"What, in Los Angeles?" Dean asks, distracted out of his own helpless reminiscence. He leaves behind the scent of pine needles and coconut flakes and freesia to smile at Felix, leaving off chewing his lip to clarify. "They do. They just don't know how to do it right."

Then he's grinning again, sitting up a bit more in his chair so he can lean forward, elbows on the table and more actively engaged in the conversation. Dean isn't ever completely still, not easily, and it's not long before he's gesturing with his hands to illustrate what he's saying. It's probably a small thing, but Dean catches both the smile from Felix and the crease of his brow, and is eager to share what he can still see and smell and hear in his mind's eye.

"Yeah, the holidays happen on the Barge and all -" And he would point out their first breach together, now, if he didn't have his own wealth of memories to draw on, and if he weren't instinctively avoiding what could be considered an inciting incident. "- but they're supposed to be about family, and choosing to shut off all the bad shit that happens in the world for a couple days. When I was a kid we had a real tree in the living room, and we'd put up lights all over the outside of the house - lots of colors, Mom never liked just the white ones - and Dad always thought he was being quiet swearing, trying to get the tinsel to stay. Mom used to always try to make pies and stuff but we'd end up buying 'em anyway, and Dad would always talk about ice-fishing 'cause he grew up doing that but there wasn't any place to do it around where we lived."

He's only getting more excited as he goes, for once outrunning the time in between, the other thing that time of year means for him. It's easy, for now.