What I have liked about the flashbacks, both in Something Wicked and here, is that we're NOT dealing with mini-adults. They're both very clearly still painfully young, and it's so painfully obvious that Dean was trying his best, but still not able to quite pull things off because, well, he was just a kid, and that it wasn't just limited to Christmas. (And, man. I remember the year we didn't get Easter baskets, and trying to save Easter for my buttmunch little brother--I don't know what was going on that year, to be frank. It was really weird for my parents to forget, despite the whole atheist thing, and that wasn't one of the years of serious penny pinching. Anyhow, I assembled him a half-assed basket including my Huey Lewis and the News cassette and some other stuff. That Barbie brought back memories.)

You know what I loved about the flashback? Dean teasing Sam. (Rough paraphrase follows.)

"Why do we always leave?"

"Because everywhere we go people get sick of your face."

That's brotherhood, right there. In so much wee!Chester fic, Dean is practically a slavering fool and martyr for Sammy, and that's not in any way realistic. The above is. And it doesn't mean he loves Sam less, it means he's a normal thirteen-year-old boy who has HIS OWN resentments and disappointments and no one to take it out on but his little brother.

But Dean making Christmas for Sam was also believable. Especially when Sam opened the Barbie and Dean said, "Dad probably thinks you're a girl."

They wrote REAL kids here, which I appreciate like whoa.

It was SO much better than the watch-from-the-hall writing for that Mini-Dean kid earlier in the season.

Yo, writers, speech patterns and musical tastes aren't passed on genetically.

Yo, writers, speech patterns and musical tastes aren't passed on genetically.

And thank god for that, because otherwise, I'd have a large collection of Neil Diamond. t shudders

(Of course, I did confess to a friend at work to day that I can never decide if my weird and occasional Hall and Oates affection is ironic or not. My musical tastes, while possibly better than my mother's, remain questionable.)

I have both Neil Diamond and Hall and Oates in my collection. Of course, I also like Michael Macdonald's music, or at least his voice, and I don't really care if it's ironic or not.

So far K-Bug seems to have a genetic attraction to the same kind of music I like. CJ...well, he has grabbed the more questionable artists from my collection.

I need the Supernatural Soundtrack. Actually, I take that back. I probably own at least 75% of the music from the show.

Hmm.

My heart, she is made of stone.

I thought that was awkward and clunky and anvilicious as hell. The emotional sense was there, and I liked the canonical information we got -- how on earth they kept the secret about Mary's death and the existence of monsters from Sam for 8 years is beyond me -- but the writing just felt ... bad.

OTOH, after seeing Nutty's LJ post, I was prepared for it to be way more emo-porny than it was.

I am however disappointed that they had to make John blow off Christmas with his children in order to make Sam bond even closer to Dean. Does Kripke realize how completely fucked up these guys are?

Also, I hereby call for a moratorium on having other characters who do not know the Winchesters calling them "boys". Makes no sense. Fellas would work, or guys. But not boys: Dean's pushing 30, and in no way a boy anymore.

I think I would make an exception to the "boys" thing for thousands-years-old gods, personally.

But, then, my grandmother routinely refers to people old enough to have kids in school as "girls"

I think I enjoyed the watch-and-post more than the ep itself. I mean, I enjoyed the ep, but I think I found the flailing and love and thinky thoughts more wonderful than the ep itself. Am I a bad fan?

Also, my bad on the Meadowsweet/Meadow Rue mix-up. I am a bad gardener. Thalictrum is not Filipendula. I was, uh, erm... drunk?

Although I find it a bit of a stretch that they'd kept Sammy in the dark for so long, but on the other hand it does feed into the fact that Sam's been attuned to the more normal life. Where Dean was indoctrinated by fire, literally, Sam was raised in the dark, living a half-life and not knowing why, thinking he's normal and yet knowing he's not and not knowing why. That would definitely separate him from the pack. In trying to protect him, they alienated him.

In trying to protect him, they alienated him.

Oh, that's some smart thinkiness right there, Juliebird. Yeah.