Disclaimer: 'Tis the season to be generous! I would like to thank the creators of Scarecrow and Mrs. King for creating the series and its characters and for being generous enough to let people like me use them in fanfiction like this. If I'd made any money from this, I'd be equally generous, but since I haven't, we'll just have to say that it's the thought that counts.

The song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" was written by Edward Pola and George Wyle.

Explanation: This is just a fun little story about our favorite spies and how they spend Christmas. It takes place during the third season of the series.

In the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," the line that's always intrigued me is the part about "scary ghost stories." I never really associated ghost stories with Christmas before I heard that song. I looked it up and found out that telling ghost stories at Christmas is an English tradition, or at least, it used to be. I think the website I read said that people might do it other places, too, where Christmastime is snowy and people spend most of their time inside around their fireplaces, kind of like a campfire atmosphere.

Krampus is also an old Christmas tradition. There are websites devoted to it if you're curious.

The Most Wonderful Time

By Jestress

"There'll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago"

- From "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year"

Chapter 1: Parties for hosting

"It's the most wonderful time of the year . . ."

Someone had brought a portable stereo and a cassette of Christmas songs to the Christmas party in the bullpen. The room was decorated with red, green, and gold garland, and some people had added extra holiday touches to their desks and cubicles, like Christmas cards, paper cutouts of reindeer and snowmen, mini Christmas trees, and even paper snowflakes they'd made themselves from some of the Agency's computer paper. Ordinarily, Billy would have chewed them out for wasting office resources, but around this time of year, he tended to look the other way.

At the moment, Billy was handing out the fruitcakes his wife always made. Amanda came up to him and traded one of her trays of cookies for one of the fruitcakes. For about the last half hour, she'd been making her way around the room, happily giving everyone one of her usual trays of Christmas cookies. In the last couple of years, Amanda's baked goods had become much-anticipated office treats. Lee had noticed that people tended to be extra nice to Amanda at this time of year, probably in the hopes of getting on her cookie list. Quite often, because Amanda was usually in a good mood around Christmas, their ploys worked.

Lee watched Francine smile and thank Amanda, praising the double chocolate cookies that Amanda had included on her tray.

"Chocolate," Lee thought, nibbling on a cookie of his own. "The one sure way to Francine's heart."

Really, everyone was in a festive mood . . . except for Lee.

When he was younger, he'd often be one of the wilder ones at the Christmas party, or any party for that matter. It wasn't that he was big on the holidays in general, it was more that parties were great places to meet women. However, these days, there was only one woman whose attention he wanted, and she was too busy handing out plates of cookies to pay attention to him. Amanda might think that he was just being a Scrooge, but right now, all he really wanted was for the two of them to be by themselves upstairs in the Q-Bureau.

Lee's eyes followed Amanda around the room as she gave cookies to Leatherneck and Mrs. Marston. She'd started acquiring a stash of goodies of her own as people returned the favor.

When Lee saw Amanda struggling to balance a plate of fudge on top of the gingerbread and fruitcake she was already holding, Lee picked up an empty computer paper box and came over to help her.

"Put everything in here," he said. "It'll be easier to carry. Actually, why don't you let me take that?"

"Thank you!" Amanda said, gratefully letting Lee take the various plastic-wrapped Christmas treats off of her hands.

"Got all your cookies delivered?"

"Yeah," Amanda said. "You know, I think I might leave some of these treats in the Q-Bureau for us to snack on. The boys are going to have enough sugar with the cookies Mother and I are going to bake later and all the stuff that their friends—"

"You're baking more cookies?"

"Well, the boys would be disappointed if we didn't have some for them, and I promised some for the church choir when we go caroling."

"You're going caroling with your church choir? I didn't know that you were even a member of the choir."

"Actually, I'm not. They recruit extra people to go caroling at Christmastime. While we're caroling, we collect donations for some of the charitable programs our church runs. Mother and I both volunteered to help."

Lee nodded. Amanda was always ready to support a good cause.

"I can't believe all the stuff you do around this time of year."

"Christmas is special," Amanda said with a smile. "I try to make the most of it."

Lee smiled back, but his heart sank a little. Christmas was one of Amanda's busiest times of the year, which made it next to impossible for him to see her outside of the office. Yet, Lee had been hoping to spend some time with her over the holidays. For once, he was taking Christmas off.

When his uncle, Colonel Clayton, had come to see him earlier in the year, the two of them had talked about getting together for Christmas. Lee had persuaded his uncle that spending Christmas in the D.C. area would be more fun than spending it at an Air Force base, so he would be spending most of the holidays entertaining him. However, since Lee knew that Amanda was also taking time off, he'd hoped that they could also get together, just the two of them. But, between her baking and church activities and time with her family, there wasn't much chance of that.

"Why don't we take these things up to the Q-Bureau now?" Lee suggested, hoping to steal a few minutes alone with Amanda.

Amanda glanced around the room, checking to make sure that there was no one else who she needed to wish a Merry Christmas.

Ephraim Beaman chose that moment to stumble over to the two of them.

"Have you seen Fffrrrancine?" he slurred.

Evidently, he was participating in what had become his own special Christmas tradition.

"No," Lee said quickly, "and we have to be going."

He gently took Amanda's arm and steered her out of the bullpen and away from Beaman. Beaman would eventually find Francine, if he didn't pass out first. Lee felt a little sorry for Francine, but he knew that she would handle the situation.

"So what do you have planned with your uncle?" Amanda asked as they reached the Q-Bureau.

"Oh, seeing the usual sights, dinner at his club . . . nothing really special."

"Sometimes just spending time with someone close to you is special enough."

"Yeah," Lee said softly, giving Amanda a long look.

"I'm sure that your uncle will enjoy whatever you two do together," Amanda said optimistically.

"Mm," Lee said non-commitally. He didn't really think that was true, although the two of them had come to a better understanding of each other during the last year.

"Are you giving him anything for Christmas?"

"We've never been big on exchanging presents," Lee said. "When I was a kid, he used to take me shopping at Christmastime and have me pick out what I wanted. There were never any surprise gifts."

"You could change that tradition this year," Amanda suggested.

"I wouldn't know what to get him."

"Bet you'll never guess what I'm getting you for Christmas."

"You already gave me a gift," Lee said, pointing to the plate of cookies on his desk.

"That's just what I give to everyone. I've got something extra for you this year."

"What?"

"Not telling!" Amanda said with a grin. "It's a surprise. You'll just have to wait and see."

Lee was a little worried. All he'd gotten for Amanda was the same sort of scarf he'd given to everyone else. That was all he usually bought for everyone. If Amanda was giving him something special, that meant that he'd have to buy something extra for her, too, and he had no idea what to get her.

But, then Lee smiled to himself. If Amanda was giving him a Christmas gift, that meant that she was planning on seeing him over the holidays. She might not realize it, but she'd just promised him the very gift he'd been hoping for.