fandomtownies | Luke's, Sunday

Entry tags:

Luke's, Sunday

Kanan's good mood from his unexpected vacation with Hera continued. His dates last night had been pleasant enough, and he had plans for a cantina crawl with Summer tonight that he figured he ought to keep a positive outlook on. Mostly because once they were actually in the cantinas, there were going to be a lot of circumstances beyond Kanan's control, and it was probably for the best to go in there braced for... whatever.

He settled behind the counter and worked out the route they were going to take, in his head. She'd requested Corellia, and he'd have to be an idiot to go to anywhere both Imperial and Core these days just for the sake of some drinking, but if Summer wanted trade routes, he could just as easily hook her up with something in the Outer Rim and hope she was good at making connections from there.

Hey, he did what he could do. Everything else... he'd figure out down the road sometime.

Welcome to Luke's!
Today's Specials:
Pancakes
More Pancakes
Adventure!

"What does that even mean?"

The cook just gave Kanan a cryptic smile.

[OOC: Open!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hernando had a thing he wished to speak with Kanan about. He went to Luke's. He was in a pretty good mood. He'd successfully egged Kaidan into doing flips for his amusement the night before and tonight he had a date with Sparkle.

"Good morning, Kanan."

Kanan glanced up from his half-plotted plans for a trip to... it was looking more and more Mid Rim the more he thought on it, and blinked.

And then offered Hernando a tentative smile.

"Hey, Hernando," he replied, nodding pleasantly. "What can I do for you today?"

He read the menu with an almost comical dumbfoundness. "Adventure?" He gave Kanan a quizzical look, "I am not certain I need more adventure just now but I am curious how a.."

He thought about the island. He thought about the amount of whimsy the cooks here could come up with. He walked that question right back. "No; nevermind. Please, just pancakes."

An offer of his own smile. "Kaidan and I were discussing Earth holidays last night. There's a ..hm.. Not larger, that is the wrong word. One that is coming up, many people all around the world celebrate."

He paused for a good minute to formulate how to ask this. "He has said prior that you don't really celebrate anything from here. Earth holidays. Have you any objection to participating in them?"

You're getting invited to Christmas, Kanan. In a very roundabout fashion.

"Just pancakes," Kanan replied, smiling wryly. "We have toppings, if you have any interest in anything like that. Can I get you something to drink?"

It was his job to upsell. Sorry, Hernando.

He did lean back and listen to the roundabout holiday proposal with a vaguely bemused look on his face, at least. And then he gave his shoulders a bit of a shrug.

"I don't have any objections in participating," he replied. "Though if it's a holiday of any sort of cultural importance, I can't promise I'll have the first clue what I'm doing, either. I don't want to make any missteps that might cause an interruption to somebody's traditions."

Hernando did the same thing in his shop. That was why he offered people pastries when they ordered tea or vice versa. "Please, a coffee? No toppings for the pancakes other than syrup. I am a traditionalist where pancakes are concerned."

He thought about Kanan's answer before replying. "There can be cultural aspects for some depending how devout they are. I.. am not devout."

Not anymore though he had grown up a good Catholic boy.

"For me, as I believe for most, it is a chance to spend time with friends and family. Eat to excess, exchange gifts. Play table games or go out into the snow for an activity. That is the type of holiday event I was thinking of having. To which I would like to invite you, if you would be interested in attending."

Kanan nodded, sent the pancake order to the back, and busied himself with pouring Hernando's coffee and setting sryup and cutlery in front of him while he mulled over the rest.

"Sounds like a good holiday," he offered. "And I appreciate the invite."

He wasn't entirely sure what had brought that on, whether Kaidan had put him up to it, or... what. So he stood there awkwardly for a moment, chewing his lip.

"Can I think it over?"

He wasn't so bold as to ask about a plus one, and he wasn't doing this without Hera, was the thing.

What a great segue to the next part of this.

Kaidan had not put him up to this. Kaidan, in fact, didn't know this was being planned.

"You can," Hernando assured him, "I don't need an answer until there's a date for it. I just was not certain.. " He brushed his hair off his forehead. "It would not be worth choosing a date if there were to be no guests, you see."

He hesitated again. Hands curled around the coffee mug. "I would also like to invite Hera. I know you are not her.. " Anything official. "..social secretary, but you know her and I do not. Would this be something she would like to participate in?"

He'd issue the invite himself. He was just firmly in Stupid Human 101 territory and uncertain whether Twi'lek had any sort of cultural thing against holidays or..whatever.

Kanan considered that question in silence for a few moments. And then he was pouring himself a coffee, too. This seemed like the kind of conversation that went better with caffeine.

"She's got nothing stopping her from saying no to an invite to a holiday... thing," he replied, "unless something comes up back home. It's difficult to tell if or when something will. We're both sort of... on call, when it comes to that sort of thing."

This coffee was getting far too much sugar heaped into it.

"If I might ask," he ventured, "what brought this on?"

Hernando nodded. He looked a little relieved to have not stepped on a cross-cultural landmine of any sort. "That is understandable. If you have other commitments, then you do."

He took a drink of his own coffee. "This is my first Christmas," alone "here. It seems that a large portion of people I meet do not have families to spend the holiday with or for some other reason choose not to celebrate. There is a phrase some of my students used to use: 'Friendmas'. It seemed .. a nice thing to do."

He circled the cup in his hands. "Kaidan did something similar for his Canadian Thanksgiving. It went well, I thought."

A small, almost wan smile. "Though there was too much food."

So much food, Kanan. You didn't even know.

"Kaidan does nothing by halves," Kanan replied, smiling crookedly and taking a mouthful of coffee.

... And then quietly adding more coffee to the mug to try to overpower some of that sugar.

"Friendmas, huh?" He gave a small huff of a laugh, shaking his head. "Sounds like as good a thing to celebrate as anything, friends."

"He does not," Hernando agreed with a smile, "I also find some amusement that when he is worried his first instinct is to feed people. Have you noticed this?"

He took another drink of coffee. "Four people. Six..no, seven..pies, and then he worried we might still not have enough. He," Hernando said firmly, "is going nowhere near the kitchen for this. I haven't even told him of this yet. The longer I wait the less time for him to come up with something to do for it other than simply show up and enjoy it."

"But yes, if you and Hera would like to come, I would like to have you both there."

Olive branches, so to speak.

"You should have seen the monstrosity of a pizza he ordered for me last week," Kanan replied, rolling his eyes, but smiling faintly. "Yeah, I've noticed his feeding people tendency. Maybe he figures everyone's too skinny."

Maybe he understood that far too many people he knew had spent far too much time in their lives without food security.

"... Would you like me to mention to Hera that you extended the invite? Is there anything we should... do? Bring? You mentioned, uh, gifts."

Kanan was terrible at gifts.

"I've never seen him eat pizza," Hernando offered, "I didn't know he even liked it."

Possibly Kaidan was having a Pavlovian response anytime the word was mentioned.

"If you would, please. I shall issue a proper invitation once plans are set but advance notice would not be amiss," Hernando agreed.

He thought about the other part of it. "I had not thought to do a gift exchange. I think that might be awkward. Perhaps bring something from.. um.. home? .. that you enjoy, to share with the group? A movie, music, some sort of treat?"

Kanan wasn't even going to mention the name of the music he liked, and he doubted Hernando had anything he could play a holo on.

"Some sort of treat," he settled on. "Fruit, maybe. Is fruit an appropriate thing for this holiday?"

Thank god. He'd have felt bad about laughing at Kanan's taste in music.

"Fruit is appropriate, yes," Hernando said with a nod and a lopsided little smile. "I have not had alien fruits yet. It would be an experience."

At least he wouldn't be the first one to laugh at it? Kanan was pretty used to the faces people made about it by now.

"I can try to get my hands on a variety," Kanan offered. "Hera likes meiloorun, they're a kind of melon. Pretty easy to get now, actually, since Summer found a supplier somehow. I'm a sucker for jogan fruit, myself... I guess we'll see what's in season along the routes we'll be running that time of year..."

He was going to put way too much thought into fruit, just worrying about it.

"Please keep in mind there are not likely to be many people there," Hernando said hastily. He knew that look. That was the same fretful look Kaidan got right before he made enough food to feed a hundred people.

Oh god there were two of them.

Kanan blinked, and then shook his head and laughed a little.

"I wasn't going to get too carried away," he replied. "No sense going overboard on alien fruit if I don't even know if people will like it."

Hernando exhaled a little in relief. He sipped his coffee and offered a small smile. "Good, please do not. It is supposed to be a fun and relaxing thing. Not a stressful one."

"No stress," Kanan echoed, setting down his brown sugar water and holding up his hands in surrender. "I'll keep that part in mind. And I'll try not to go overboard. Probably easy to do, since I still don't know a hell of a lot about this holiday."

Hernando tilted his chin a little. "Is there some things you would know about it?"

Kanan huffed out a wry sort of noise, something like a laugh.

"Honestly, I've been here for a couple of them now, and the most I've picked up in that time is that the island likes sticking people in stupid sweaters," he admitted. And his sweater had been impressively stupid that one time, big festive Jedi symbols on it and all. "I'm pretty sure 'everything' isn't a useful answer."

But here he was.

Hernando blinked a few times. "The..whole island.. does a stupid sweater contest? On its own?"

Ok, that just made him laugh and shake his head. "That.. is not part of the original tradition. It is partly due to 'terribly unsuitable clothing' being a gift; well meaning but not suitable, you see, from people who don't know one's tastes or style - or having none of their own. Partly it is that it became a contest of ugly sweaters so now there is an actual market for ugly holiday sweaters."

"Christmas is the holiday I am most familiar with though it is not by any means the only holiday celebrated around the same time. Winter Solstice and Yule predate Christianity by a very long time and both of those celebrations happen around the same time. Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah also around that time, and people of African descent have Kwanzaa for a week within then as well," Hernando took a drink of his coffee.

"Different holidays with different meanings and yet there are similarities there. All of them focus around light, for instance. Solstice is the longest night and is celebrated as the ending of the long night and the return of lengthening days. Yule has a log that burns through the night. Christians had the North Star which lit the way for the Holy Family on their way to Jerusalem. Jewish faith has the Menorah and they light a candle for each day of Hanukkah. Kwanzaa has a similar candle tradition, one for each day."

He lifted a shoulder, "Almost all of these holidays center around a gathering of friends or family. Sometimes fasting, sometimes feasting, but always with these people with you. Never alone. I think.." Hernando's voice trailed off and his eyes went a little distant. "..it is another form of light. Symbolism perhaps. When all things are dark, who does one look to? Family and friends. They are what get you through the darkness. A form of light."

The words ended and he hastily took another drink of coffee. "Sorry. Art professor. I think in symbolism."

Kanan was actually smiling a little, so help him, and he took a sip of coffee before replying.

"No, it's fine," he said. "It's an interesting take on the light. Never alone. Family and friends as the light in the darkness. I think I like it."

He wasn't sure it meshed terribly well with Jedi philosophy, but so far as life experience went, his darkest times had been when there hadn't been anybody to turn to.

Hernando's pancakes came up a few moments later, and Kanan set down his coffee again, reaching for them and setting them down in front of Hernando with a shrug.

"It is fascinating that the light is the common thread between them all."

Hernando took the pancakes with a word of thanks and began cutting them into bites. Then he drowned the whole in syrup.

"It's one common thread and the most obvious," Hernando said after a moment, "There are others. I haven't done much study into how many of the threads are truly common versus the ones that are caused by cultural creep. Christianity, for instance, has co-opted the date in December directly from Solstice and pagan celebrations. Nobody truly knows what year Jesus was born much less something so definitive as month and day. It is a theological argument that can cause quite heated debate."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject