I really didn't care for the kid playing Wee!Dean, but then I also didn't mind that John missed Christmas. I mean, if he's on a hunt, he's on a hunt. The man's obsessed. I really don't expect his obsession to stop for a holiday he probably doesn't believe in anymore. He's sacrificed so many other family values, and perhaps even lost sight of what a family should be in the normal sense... Christmas is just another day. With the loss of Mary, I'm sure that all those occassions, all those holidays, became meaningless to him. That everything became The Hunt and keeping his kids alive. Holidays are moments, ceremonies, to mark an event, something special. But to John, these have now become meaningless trivialities. Possibily the only events he memorializes are his children's birthdays... if he knows what's good for him (I know he's dead now, but I'll kick his ass anyway)

I agree that John was obsessed, but I don't think he blatantly disregarded his boys' needs, either. Not the John who told Sam he had started a college fund and wanted Dean to have a home. I'm sure Christmas was never celebrated with all the trimmings, but I have a hard believing he would have written it off.

Home and college fund seem like forward/necessary/survivalist thinking. Holidays like Christmas strike me as luxuries. From this ep, it seems as if John had pegged Dean as his successor in case he failed in destroying Mary's killer, and Sam, in keeping him in the dark, his hope for an heir with a normal future.

And wanting Dean to have a home... I lack the immediate references. Refresh me, was this an "eventually" or an "I always wanted you to have one"? Because the former seems like a natural wish "I hope I kill the sons of bitches who killed your mother and then you can have a normal life" vs. "I tried to give you a normal life despite trying to catch the sons of bitches who killed your mother.". Or something else?

I'd have to look up which episode it was. End of S1 (obviously) but I don't remember which one. He was saying he wanted Dean to have a home after the demon was dead, that there *were* things he wanted them to have when the job was done, but my interpretation was that he knew full well he hadn't been able to provide those things during their childhood, too, and regretted it.

We just see it differently, is all. Which is fine!

I agree that John was obsessed, but I don't think he blatantly disregarded his boys' needs, either. Not the John who told Sam he had started a college fund and wanted Dean to have a home. I'm sure Christmas was never celebrated with all the trimmings, but I have a hard believing he would have written it off.

I don't have a hard time believing he'd have written it off at all. It doesn't seem contrary to the college fund (that he spent on ammo) or his regret that Dean had neither home nor any kind of shot at a normal life. I'd have been more shocked by him observing it, frankly.

The point about how Sam was alienated by them trying to shelter him is so true. The other thing I note (side note: while reviews are mixed on his acting, I'm VERY glad they got Ridge Canipe back to reprise his role as Young Dean, because visual continuity makes me a happy camper), was the way in which Dean explained Dad's Job to Sam. Dean, unlike Sam, remembers Dad Before, and part of what he's trying to preserve with the stolen Christmas is that part of Dad that they all lost when they lost Mary. He'd believe Dad would have been there if he could have, because he'd remember when those things mattered. But for Sam, that Dad is no more real than Santa. The monsters exist, the good things don't.

Err. I'm hopped up on sinus meds. Apologies for any lack of sense.

And wanting Dean to have a home... I lack the immediate references. Refresh me, was this an "eventually" or an "I always wanted you to have one"? Because the former seems like a natural wish "I hope I kill the sons of bitches who killed your mother and then you can have a normal life" vs. "I tried to give you a normal life despite trying to catch the sons of bitches who killed your mother.". Or something else?

It's from Salvation.

"I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school. I want, I want Dean to have a home. I want Mary alive. I just... I just want this to be over."

Ah, thanks!

It seems that it might be concluded that these are recent wishes... Or maybe they have been the wishes of John from the get-go. I tend to think that they are more recent realizations in his life. Or long-suppresseed wishes that the end-in-sightness of his journey had let him see.

I think they're wishes, pipe dreams, and regrets all rolled up together.

I've spent since Thursday thinking again about how fucked (and fucked up) they are. Dean at not quite 13 is already stealing things to provide and lying to try to make everything better.

Interesting that Sam twigs to the fact that Dean stole the presents. He may even acknowledge the sentiment behind the act. But he's more affected than any of them admit, because he doesn't remonstrate with Dean about stealing.

It allows him to be protected from harsh reality and to benefit from the kinder parts of that protection. Always was a self-entitled little guy, but John and Dean helped make him that way.

I'm sure Christmas was never celebrated with all the trimmings, but I have a hard believing he would have written it off.

Off the top of my head, it's worth positing that, like Dean, John gave up Christianity thanks to spousal flambé. If he's not a Christian any more, in the acrimonious-divorce sense, then it's not too much of a leap to posit that he would give up all the Christian holidays.

(I do think it's fair to assume he was a Christian beforehand, of what kind and how faithful we don't know; his kids are just too culturally Christian for something else to be the case. Although wouldn't it be hilarious for John to get home three days later and be like, "Boys, did we not JUST have Hanukkah? Just because your mother was a shiksa doesn't mean that double-dipping is okay in this family!")