"What are you reading, Spock?" Kirk asked.

Spock's nose did not raise from the book.  "A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens."

Kirk was surprised.  "Really."

"Yes."

Silence.

"So…what made you decide to read that?" Kirk asked the top of his science officer's head.

Spock finally looked up, holding a finger in the book to mark his place.  "I ran the word 'Scrooge' through the computer database, and found two references.  First, the name of a very wealthy duck, uncle to Donald Duck, a popular 'comic book' character of the 1900s.  Second, the principle figure of this book.  I borrowed it from someone with the intention of giving it a cursory glance, and found it quite intriguing.  Fanciful and illogical, but intriguing."

McCoy wandered in then, and walked over.  "So, anything exciting happening?"

"Spock's reading A Christmas Carol," Kirk told him.

McCoy's eyebrows shot up.  "Really."

"That was my reaction."

"I do not see why everyone finds this so surprising," Spock observed.  "You wanted me to locate the Christmas spirit.  Dickens seems to have it."

"Does that mean you found it?" McCoy asked, somewhat doubtfully.

"I think so," Spock said.  He turned back to the first few pages, turned one or two over, and located the passage he was looking for.  "'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'  Unless I am greatly mistaken, that is the Christmas spirit."

McCoy's jaw had dropped.  Kirk was grinning.

"I still fail to see logic in Christmas," Spock mused, "but there does seem to be a certain value all the same."

McCoy shook his head.  "I never thought I'd see the day."

Spock saw his opening.  And took it.  "Had you been able to properly explain your own traditions, you could have 'seen the day' two days ago, and avoided a great deal of mishap."

McCoy rose to the challenge.  "Well if you weren't so close-minded and made half an effort to enter into the spirit of things…"

"Had you explained precisely what the spirit of things was—"

"Well this is really in the spirit of Christmas!" Kirk said loudly.

Spock and McCoy looked at each other.

"I am not, of course, entirely clear on your customs, but I believe the appropriate course of action at this juncture would be to wish you a Merry Christmas, Doctor."

McCoy smiled in spite of himself.  "Merry Christmas, Spock."

Happy Holidays, everybody!