Spirit People-Christmas

Chapter 2: Learning about Christmas:

A few days later, all the Spirit People woke up to see most of the adults and teenagers going through the basement of the house, pulling out random boxes labeled ornaments, tinsel, lights, and a circle-shaped one labeled star.

"What's all this for?" Nezo asked, opening a box and started to go through it. He picked out a few shiny spheres with hooks attacked to the top and looked at his reflection in them.

"We're going to decorate the house, inside and outside, for Christmas," Robin explained as he lugged a big box full of electric lights up the stairs.

"Christmas? What's that?" Jane asked, confused.

As soon as the Nymph said that, everyone in the room froze and Robin accidently released the box of lights, causing it to slide down the edges of the steps like a mattress on a stairway and nearly ram into Peggy, who snapped, "Watch what you're doing with that box!"

"Sorry Peggy," Robin quickly apologized before he asked Jane, "You don't know what Christmas is?"

"Nope, first time I've ever heard anything about it," Jane admitted.

"First time for me too," Nezo added.

"Never read any books on it," Bog threw in.

"Well, Christmas is the time when you get together with people you love and wish for peace on Earth," Robin explained.

"If you just get together with people you care about and wish for world peace, then what's all this for?" Lloyd asked, pulling out a long strip of ribbon.

"That's the fun part! You see, we decorate the house with lights and other decorations, plus the inside of the house with mistletoe, holly, tinsel and other Christmas themed stuff, and then, we get presents for one another, while at the same time keeping the kids away so they don't peek at their presents, and give them to each other on Christmas day, which is tomorrow," Keith explained.

"Wow, sounds different from this Halloween holiday you told us about in October," Gloomy said.

"Trust me! It is!" Robin exclaimed. "Just come with us and we'll show you Christmas in the nutshell!"

Jane cocked her head to one side and said, "We have to find Christmas in the shell of a nut? What kind? Walnut? Peanut? Hazelnut?"

Robin sighed and said, "I'll just explain Christmas to you then."

Upstairs, Robin and the others went to the ballroom, where a big tree was being set up by Drake and Fry.

"Need some help?" Platinum-Teeth asked his master and master's brother, seeing that they were struggling.

"Yeah! Help us get this tree up!" Drake shouted.

Platinum-Teeth, Lloyd, Gloomy, Wolf, and Nezo ran over and helped push the tree up and into some sort of stand set on the floor, where the tree remained standing.

"Phew! That was tricky!" Fry exclaimed, wiping his sweaty forehead.

"What's the tree for?" Gloomy asked.

"For decorating and also, all the presents are going to be placed underneath it," Robin explained, pushing some of the boxes of decorations into the room. "That's what these ornaments, tinsel, and some of the lights are for!"

"Sounds like a silly place to put gifts," Gloomy admitted.

"But that's how it is," Zephyr said, shrugging.

"So, exactly how are we going to decorate it?" Jane asked, motioning at the boxes of decorations and picking out a few strands of tinsel and a few ornaments.

"Well, we basically put the lights up first, then the tinsel and garlands, but that usually takes a lot of ti-," Drake was stating when two blurs ran around the ballroom and grabbed the boxes that contained the lights, garlands and tinsel for the tree, and within seconds, started to going around the big tree, wrapping the décor around it. After it was fully wrapped on the garlands, the two blurs descended to the ground and stopped moving, revealing that the two people were Broker and Florence.

"How's that?" Broker asked his human friend.

Drake stared at the tree, amazed that the Loaner and Fairy had decorated the tree so quickly, and perfectly! "Yeah, that'll do just fine," he said. "Now for the ornaments, but you can't just throw those on; a majority of them are made of glass or clay. You got handle then gently."

"Yeah, or this'll happen," Noah said, grabbing a red sphere ornament and dropped it to the ground, where it shattered into a million pieces.

"Dammit Noah!" Drake snapped at the man.

"Hey! I was just doing a demonstration!" Noah exclaimed.

Keith sighed and started to pick out a few ornaments and hang them on the tree. Robin and the other humans followed suit and began to decorate the tree with the shiny, hooked, objects. The Spirit People just stood by and watched, not sure what to do.

"Are you just going to stand there or ae you going to help!" Peggy snapped, seeing them not moving to assist in any way.

The Spirit People jumped in fear a little and went over to help decorate the tree. Gloomy and Florence grabbed a few ornaments and hovered around the tree, where they hung them on the higher branches. Bog made a few huge jumps near the tree in an attempt to hang some ornaments on the tree. The others just stayed grounded and put the ornaments anywhere they could reach. After at least an hour, all the ornaments were hung and all that was left of the tree decorations was the circle-shaped box labeled star.

Bog picked it up and asked, "What's this round box for?"

Robin opened it to reveal a big, shiny silver star with a cone at the bottom of it to place on the top of the Christmas tree. "Christmas tree star," the boy stated before removing the star from the container and carried it over to Gloomy. "Can you put this on the very top of the tree, specifically the point?" Robin asked the Fury.

"Of course," Gloomy said, taking the star from the 18-year old, flying up above the tree and carefully setting it on the top, where it shown due to the ceiling lights in the room.

"Nice," Robin said before saying to Fry, "Okay Fry! Plug her in!"

"The Christmas tree is a she?" Gloomy said, as he descended to the ground.

"It's just a phrase," Robin explained as Fry took the plug to the lights and plugged them into a nearby outlet. "Those of you with sunglasses, you might want to put them on; this is going to be bright," Robin warned.

Lloyd, José, Fry, Pepe, and Cliff just slipped on their sunglasses and the others just took a few steps back. Fry found the switch for the Christmas lights and flicked it to on just when Drake flipped the light switch for the ceiling lights in the room off. The red, blue, and green lights of the Christmas tree shone brightly in the room, prompting everyone, save for a few of the terse people to go "Oooohhh".

Robin nodded in approval until the lights suddenly went out. "What happened?" the boy asked.

"I think we used too much power and blew the circuits," Drake said, flicking the light switch to the room on and off, but the lights wouldn't turn on in the room.

Keith groaned and collapsed to the ground.

After getting the Christmas tree lights and other lights to work simultaneously, the residents of the mansion started to hang the holly and mistletoe around the house.

When Florence saw Janet in the middle of nailing a sprig of mistletoe in the frame of the doorway to the kitchen, he asked, "So, explain to me what that plant is used for during Christmas? I don't think there is such a plant in the Spirit World."

"It's mistletoe; it's a small branch of leaves and poisonous white berries," Janet explained. "If a couple is caught under it, they have to kiss."

"Why?" Florence asked, confused.

"No idea; the reason why isn't very clear," Janet admitted as she climbed down from the ladder and looked up at the mistletoe to see if it was firm in place and out of nowhere, Fry ran up and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek.

"Fry!" Janet gasped.

"Well, it is tradition and I do love you," Fry said, grinning like crazy before walking away.

Janet just shook her head, laughing before walking away.

Outside of the house, most of the other people were in the middle of hanging lights on the mansion. "Are you sure we won't send the circuits into overload again like we did with the Christmas tree?" Beast asked in the middle of decorating.

"Relax, I reinforced the circuits so that wouldn't happen again when I fixed them," Steven told his boss. "Now the only thing that could go wrong is-."

Before the scientist could finish, there was a loud yell and within seconds, Noah was hanging from the side of the mansion, tied up in some Christmas lights.

"That," Steven finished flatly.

"Help me down!" Noah shouted, struggling in the cords.

"Don't do that! You'll end up suffocating yourself to death!" Darrian shouted at the man.

Noah immediately stopped, where Steven yanked on of the cords loose, which resulted in all of them loosening and causing Noah to fall to the ground.

"Ouch! Thanks!" he said to his friend.

"No problem," Steven said.

After everyone got all the lights and yard decorations for Christmas all set up as night was falling, Drake turns the lights on, showing off the display in the neighborhood.

"Cool!" Robin said, as he admired the lights that read Merry Christmas. "

Better go inside, it's getting colder than usual," Keith told his nephew as the group entered the house.