"Mommy?" Alexis asked, "When's Santa coming?"
"When we're all asleep. Though one of us HAS to make sure he doesn't accidentally trigger the alarm. I mean, we don't want anything bad happening to Santa, right?" Natalie answered, pulling her daughter in for a hug.
"Who puts up the star this year?" Fenrir asked as he put the stockings above the fire the chimney was connected to.
Katie pulled out a piece of paper from her Christmas Star, which had always miraculously worked despite being 40 years old. She unfolded the paper after placing the star on the couch and cleared her throat. "Well, Alexis ain't had her turn. Why not?"
Alexis froze. "I-I can't fly!" She cried.
"When I fly, I usually fluke it like REALLY bad." Natalie commented, stroking her daughter's hair.
"When I first flew, I landed in a tree. The woman living in said tree attacked me with a scrubby brush." Fenrir sighed, sweat forming while he was trying to hide a giggle.
"First time flying I fell like a peregrine falcon." Katie chuckled, shaking her head nervously, "I still wonder how I landed on my legs without breaking them. I was actually racing somebody and won."
"Flew so high I saw angels." Blake retorted with a smile, "Wound up being thrown into the Eiffel Tower. I am surprised that didn't break."
"First time using a helicopter... ended up stranded on Mount Everest for days on end." Lance admitted, a wobbly grin on his face.
"Leaf-riding... nearly got eaten by a Giant Red Slime." Anna retorted, trying not to laugh out loud.
"Crashed into Natz in the worst way possible." Matt sighed, a look of worry on his face.
"Remember when I became a Pegasus?" Coryza called, to which everyone else nodded. "Like a numbnut I challenged Rainbow Dash. Ended up crashing into a thundercloud and sweeping her doorstep until she saw her face in it."
"I nearly fell into a house at the Crystal Kingdom." Wing ranted, "I hate having my wings frozen."
"You all flunked on your first time?" Alexis gasped.
"Yeah, and it's likely you're gonna do the same. Hey, nobody's perfect. Why strive for the impossible?" Natalie reassured.
Chuckles, as usual, laughed.
"You can fly too?!" Alexis asked. Chuckles nodded and laughed again. Natalie placed her daughter on the shoulders of her familiar and entrusted her with the star. All the other decorations were on the tree. The skeleton slowly ascended to the top of the tree to ensure Alexis didn't either fall off or drop the star. Carefully, she placed the star on the top of the tree and plugged it to the lights. This ensured that, when the lights were plugged into the wall and turned on, the star was on too.
Chuckles then flew down and took his master off of his shoulders.
"Plug 'er up!" Katie called.
Natalie, who was now lazy, used magic to plug the lights into the wall. Suddenly, the whole thing lit up as all other lights in the house, save for the fire, went off. The lights danced and faded in and out, a rainbow of colors and shapes like hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs making quite intricate glows and patterns.
The party took their time to marvel at this sight they worked so hard to make. Deciding it was time to turn on the lights, they nodded and headed off into the kitchen. Anna was a step ahead of Katie--she was already preparing the cookie ingredients to become sweet, semi-soft, semi-crunchy morsels of intricate design that made even the angels above drool in delight.
"We have everything?" Katie asked.
"You bet!" Anna cried as she threw some raisins into a bowl, followed by cookie mix. The women worked furiously to make the cookies, and it was a good thing Lance had a super-oven that was capable of holding three cookie sheets, a ham, and turducken in one sitting. Of course, all the other foodstuffs were ready and only the cookies were main concern at the moment.
"It's snowing! It's snowing!" Nick cried as he gazed out the window.
The cookies were safely secured in the oven, which also had an auto-timer feature entirely dependent on what went in and out. Katie ran to the window and smiled warmly.
"It's pretty." She sighed in content.
Fenrir put his paws on her shoulders from behind. "Not as pretty as you." He grinned.
"I know, right?" Katie replied. "After we eat and all that, it's gonna be.." She yawned, "..naptime."
After the feast, it was voted that Coryza would stay up to make sure the alarm wasn't tripped. Everyone else tucked in their children and went into their own beds. Katie literally fell asleep on the stairs, so she had to be picked up and carried to her room. But Cory was much too tired to stay up all night, and she fell asleep on the couch.
Little did she know, Santa knew his way around the alarm without setting it off. He had many presents in his overflowing sack, some were small and others were as big as the drills on the sides of the Valkyrie tank. One particular present was labeled everyone, and it was much too big to fit under the tree, so it was placed next to the couch. The other gifts went under the tree and into their respective stocking. Santa then tiptoed his way upstairs and with a snap of his fingers, five small presents found themselves in the hands of the children and the hooves of Blue Horn (she and her parents had fallen asleep before the tree came in), followed by two more gifts sitting outside the cribs of the babies. Three more found themselves in the hands of the Beholder's triplets.
With another snap of his fingers, he went into the next house. And all was quiet. Not a creature was stirring in the house, not even NoLegs or a simple mouse.