Author's Note: The chapters in this story have been re-uploaded thanks to 's deletion of my symbols. The formatting has been altered slightly to make it readable again. No content has been changed or added.

Bakura grunted as he tried to shove the heavy box up the basement stairs. It certainly hadn't seemed this big last year. He hadn't put something new in it, had he?

With a final push he managed to get it solidly onto the living room floor. Now for the other one…

When he emerged from the basement a few minutes later carrying a smaller and – thankfully – much lighter box, he found another figure there as well. An almost identical copy of him was standing with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised as he surveyed the various containers and packages strewn about the room.

"What in the Shadows is all this?" he growled, lightly kicking a plastic tub.

"It's Christmas decorations, yami!" Bakura answered, as if it were obvious. "Surely you know it's only a week away!" He set down the box he was carrying and began to dig through it, producing dozens of artificial tree branches.

"Kriss-miss?"

Bakura froze. "Oh, that's right. You wouldn't know about Christmas, would you?"

"What?"

"Well, you've been in the Ring for three thousand years. Christmas is only about two thousand years old."

Yami Bakura sat down on the coffee table. "Go ahead host. Enlighten me," he said dryly.

Bakura thought for a moment as he unpacked the tree. How was he supposed to explain Christmas? To his yami, no less? "Um, well, generally Christmas is a time to – well, be with friends and family, I suppose. It's a religious holiday but not everyone celebrates it that way."

Yami Bakura snorted and fell back on the table, staring at the ceiling.

"It's mostly just a time to be happy and enjoy the season."

"And you need all this because…"

"Well, it's nice to dress the house up a bit."

"'A bit'? You call all this 'a bit'?"

Bakura shrugged, starting to set up the tree. "I like Christmas."

"It's pointless," his yami said flatly.

"It's not pointless." Bakura sighed. How to get the spirit to understand the holidays? "You get free gifts," he attempted, trying to appeal to one of the other boy's interests.

"Free gifts?"

"Oh yes," he went on cheerfully, jamming the branches into place, "There's an old legend about a man who leaves presents for children who have been good. It's customary for people to give friends and loved ones a gift."

Yami Bakura rolled his eyes. Friends and loved ones. That ruled him out. "So what is the rest of this for?" He began to sit up. "Don't tell me all of those boxes are…gifts…for…" He trailed off as he caught sight of the seven-foot-tall pine standing beside his hikari. "Why is there a tree in the middle of the living room?"

"It's another tradition," Bakura explained, opening another box and starting to hang small ornaments on the branches. "The presents go under the tree on Christmas morning."

"I won't ask."

"Yes, perhaps that's for the best. Would you hand me that box? It's got decorations in it."

Yami Bakura narrowed his eyes at his host. "Get it yourself, boy. This is beginning to bore me, so I will leave you to your pointless holiday." With that, he disappeared into the Millennium Ring.

Bakura shook his head and continued with his decorating. "It's not pointless, yami. You'll see," he whispered to the gold necklace.

/I'm sure/ was the unenthusiastic reply before the mental link closed.

The hikari gazed calmly at the small golden glass ball in his hand.

"You'll see."