Dess Holiday

Dess Holiday
(It's a red guitar.)
Character Information
Relationships	Rudolph Holiday (father) Noelle Holiday (younger sister) Mayor (mother) Asriel (childhood friend) Kris (childhood friend)

December "Dess" Holiday is an as-yet unseen character in Deltarune. She is the oldest daughter of Rudolph Holiday and Mayor Holiday, and the older sister of Noelle Holiday. Dialogue spoken by Noelle in Chapter 2 heavily implies that she is either deceased or missing.

Profile

Personality

Very little is known for certain about Dess, but, according to Noelle, Dess was very protective of her when they were growing up together, often comforting Noelle in terrifying situations, or defending her from Kris's antics.

Main Story

What a strange moon...
It's like nothing I've ever seen before.
This world...
... I wish Dess could see this.

Noelle

According to Noelle, Dess used to be in the same friend group as her, Asriel, and Kris, and, on at least one occasion, they all hung out in the forest by Hometown's Cemetery together. Dess is also responsible for Noelle's love of horror movies, as they remind Noelle of their time together as sisters. Despite the Holiday siblings' relationship being described as close, Dess is conspicuously absent from Hometown, with no mention of her presence in the family's life any longer, suggesting that something happened to her prior to the events of Deltarune.

Chapter 1

Dess is first alluded to by name through an object that can be inspected in Rudy's hospital room: an angel doll that, Rudy explains, was made by Dess and Noelle in youth group. He keeps it as a good luck charm.

If Kris tells Noelle that Susie "eats chalk" while visiting her outside of her house, Noelle at first believes that Kris is joking, similar to the time when Kris told Noelle that ICE-E was real and ate children. Noelle also recalls that Dess once smacked Kris with a wiffle bat until they stopped lying.

Chapter 2

If Kris, intentionally or not, repeatedly frightens Noelle by releasing Cyber City mice into her path, Noelle remarks that Kris is lucky that Dess isn't around to protect her.

While exploring the city, Noelle and Kris come across paths that are intermittently blocked off by forcefields that can only be disabled when each of them steps onto a separate pressure plate. As they travel, Noelle recalls the time she spent with Dess, including an incident where she, Kris, and Asriel hung out in the forest by the graveyard. Dess comforted Noelle, who was terrified at the time.

Noelle looks up at the moon in Cyber World's sky and remarks that she wishes she could show it to Dess. Later, while riding the Ferris wheel with Susie, Noelle remembers watching horror movies with Dess when she was little.

If Kris inspects the angel doll in Rudy's hospital room, Susie begins to tease Rudy for keeping it, until she hears that Noelle made it with her sister. Susie is visibly perturbed at the mention of Dess and opts not to say anything more on the subject.

Trivia

• It is implied that "Dess" is short for "December," keeping with the Christmas theme of the Holiday family. The strongest evidence for this is during the sequence where Noelle recalls spending time with Dess, Kris, and Asriel in the graveyard: the letters on the steps she is stepping on spell out "DECEMBER."
  • Noelle froze on the word "December" during a spelling contest from Berdly's flashback.
  • Noelle's room in Queen's Mansion has a calendar where every day is December 25.
    • Since her room is based on her internet search history, this implies she is searching for "December Holiday," her sister's full name.
• The way Dess is described in Chapter 2, as well as comments regarding the Holiday family throughout the game heavily implies she died or went missing sometime before the events of Deltarune:
  • In Chapter 1, Noelle is unable to go home when she forgets her key because no one is there to let her in.
  • Rudy claims that without him, Noelle doesn't have someone to protect her from her mother's strict behavior.
• Although they never make a physical appearance, Noelle and Dess are known to exist in the Undertale universe alongside their father. In the unused Undertale alarm clock dialogue, Asgore remarks that Rudy's daughters both get to grow up in the sunlight. In the Xbox version of the Dog Shrine in Undertale, Sans mentions "the antlered girl and her big sis," with the latter most likely referring to Dess.
  • The way that Sans phrases his reference to "the antlered girl" may imply that her sister, in contrast, does not have antlers.
  • In a draft of the alarm clock dialogue posted on September 15th, 2017, Asgore remarks about Rudy's "daughter and wife," suggesting that Dess may not have originally been planned to be a character.
• There are several references to Dess in the 2022 Spamton Sweepstakes charity event:
  • deltarune.com/icee links to deltarune.com/december in a reference to "my sister." /december/ is a unique 404 Not Found error page reminiscent of Internet Explorer from the 1990s.
  • deltarune.com/dess contains an image of a guitar and the track findher.mp3, a guitar cover of Lost Girl. This may imply Dess plays the guitar.
  • Spamton claimed in a live Q&A that Noelle would respond to his "free friend finder" emails talking about Dess, but he could not acquire her personal information.
    • Furthermore, Spamton may have subtly referenced her theme's filename twice in the Q&A: when talking about the aforementioned "free friend finder", which he spells as [Fr33 fr13nd f1ndh3r], and when being asked about the lyrics of NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A, of which, as he claims, the first 3 letters are FIN.