Do Aliens Celebrate Christmas?

I almost did not return to Earth this year. What would be the point? Between the wars, the world leaders, and the mobs who put them in power, I already know that the humans of Earth are not worth saving. I have observed them, year after year, as did my father before me and his father before him. Humans doomed themselves a long time ago.

Still, my superiors said that there is more to their species than meets the eye and that I must go down observe them face-to-face in order to know for certain whether they need our help. So, once more, I found myself mixing among them at the time of year that they called the Christmas season.

I stood outside the shopping center that the humans called a mall, reveling in the blustering wind and biting snow. It reminded me so much of my home planet that I could not help but be momentarily melancholy. It had been too many years since I had seen the icy terrain that my ancestors had settled on.

I took a deep breath and tugged on the tattered clothing that allowed me to pass for one of the humans’ homeless. That was the advantage of my species: we looked similar enough to humans to be able to blend into a crowd, even with our nearly-glowing pale skin and strikingly blue eyes. Just throw on a discarded scarf, a beanie, and some dirty, fingerless gloves, and humans could almost look past our beauty to see someone like them.

I stepped into the mall, empty paper cup in hand, and set up my station near the sliding glass doors. I huddled with my legs hugged closely to my chest, mimicking the humans I had seen taking shelter from the bitter cold.

When the first humans approached me, I held out my cup and said in a weak, trembling voice, “Spare some change?”

The couple looked briefly at me, then moved along their way. Just as I had expected.

A family approached, and I held my cup out again.

“Spare some change?”

The wife glanced at me, then poked her husband in the ribs. He glared at me, sighed, and reached into his pocket. He threw some quarters into my cup.

“Don’t use it for drugs,” he grumbled as he dragged his wife away.

Better, but still not unexpected.

I continued this with each passerby. Most of them ignored me. Some told me to get a job. One dropped a pocket-sized Bible in my lap. Then there were some who would toss some change or the occasional dollar bill into my cup, sometimes accompanied by a warm “happy holidays” or “merry Christmas”. These brought a slight tightening to my chest, but they were so few and far between that they almost did not matter.

Then the security guard came. I knew he would eventually. As he approached me, I got to my feet and stood at my full height, easily towering a full head over him.

“No loitering,” he said in a stern voice, straining to look me in the eye.

I tilted my head down to stare back into his eyes. Without hesitation, I reached deep into the recesses of his mind and gained control.

“I am allowed to be here,” I said, layering my voice with silky overtones.

The security guard’s eyes glazed over. His jaw went slack, and he nodded absently.

“You are allowed to be here,” he said, his tone void of the maliciousness that had filled it moments before.

“Now, return to your post. There is nothing more to do here.”

He nodded again.

“I will return to my post. There is nothing more to do here.”

With some gentle mental encouragement from me, the security guard turned around and returned to his post, leaving me to return to mine.

As I went to sit back down, I heard coins dropping into my cup. When I turned to see who the generous human was, I saw a young woman leaving a twenty-dollar bill in the cup. My eyes widened.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said in my pauper’s voice.

The young woman smiled brightly.

“You’re welcome,” she said. Her eyes ran over me for a moment, then she held her hand out to me. “My name is Mary.”

I froze. I had never had to have physical contact with a human before. What if she could tell that I was different?

Hesitantly, I grabbed her hand and shook it as I had seen so many humans do. I did not know when to let go, so I waited for her to do so first. I must have held on for a little too long, for when Mary did finally let go, she giggled nervously.

“Well?” she said, tilting her head. “Do you have a name?”

“Oh, yes, of course. It is…” I strained to think of an acceptable human name. “Nick! My name is Nick.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Nick,” Mary said. “Tell me, when was the last time that you ate?”

I was not sure how to answer that. In truth, I had eaten just before I transported off the spaceship, but that seemed so long ago now. My stomach rumbled in protest at the very thought of food, and Mary must have heard it.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. She held her hand out to me again. “Come. My family and I having dinner in the food court. You’re going to join us.”

I shook my head rapidly.

“No, I could not…”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet in a feat of strength that caught me off guard.

“Yes, you can, and you are.”

I found myself unable to resist this human’s invitation to dinner, so I merely followed her to the food court. She talked continuously about her family and what I could expect from them at dinner, but I hardly listened. I was still in shock at this turn of events. No human had ever invited me to eat with them. Humans rarely ever spoke to me in this disguise. What was going on? What could be this human’s ulterior motive?

Mary bought me some fried chicken and sweetened tea before taking me to the table where her family sat. She introduced me, then introduced each of her family members in turn. It wasn’t a big family, but I paid close attention to ensure that I did not lose track regardless: there were her parents Tim and Suzy, her grandmother Alice, her older brother Sonny and his boyfriend Alex, and her little sister Natasha. Mary sat me between herself and Natasha, so close that we were rubbing elbows.

The entire meal passed by in a blur. As I ate, I only sat back and observed the humans surrounding me. They tried to get me to interact with them, but I scarcely gave them more than one-word answers.

“How’s your food, Nick?” Tim asked me.

“Good,” I grumbled.

“Where are you from, Nick?” Sonny asked as a way to get me to open up.

“Out of town.”

“Oh? Where?” Alice asked.

To this, I merely shrugged and ate my chicken. I had to admit, chicken was probably the best thing that I had ever eaten on Earth. I never did have much of a taste for beef, and chicken tasted a lot like a popular fowl from my home planet. It made me feel melancholy again, but I longed for the feeling.

Eventually, Mary told her family, “Come on, you guys, leave him alone. If he doesn’t want to talk about himself, then he doesn’t have to.”

No one argued with her. In fact, that was the one thing that I had not observed among this family of humans: arguing. Among all the other humans I had ever seen, I had seen some degree of anger or apathy that led to fighting with other humans. They never seemed to be happy with themselves. These humans, though, seemed content. Something about them was happy, and they were glad to share this happiness with others—even some stranger like Nick the Homeless Man.

A small smile came to my face.

I placed my napkin on my plate and stood.

“Thank you for the food. I must be going now,” I said.

“Really? So soon?” Mary asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “I have gotten all that I have come here for. Thanks to you.”

* * *

Back on the spaceship, I reported to my colleagues in the Incubation Chambers. Humans know them as The Grays. They are in charge of our hybridization and integration program.

“What do you have to report?” the first Gray, named Took, asked me telepathically.

“Is it time to send Him back?” the second Gray, named Schnook, added.

I glanced over at the suspended animation chamber standing in the far corner. Inside floated a humanoid being with medium-dark skin, long hair, and a beard. I had seen his image, albeit a bit paler, depicted in many churches and on many crosses while down Earth. At the bottom of the chamber was a plaque that read “J’sus X: R-IST”. “J’sus” was the being’s name in my species’s tongue, “X” stood for “crossbreed”, and “R-IST” meant “Race-Interstellar”.

“No,” I said aloud. “I think that humans can take care of themselves without a Second Coming.”