"It's legal in Canada too. Also I'm not... super sure what Canada thinks my legal gender is so it doesn't matter anyway. Does the weird ritual marriage magic really follow human laws about who can legally marry, I guess that isn't that much weirder than everything else that's happened to me in the last twenty-four hours." 

"Well, you have to... actually be married... I guess I don't know what it thinks 'actually married' is. But if you think you can marry a man and the man thinks he can marry you that probably works out fine?"

"That's good. — I don't have anyone in mind, or anyone who might potentially become someone I had in mind, I have coworkers and grindr hookups and ugh I should probably tell my boss I'm quitting my job, so I'm going to shelve that for a while, we have two years." 

"Makes sense. ...We'd really rather you get married though. If there isn't a replacement Santa, Jack Frost becomes Santa, and he wants us to charge money for toys." (His voice is horrified at the prospect.)

That is not actually more confusing than any of the other things. "That sounds not great. I'm not planning on not I just... don't have any friends." Or a boyfriend. How about he just doesn't think about boyfriends in full generality. 

"...Maybe I can be your friend?"

"...that'd be nice." 

Lev, who had been standing sort of awkwardly in a corner of the living room, sits on the couch.

Tiny smile. 

...oh no Santa's cute. 

He should probably not be staring.

Yeah, probably. 

"So. Um." 

"So, yeah. Is there anything you need? I told your staff to make themselves scarce-- I figured you didn't really want surprise people in your house--"

"....food would be good but I'm not sure how to interact with the fact that I am now the kind of person who has a cook. And. It might be a while before I'm great at spending time in kitchens." 

"...if we go somewhere else for a while the house might rearrange itself so it doesn't have a kitchen."

"..okay. I don't know what other places there are to go, you'll have to show me around." 

"Well, we could get something to eat at Cocoa Cottage, or we could go see the reindeer, or we could listen to music at the Christmas Music Academy, or go hang out at the Top of the World Park..."

"...that's the cutesiest thing I've ever heard. Food and then reindeer?" 

"Sounds good! --Sorry, we totally thought we'd have a better welcome for the next Santa, but you're Jewish, so we don't know anything about you."

"That's fine, I'm not sure it wouldn't have been weirder to get a personalized welcome from people I'd never met or heard of." 

Then they can go to Cocoa Cottage!

It sells ambrosia, candy canes, Christmas cookies, gingerbread houses, Christmas ham, cranberry sauce, and assorted pies. To drink, there's hot buttered, hot chocolate, and eggnog. 

That's... certainly a selection. 

How about pecan pie and peppermint hot chocolate and he'll get some kind of protein into him later. 

"You don't actually need to eat, but it tastes good," Lev says, eating a gingerbread house and some candy canes.

"...oh. Weird." 

He eats. The food is very good, because of course it is. 

"Yeah. You don't get sick, you don't need food, you don't age..."

"There are worse ages to be forever than twenty-four."