A/N: Written for the 'Installing Christmas Decoration with Jane, Darcy and Erik' prompt on Norsekink LJ.

Disclaimer: Not mine, Marvel's.

suggested music: „Frohes Fest" by Die Toten Hosen

Yuletide by the Ancient Bridge

The harvest feast was over, Midwinter now approaching fast. Thor learned with pleasure that the mortals, too (or still) celebrated Hugins Jól, the Raven Feast in honour of Valfaðr and his Wild Hunt.

„Hey, we could always hang Loki!" joked Fandral, giving the chains that bound the exiled prince a tug.

Volstagg guffawed, spewing glögg over his beard. Jane's attempts at switching them to eggnogg had been futile. For the guests from Asgard, it was mulled wine or nothing this time of year.

„No you couldn't, not with the puny sapling-imitation which Jane has acquired." Sif stated, emerging from the adjacent room, looking flustered. She carried another bunch of mistletoe, to be discarded outside. The plant was banned from Jane's home this year, ever since one god of mischief had taken up residence in a doorway where some branches had then been installed, smirking. Calling for Thor to remove him each time anyone wanted to pass unkissed was just too bothersome.

„Fandral, don't just sit here, go help them!" the warrior woman ordered, leaving.

The blond swordsman sighed, rose labouredly from Jane's low lumpy couch and grabbed two handsful of the straw goats, stars and little figurines Loki had been weaving these past hours. From the adjacent room, he heard squabbling and curses.

„Thor, stop, you're toppling it!"

„Worry not, Jane, I ..."

„That close to the wall, we can't reach the sockets anyway."

Entering the room, Fandral saw exasperated Erik standing, pointing at a row of dents in the back wall of the kind in which the mortals stored their lightning power, now barely visible through the branches of the artifact the lady Jane had purchased. Christmas tree, she had called it. Resembling a sapling fir (not taller than herself), but made of a substance called plastic. There weren't any real firs to be had in this smalltown, she had stated, and an artificial one wouldn't needle.

By now, the ridiculous thing was decked in tinsel, red Christmas balls and purple ribbons, as well as some dark threads with candle-like attachements strung up on them (or hanging down, or pointing any direction, really). The mistress of the household was crawling under it, cursing screws and angles, while Thor untangled himself from the candle thread he had apparently just wrapped around.

„Power shall not be a problem, Erik." said the thunderer, angrily shaking off the last of the strands from around his wrist. „See here ..."

Just as Jane emerged from underneath the 'tree', Thor grabbed the plug and let force flow. The fake-candle-chain glowed like emerging suns, then exploded. The lights went out; so too did the music about jingling bells they had had playing from some we-cannot-afford-a-bard-device in the living room. Blue little bolts frizzled all over the fake tree, which started to melt and smoulder, emitting thick black stinking smoke. From a fist-sized knob under the ceiling, a siren shrilled. So the mortals had fire alarm without Heimdall? There was shouting from the kitchen.

Fandral grabbed the lady, slung her over his shoulder and carried her outside to safety. From the corner of his eye, in the flickering lightning light, he saw sir Erik wielding a bright red container. Hopefully something magic, thought the warrior.

They gathered outside. The building would need quite some venting. Fandral carefully set the lady Jane on her feet without touching any … touchy parts when seeing Thor stalk towards them, face blackened with soot, covered in white foam from head to toes.

Hogun still had the lady Darcy slung over his shoulder. She was feebly whacking his butt with an oblong metal sheet, grousing about 'brownies'. Fandral really didn't want to know.

„Enough with this realm's Yuletide customs!" boomed the god of thunder, angry. Clouds gathered above them. „It's time to set up everything as it should be. You will clean up here." His stern gaze swept the gathered company. „Lady Jane? May I ask for your StarkPhone? Mine is out of order, I fear. Please invoke that connecting web! I shall need instructions on where to find what we need here."

The next day Volstagg was on guarding Loki duty, and that meant they occupied the kitchen. Judging from the heavenly smells the god of mischief had been tormenting the household with, they had a huge supply of gingerbread on stock, and a roast in the making. Of course Volstagg wouldn't share any tidbids in advance.

Fandral decided to go outside and get some fresh air. As he stepped out onto the porch, the lady Darcy bumped into him, who had been running looking back over her shoulder.

„Jane? Jane, Erik, come and see that. Your lover's flying in with our Christmas tree. Oooops. Sorry, sorry, my fault." She glanced up at Fandral quickly, then squeezed past as he moved to hold the door open.

Outside, a shadow fell. Prince Thor came flying in bearing a tree taller then Freyrs most prized oaks on Vanaheim. Its trunk, covered in furrowed reddish bark, was about four times as thick as Thor was tall, the root ball larger than the lady Jane's house. The lowest branch, when standing, would be so high up that the highest buildings in this village could fit under it with room to spare. The tufty lush green crown whafted the pleseant scent of coniferous trees over them as the god – tiny in comparison – shook and adjusted it. „Give way!" He boomed, gathering clouds and power.

Just as everyone had gathered, watching, the thunderer brought Mjölnir's power down mightily. Into the smoking crater he dropped the tree while the first raindrops fell. This was indeed a worthy tree for the Aesirs' celebration. Even the realm eternal had none better.

„You see, Jane," the crown prince shouted happily, „THAT is a real tree, fit for us gods. Now let us eat, my friends, I am famished. What is there for dinner?"

The lady Jane was appropriately speechless. Sir Erik was, too, while the warriors cheered. Fandral expected Loki to make some bitter jibe, but oddly, the lady Darcy instead had a complaint. With a sorrowful mien, she handed lady Jane one of these picture-displaying devices.

„Face it, honey. He's kidnapped General Sherman."

The swordsman could not fathom what Thor's past battles on this planet had to do with the situation at hand. Or was that general a foe to be sacrificed? Well, there would be storytelling later.

That evening they had goose roast with red cabbage, an angry call from the secretary of the environment on one of these Midgardian far-call devices, another more collected one from agent Phillip, and a request for exclusive pictures from Toni the Man of Iron. The lady Darcy dealt with all these issues, then uncovered sequences of moving pictures for them all to watch. Apparently, many mortals were in possession of moving pictures recording devices, and unsurprisingly, a lot of them had wished to commemmorate Thor's latest quest.

They really should bring such things back to Asgard.