phone from her pocket and looked through the list of numbers untill she found the first she needed, she made the call.

"Hey Star!" A girl's voice on the othet end said happy to see it's her who called, it was the one and only Vinyl Scratch on the line.

"Vinyl! Hey what's new?" Sje asked causally.

"Awww not much, me Party Favor, and Tavi were all just about heading out for some pizza, hey! you wanna join us?" Vinyl asked.

"Actually...that...would be great, just great, where are you guys heading?" Vinyl gave Starlight the address and told her how she couldn't wait to see her again. When she hung up the phone with the promise of being there in ten, she thought to herself.

"It can wait." It really could, planning Christmas dinner for the school? It shouldn't be a problem for the friends in the party and event planning she knew, but it would have to be brought up later. As in after they had gotten reacquainted together over that pizza of course. Starlight threw on her bect purple earmuffs, her light violet winter jacket, and her best snow boots. With a new found optimism about the situation, she said took off into the snow, the flaky bits of the white stuff crunching underfoot and floating softly back into the air.