Hello everyone! This is, believe it or not, I...ThurinRanger! No I am not dead, just sort of been taking a break from ffn, I guess. This is the third story in the 2016 Fanfiction Christmas Countdown. The first two stories have been written by my illustrious friends LadyLindariel and Violets and Lilies, and can be found on their profile pages. I will give the directions to find the next story in the countdown at the end of this one-Merry Christmas and happy reading!

Edit: I'm sick today so very sorry about posting this so late! I'm sorry if it's not up to usual standards, not feeling that great :(

DISCLAIMER: As we all always say I do, believe it or not, not own any of this stuff. You do know I'm a starving author, right? I'm just playing, splashing mah little hands in all the genius we here on ffn enjoy parodying perhaps overmuch ;)

Thranduil was doing it. Finally. His kingly duties has been pushed aside with the pomp and vigor with which he accompanied everything. His small child (Legolas, was it?) whom his wife had had the audacity to leave him with had been taken care of. He was now, at the fashionably late moment of forty-seven minutes past nine in the morning (Thranduil made sure to do everything fashionably), finally sweeping into his office, brushing aside the numerous flower arrangements for who-knows-what he had been okay-ing last time he had come in here.

He really disliked the place. Too dim, too lonely, too boring. The figure sitting opposite him at this point however, his complete opposite in style and all other matters, apparently enjoyed offices very much and seemed sorely offended by this one.

"Thranduil," Elrond intoned rather a bit too intensely, ill-disguising his impatience, the king thought (and expressed perfectly via his lovely eyebrows), "I received one of your invitations a few days ago, and I thought this was an inter-elven Christmas party-"

"And the problem is?," the elven-king drolled deliciously, letting his voice sink into such a profound thickness, lowness and laziness as would have given his speech-teacher a fit then and there. His eyebrows were rather proud of themselves.

"The invitations," the half-elf went on, flustered enough to let his artfully-placed circlet slip down, giving Thranduil a five-star view of the receding hairline the neighborhood had been whispering about for years, "are clearly biased towards your own people and preferences. The antlered quadrupeds peppered across the border-"

"Oh please, tell me any good elf from the Golden Woods or your Rivendell would not be enthused by my, 'antlered quadrupeds'", he scoffed, here pausing to make spot-on mockery of the Peredhel before him.

"Have you no sense of diplomacy?" Elrond spewed furiously, rising with a general clatter from the flower arrangements about him, knocking over the awful little squishy half-baked pencil-holder Legolas had made his father the Christmas before-for once Thranduil felt a flood of brotherly love for the Peredhel before him, as the awful little creation shattered its goopiness across his perfect floor. This sentiment, however, lasted but a second.

It did not take long for the illustrious elven-king to shake off the unpleasantness of the meeting-there was too much to be done to waste time on such emotions as irritation. Thranduil had whole days of his calendar staked out for all the emotions he had to put off on busy days like these. Those were the days people generally hid from him.

When the hot-chocolate bathing pools had been cooled to exactly the right temperature, the workers at the glitter station had been doubled, and splendidly-bedecked antler-encrusted headbands had been given to all, Thranduil finally gave himself time to breath. He would absolutely not let his pristine reputation for unrivaled parties be tarnished by this stupid idea of Elrond's, his colleague, the diplomat on steroids.

The other elves did not arrive on time, of course, and Thranduil spent the first half of the party overseeing the hasty removal of the now lukewarm hot-chocolate pools. When it was time for gifts his tiny, overly rebellious and disturbingly individualistic son hastily tossed aside the complete monogrammed wardrobe his kingly father had painstakingly acquired for him, offering Thranduil a messily wrapped package with a card adorably asking, in his sloppy handwriting, if they could watch Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer again this year. Again.

When the package turned out to be another dubious handmade creation of un-pinable style, the illustrious elven-king decided to have one of those days he staked out in his calendar for next week right now.

Needless to say some of us do Christmas better than others. And Gimli could never understand his pointy-eared princeling friend's singular dislike of the holiday...

Thank you all for reading, I sincerely hope you enjoyed! The next story in the countdown will be written by my other illustrious friend, Lily Lindsey-Aubery, tomorrow on the 21st, and will be in the Marvel fandom. She has yet to give me the title but you, my little Padawans, shall be able to locate it on her profile page. Anyways, I hope you all have a lovely holiday season! Don't forget the antlered quadrupeds (but perhaps hold off on the hot-chocolate pools)!

~Thurin