Vanellope usually kept herself tucked in a far corner of Sugar Rush during gameplay hours, so the first she heard of Christmas was the remarks of the other children as they perused bristly mint-candy trees.

"Does this one look right, Gloyd?" Minty asked, tapping the trunk of one. Gloyd, apparently the ringleader of whatever mysterious mission they were on, stepped up beside her to look the tree over, eying it from tip to roots before shaking his head.

"Nah - it needs to be pointier at the top. The one I saw Mister Litwak bring in was shaped like a triangle. Aren't there any that are more... triangle-y? With a big space at the bottom for presents?"

"Whose idea is it to put presents under a tree anyway?" Taffyta asked. She was trying to keep her tone cool, but from her vantage point Vanellope could see the avid way she examined trees when she thought no one else was looking.

"I dunno." Gloyd shrugged. "It was a song I heard."

"I didn't hear anything."

"Well, I did," Snowanna said. She stepped closer to the rest of the group, singing briefly. "Please have snow, and mistletoe, and presents underneath the tree!"

"Oh." Taffyta turned to look at a tree, gnawing on a lollipop stick. "Well, there's snow on Ice Cream Mountain. What's mistletoe?"

No one had an answer for that; Vanellope didn't either, but it seemed as good a time as any to reveal herself.

"I don't know anything about mistletoe." She grinned as she hopped down from the tree she'd been perching on, clinging to a tiny spark of hope as the others turned to stare at her. "But I saw a tree like the one Gloyd's talking about. Wanna see? I can help you do... whatever you're doing."

"We didn't ask for your help, Vanellope," Taffyta said after a moment. "And you can't - we're taking the tree to the castle, and glitches are not allowed inside."

"Well, I... what about before then?"

"Sorry, Vanellope," Adorabeezle said after a moment. "This is sort of a racer thing."

"And... well, you can't really just do one part of it," Nougetsia added.

"Well, I..."

"Come on, guys," Taffyta cut in. "Let's just look for Gloyd's stupid tree somewhere else."

Before Vanellope had time to come up with a coherent protest, they'd all climbed into their karts and left her in the dust. She stared after them for nearly a minute before trudging to the tree - pointed at the top, wide at the bottom, plenty of room underneath, just like Gloyd had said.

"I... well, I don't see what's great about a stupid tree in the stupid castle anyway."

She told herself that for the rest of the day, and tried to forget the whole incident.

By Sugar Rush's second Christmas in the arcade, the kids had a much more complete understanding of the whole affair. Vanellope watched as they came back to the mint wood for a tree (the same tree she'd tried to take them to the year before, she noticed) and hauled it back to the castle for... well, whatever it was they planned to do to it.

This year, a few of them mentioned a character she'd never heard of. After the previous incident (and a few more over the course of the year) she didn't come forward when they were grouped together like that; there'd be an opportunity to talk to just one of them sooner or later.

That night, as it turned out.

"H-hey - Swizzle?" she asked softly. He winced before slowly turning to face her, a wide, nervous grin plastered on.

"O-oh! Uh, hey Vanellope. Um... what's up?"

"Oh, well, not much." She shrugged. "I just noticed you guys found the tree I saw last year." He winced again, fidgeting, and she pressed on. "And, um. I was wondering - who's Santa? Is he like, from another game?"

"Oh, uh, well - I don't know, not exactly." The nervous grin was back in place. "I guess he... could be from another game? It's... a guy. He brings presents to kids this time of year."

"Really? Like... anything?"

"Sure, I guess so."

"To... to all the kids?" She clasped her hands, hope sparking again.

A kart, I want a real go-kart, and maybe a gold coin... would it be too much?

"Um, not all the kids," Swizzle said slowly. "Just... you know, good kids. Not the bad ones."

She blinked, feeling and hating the familiar warbling tingle of a glitch.

"I-I'm... not bad, Swizzle."

"Sure you are." He sounded bewildered at her protest. "I mean, you're a glitch after all." There was no malice in his tone, just matter-of-fact certainty, and Vanellope felt a sting of tears over the glibness of it as much as anything. "And if glitches weren't bad there wouldn't be so many rules about them, right? So..."

"I... I'm not... I'm not..."

Swizzle shook his head, backing away.

"That's just the way it is, Vanellope - you know what the rules are. I gotta go."

She couldn't find the voice to call after him as he sprinted off, and a few days later felt only a dull surprise at finding nothing left for her.

"Well... well who cares? I know better whether or not I've been good, who needs some stupid fairy tale to bring them stuff?"

She told herself that for the rest of the day, and tried to forget the whole incident.

It was always the same.

Like the rest of the children, she learned more about Christmas from tidbits heard here and there.

Gifts, parties, trees, decorations.

All with the people they belonged with.

She stopped waiting for Santa; he never came for her, and she was starting to suspect the adults in the game had something to do with it anyway.

She stopped even approaching their yearly tree-hunting party; instead she waited for them to go back to the castle and then went back out to the long-regenerated first tree to wait out the holiday, never quite able to stomach it in her own empty home.

It was the one day a year she disappeared entirely, never bothering the racers or candy citizens; at her loneliest, she almost let herself suspect they saw it as another gift.

And then one year she came through the woods to find brightly wrapped boxes piled under her tree.

Vanellope stopped dead, glitches running over her body in shock as she stared at the array.

Then she burst into tears, hiding her face in too-small hands.

"Kid?!"

Ralph's shadow fell over her seconds later; she lowered her hands as he scooped her up, and through her tears she could dimly see Felix hovering close and Calhoun just behind him.

"Oh my lands, is she all right?!"

"Give her a minute, Felix. Back off, let Wreck-it handle this."

Ralph was patting her back lightly with one thick finger, murmuring quietly; it took a moment for his words to register.

"Vanellope? Aw, geez, kid, I... we thought you'd like it, the other kids saw you out here a couple years running and-"

"I love it." She sniffled, hiding her face against his thumb; he went still and she wrapped both arms around his hand as well as she could. "I'm s-sorry, I... I just..."

"I know, kid," he said softly. "I know. It was a surprise, I just didn't think..."

He trailed off as she smiled blearily up at him.

"N-no, I... it's great. I... you guys..."

"Yeah." Ralph grinned, standing to carry her to the tree. "We brought a real pine tree in from that hunting game, it's at the castle if you wanna decorate. For now though, wanna have a look?"

She nodded fervently. It took several more minutes before she really let go of Ralph, but in the end they trekked back to the castle with Vanellope nestled in a hand-knitted tree-patterned sweater from Calhoun, clutching a little kart toolkit from Felix and a carefully made scrapbook of their adventures from Ralph and handmade treats from all three, and in the midst of Felix trying to teach her songs and Calhoun teaching her more interesting lyrics to said songs and Ralph holding her up to put the star on the tree she realized she could never imagine it another way.

And she never forgot.