Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the house,
not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse.
That was a complete lie. In almost every sense of the word.
It was the week before Christmas, being December 18th, which still left a lot of days before Christmas. The Baudelaires and Quagmires did not live in a house, but rather a secret library. Everyone was stirring except for little Sunny. There was, however, no mouse. So that was twenty five percent, which is regrettably higher than my grade in physical education back at Prufrock Preparatory School.
Two souls were still in bed, one was one their way to the kitchen, and two were busy making breakfast.
Quigley stepped inside the dining room to see Isadora lining up some plates. Quigley's eyes went wide at the food.
"Hey…" he said half dazed. That smells good… he thought, eyes resting on each plate with bacon and eggs.
"Me and Klaus couldn't sleep, so we decided to surprise you all. Can you get Violet and Duncan for us?" Isadora said, before swatting her older brother's hand away. "No food until everyone is here."
Quigley frowned, before racing up to get his siblings. Isadora could hear a cry of outrage from either Duncan or Quigley — they sounded similar from this distance — followed by a slammed door.
Quigley came in, a bright red hue to his face.
"They most certainly are awake." He said calmly, and Isadora couldn't tell if she wanted to know why.
As Klaus brought in the remainder of the food and woke up Sunny, the six children gathered around the table, eating breakfast. There was an odd silence between Duncan, Quigley, and Violet, but Isadora left it as a silence.
Finally, the light turned to a brighter mood.
"It's almost Christmas, guys. Our first Christmas together." Duncan said.
The Baudelaires looked at Isadora with a small look of… guilt? Sadness? Some emotion not often associated with Christmas.
"Actually… this is our first Christmas, period." Violet finally said, much to the triplet's surprise.
"You're kidding." Isadora said, faking shock — it wasn't hard to fake, however.
"Our parents never celebrated it." Klaus said, a small tinge of annoyance to his tone.
"Trust us, you're going to love it." Quigley said, looking at their faces.
However, after the meal, the three Quagmires rendezvoused, a word here meaning 'went into the kitchen just the three of them to discuss this recent revelation'.
"So. How can we make the best Christmas ever?" Duncan asked.
"You know, if this isn't the best Christmas they've ever had, I think we should stop celebrating too." Quigley said, smirking. Only to be hit upside the head by Isadora.
"Really, Quigley? Be serious. We need to make this special."
"Presents might be difficult. We have no money." Duncan pointed out. It was true. Despite the immense wealth in form of the Quagmire Sapphires, it was impossible for them to access it. The only reason the children were getting by was Dewey had given the children, and was still giving, the children money each month for groceries. Even that was faltering however, as Dewey and Kit were having issues raising their daughter Beatrice since the fire of Hotel Denouement.
"We'll figure something out." Isadora said. "We always do."
Meanwhile, the Baudelaire children were holding their own conversation.
"So… should we get them presents? We still have a bit from Dewey…" Klaus said. While the Baudelaire children never celebrated Christmas, they most certainly understood how the whole event worked.
"Yeah. Odds are, the triplets are talking about making Christmas all fancy for us." Violet said.
"If only we could use the fortune." Klaus lamented, bringing up the fortune for the first time since Lemony had offered to take it out. But due to his life on the run, he couldn't.
There was an irony. The Baudelaire Fortune was to make the children's lives better, which a fortune of thirty two million dollars likely would. However, it caused all this misfortune for them and they couldn't even use it.
"We have to make our first Christmas together good. For their sake." Klaus said.
"We'll figure something out." Violet replied. "We always do."
And so, the next three days was hectic. The triplets worked like dogs finding odd jobs to do, simply so they could give the Baudelaires something special. The Baudelaires worked equally as hard, if not harder in Sunny's case.
It was a stressful three days, but by the end of all the shovelled driveways, single day events and whatnot, the six children could get the Quagmire's gifts. On a fourth day, the last day apart, the three Quagmires said they wanted to go visit their parents' graves alone — which they ultimately did, resulting in an unusually silent Quigley, an unusually comforting Duncan, and an unusually hysterical Isadora, all three sobbing softly to themselves on the ride back home, the presents for the Baudelaire three nearly forgotten.
And so they did. Somehow, or maybe because of, the children managed to time their jobs just right so that no one but their siblings knew. Duncan was already gone — buying presents for Isadora, he said, which wasn't a complete lie, he thought. As he left, Violet left as well.
As Isadora left, to go get fresh air, Klaus decided to visit the public library for new books. Both were lying, but somehow no one saw through the lies. Maybe they didn't think to look deeply into it.
Whatever the reason, it worked. Surprisingly well.
The last two days were spent indoors together. Christmas movies, game nights, anything and everything to come their way. The Baudelaires, not used to Christmas traditions, simply followed those of the Quagmires, albeit with some changes to account to the people present or some new ideas from the Baudelaires. Only one tradition from the Quagmires was skipped, how each year, they would open up a present from the tree, the rest lying in suspense. The rest were followed through.
Finally, Christmas morning came. Isadora and Quigley both woke up, and Isadora woke up Klaus, Quigley waking up Duncan and Violet, him coming out his hands in front of his eyes, murmuring something about children being in the house.
They all gathered around the little tree that had been given to them by Dewey — a private locker he had kept for seasonal stuff in the Hotel Denouement, saying they could use it too.
"Not like the Hotel needs it." Dewey said, a tone of comedy and sadness in his voice.
So they sat there, about to open presents, when the two sets of friends noticed something.
"You got us presents?" Duncan asked the Baudelaires.
"Of course we did. That's what friends are for." Violet said, blushing a little.
They all hugged in a cheerful moment, before opening their gifts. Each child had received only one or two gifts, but that was all they needed.
Violet had received a complete toolkit with just about everything she could ever need. Klaus got a Sunny got a book too, one titled The Incomplete History of Recipes(by some odd coincidence, that and The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations were completely different, no similarity in content, shape, author, or design other than title.)
Meanwhile, Isadora got a calligraphy pen set for writing poems or whatever else she wanted to write, Quigley got a guide to making maps as well supplies to do it, and Duncan a typewriter for his own, which had only been affordable because Violet bought it off of someone who was claiming they were desperate to get rid of it — Not that anyone in the room knew this, but in fact one of my typewriters, which was trying to be gotten rid of as evidence.
It wasn't the biggest Christmas ever, and in fact, because Violet would get the Baudelaire fortune in less than two years and the Quagmire in less than three, would stay their smallest, it was still memorable.
The six sat around, played, talked, cried — Isadora and Violet even managed to find eggnog, both with and without alcohol, which the children decided to have — Sunny wasn't allowed anywhere near the alcoholic, however.
After everything was said and done, Sunny's wonderful cooking ending the night with dessert, the couple's went to their rooms. The couples each did their own things together, enjoying the night.
In the end, it was the best Christmas they could have hoped for.
It was a night to be remembered.