“Ho, ho, ho, my ass,” Faith said disgusted, throwing another wad of tinsel on the tree.

“No!” Buffy said.  “One strand at a time.  You don’t want it clunky and all over the place.”  She took some icicles from Faith.  “Like this.”  Buffy placed an icicle over a bough.

“I don’t want it anyplace,” Faith said, dropping the remainder onto the floor.  “Just give me some eggnog and I’ll be happy.”

“Happy in a ‘Hey!  It’s Christmas’ kind of way or happy in a ‘Happy, lookie here, I got drunk on eggnog’ kind of way?” Xander asked, untangling Christmas tree lights.

“I’ll go for the eggnog,” Faith said, plopping down in the chair in front of the fireplace.

“While you’re there, Faith,” Dawn said, “you can hang the stockings.”

“What part of ‘I don’t want anything to do with any of this’ do you people not understand?”  She snatched the stockings out of Dawn’s hands and starting looking around.

“What are you looking for?” Xander asked.

“Hammer and nails.”

“No!” he shouted and ran to the fireplace.  “This is mahogany, Faith.”  Xander continued talking as he caressed the wood.  “We don’t put nails into mahogany.  Tacks, maybe.  Really teeny, tiny tacks, but no nails.  We don’t want to take the chance of cracking the wood.  It would ruin it.”

“I’ll ruin your wood if you don’t back off,” she said as she began tacking the stockings into the mantel.

“You knocked the bloody ladder over, you nit!” Spike shouted, barreling in the front door yelling at Angel.  “I could’ve been staked on the sodding manger.”

“Is it just me,” Xander asked.  “Or does it seem wrong that ‘sodding’ and ‘manger’ are in the same sentence?”

“Stuff it, Harris,” Spike said.

Dawn started singing, “‘Tis the season to be jolly,” quietly under her breath as she placed more ornaments on the tree.

Lorne watched and listened as she sang, a huge smile encompassing his face.

“It’s called ice, Spike,” Angel said.  “Get used to it.”  He looked at Buffy.  “He acts like it’s my fault it’s snowing.”

“Keep it up, you guys,” Xander said.  “It’s starting to remind me of home.”

“Are you putting an angel on the top of the tree?” Dawn asked.

“I have no problem shoving the tree up an Angel’s ass,” Spike said.

“I am going to hurt you.”

“You would be the room’s only angel,” Lorne told Dawn.  “And you would be too uncomfortable up there, sweetness.”

She smiled and began singing again.

“Yo, Xander!”  Faith called out.  “What kind of cheap ass wood is this?”

“Loud crack.  Dead giveaway,” Oz said, draping garland over the entranceway.

“No!” Xander cried, racing back to the fireplace, noticing the huge crack in the wood.  “Nails?  I said no nails!”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “Ran outta tacks.”

Xander grabbed the hammer and the nails out of her hand.  “Do something else.  Untangle lights or something.”

“You really think that’s a chore to give Faith?” Buffy asked.  “Piss her off enough and she’ll be strangling you with those lights.”

“Lights,” Oz added.  “Bad idea.”

“The lights will shine and sparkle,” Drusilla said as she danced around the tree.  “They will sing out songs of the season and angels will cry.”

“I’ve made tea,” Giles said, coming in from the kitchen.  “There are cups for everyone.”
 
Faith grabbed a cup off the tray, dumped the tea back into the pot and then proceeded to fill the cup up with more eggnog.  “What?  These cups are bigger than the one I had.”

“Why do you people think tea solves all of life’s miseries anyway?” Connor asked.

“It’s an English thing, sweetheart,” Darla said, sitting down next to him as he leafed through Christmas CDs.

“Can I have hot chocolate instead?” Dawn asked.

“I’m with Dawn,” Connor said.  “I’ll take the hot chocolate.”

Giles smiled.  “Willow is making some as we speak.”

“We found another box of lights,” Fred said.  “Under the stairs, of all places.  We’re going to have a true Texas-style Christmas.” 

Gunn shrugged.  “I don’t know about Texas style, but it’s going to be damn bright around this place.”

“Maybe it’s just me,” Fred said.  “But shouldn’t we refrain from cussing since this is Christmas Eve and all?”

“I won’t cuss anymore,” Gunn said, his face lighting up in a smile.  “Just for you, Fred.  Consider it an early Christmas present.”

“Sod off!” Spike said.  “I am not getting back up on that roof.  You want Santa up there, you do it yourself.”

“Oh, yes.  It was me, Spike,” Angel said.  “I wanted Santa on the roof.  He and I go way back.”

“They did meet once,” Darla volunteered.

“Santa and his sleigh.  The little red man who follows the songs in his heart,” Dru said as she flicked a red bulb on the Christmas tree.  “Red sings to me.”

“I wonder why that is?” Cordelia asked, glaring at Drusilla.  She then turned her attention to the matter of Spike and Angel.  “Did you two at least get the lights up before you started trying to kill each other?”

Giles sat down in one of the wingback chairs next to Wesley.  “Sometimes these American customs can be trying.”

Wesley took the tea Giles offered him.  “Why do you think I sit back and just watch them?  Their interaction is absolutely fascinating.”

“Cookies and hot cocoa!” Willow exclaimed coming out of the kitchen.  “They’re done!”

“We would’ve finished sooner,” Tara said, blushing.  “But Will wanted to put little smiley faces on all of the cookies.”

“Smiley faces?” Faith asked.

“Jewish here.”

“That’d explain it.”  Faith picked up a box of candy canes.  “Where have you been hiding these?”

“They haven’t been hidden, Faith,” Wesley said.  “They have been there all along.”

“Got anything stronger than tea in that kitchen?” Spike asked Willow, nudging her with his arm.

“Watch it, Spike! You’ll make me drop the cookies.”

“That’d be better than tossing one’s cookies,” Xander said to no one in particular.

“There was a bottle of something in the back of the baking cupboard,” Tara said quietly.  “I’m just not sure what it is, but it doesn’t look like something anyone would cook with.”

“Thanks, pet!”  He didn’t stick around long enough to see the poor girl’s cheeks take on the color of Santa’s suit.

No one noticed the look Giles and Wesley exchanged.  It was soon accompanied by audible sighs from both men.

“They’ve located our stash,” Giles said almost as a moan.

“It appears they have,” Wesley agreed.

“I don’t know what the rest of you people think,” Cordelia said.  “And granted, we had employees who put up our Christmas trees back in the day, but this thing is pathetic.”  She grabbed a bunch of tinsel off the tree.  “And what’s up with this?  It looks like a tinsel-demon puked.”

“Hey!” Faith shouted.  “I put that there.  Leave it alone.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes.  “Well, that explains a lot.”

“Someone has been hiding the good stuff,” Spike said, coming out of the kitchen with a bottle in his hand.

“Spike,” Giles said.  “If you’d be so kind.”  He indicated his cup of tea.

“All over that one, mate.”  Spike topped off Giles’ cup with the brownish liquid.

“If you insist,” Wesley said, pushing his own cup toward Spike.  “And leave the bottle.”

“I can see why the holiday season is so profitable,” Anya said as she stood in front of the Christmas tree, crossing her arms in front of her.  “You have the shiny objects that use the electricity.  People rushing to stores at the last minute to buy items for people they either don’t like or don’t know that well, and then they make purchases out of guilt because that is what one does this time of year.”  She glanced at Giles and Wesley.  “And the alcoholic beverages that many people consume to get through all the so-called happy times just ensure that the profits grow.”

“Where were you anyway?” Xander asked her.

“The former vengeance demon and I have been looking for items to use in the modern tradition of hanging of the mistletoe,” Andrew said, pointing at the stairway that lead upstairs.  “All must eventually ascend to a higher… floor, thus passing under that very mistletoe.”

“You didn’t…” Xander began, looking an Anya.

“Kiss him?” Anya asked.  “That would happen… never, Xander.  I would never kiss a semi-employed man with shaggy hair who can speak in fluent Klingon. At least, not unless I was having sex with him on a regular basis and experiencing multiple orgasms.”

“It’s done!” Dawn shouted excitedly.  All talking stopped as she pointed at the tree.  “We have all the lights and ornaments and tinsel and garland up.  Look at it, you guys.  Just look at it.”

“Gotta admit,” Cordelia said, nodding her head.  “Doesn’t look too bad.  Was a little scary there for awhile.”

“Well, if we’re being all admitty,” Buffy said.  “I would have to confess that this is one of the prettiest trees I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Fine!”  Faith rolled her eyes.  “It looks better without the tinsel-demon puke.  That shit scattered all over the place does have a certain…”

“Appeal,” Angel said.

“The lights look a little blurry to me,” Giles said to Wesley.  “Do you see that?  Are they supposed to be moving in circles that way?”

“They’re singing and dancing.  They hear the bells,” Drusilla said.

Wesley smiled.  “I am not quite sure about that, but I think they do look quite spectacular.”

Giles nodded his head in agreement.

“I suppose I could put a Santa or two on some of the cookies,” Willow offered, shrugging her shoulders.

“And I can help,” Tara said.  “Maybe we could put teeny menorahs on a few of them, too.”

“That,” Willow said, “we can do!”  They both headed off to the kitchen.

Angel heaved a sigh.  “I guess if I hold the ladder a little tighter it won’t slide on the ice and we’ll be able to get Santa where he belongs.”

“I’ll hold the ladder this time,” Spike offered, his eyes glinting.

Angel glanced at him briefly, nodded in agreement and then headed out the door.  Spike followed him.

“I can see why vengeance is so popular this time of year,” Anya said.

Andrew wiped a tear from his eye.  “This is the most beautiful experience of my life.”

He was cut off by a chorus of “Shut up, Andrew”.

“As my good friend Tiny Tim once said, well, I didn’t really know him… therefore we weren’t really friends.”  Andrew cleared his throat.  “God Bless us, every one.’”