Merry Christmas everyone! Lately, I've found some time to write and, feeling very much in the Christmas spirit this year, I conjured up this idea and found the time to write it down before Christmas! I hope you all enjoy it! (Remember, reviews are appreciated and the only way I can become better!)
Christmas Time in Konoha
Christmas. The holiday season that is characterized by flashing lights, packed shopping centers, wrapping gifts, and a child's delight at opening said gifts. A season that usually puts a smile on people's faces, but a frown on Tsunade's. She could never fully appreciate the appeal of Christmas, for she always felt that it had become too commercialized. Where people wanted flashing lights, she didn't want a migraine. Where people fought in malls over the last ninja action figure, she just wanted to, quietly, find a nice gift for Shizune to thank her for putting up with her drinking and gambling…again. But could she ever get what she wanted? No. And this Christmas, things just kept going wrong left and right.
For example, the merchant caravan that was supposed to arrive to replenish local shops for Christmas arrived two weeks ago instead of a month ago, further heightening the Christmas shopping madness that seemed to infect every mother, girlfriend, and desperate husband/boyfriend in the village. That was only the beginning, however. When December 1st rolled around, the usual man who was to decorate the entire village didn't show. He only worked one week out of the year, and that was to cover the village from head to toe in Christmas decorations and he didn't show! An infuriated Tsunade tracked him down herself and, when she finally found him, he told her that he didn't want to do it this year. Of course, having no one else to decorate, she forced him to do it, and she regretted that action in two days.
To clarify, yes, Tsunade hated how commercialized Christmas had become, but she couldn't deny how beautiful the "classic Christmas" decorations looked. Where some saw pinks and blues and silvers as appropriate, she truly loved reds, greens, and golds. However, the decorator ignored all of this completely and chose to spite Tsunade by covering buildings with a random assortment of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Easter decorations.
This action forced Tsunade to search for a suitable replacement or in this case, replacements since it was now the day before Christmas and the village needed to be decorated. Unfortunately, the only people she could gather up on such short notice were her last choices for the job and three of those four people currently stood in front of her: Sakura, Sai, and Kakashi.
"Sakura, where's Naruto?" She asked, growing heavily aggravated.
'What an odd assortment this team is…' Tsuande thought to herself.
"We decided not to tell him about this, Tsunade-sama. You know how he always finds a way to mess up whatever task is given to him," Sakura replied.
"Tsunade-sama, may I ask what happened to the usual man who decorates for the village?" Kakashi inquired.
The slug queen sighed, "We had to fire him."
At that precise moment, a scream of terror rang clear inside the office punctuated with cries of "No, no. Not the fireball jutsu. Oh, please Kami, not this."
Tsunade glanced in the direction of the noise before looking back at the three shinobi before her, Sakura and Kakashi wearing horrified expressions on their face and Sai…was just being Sai.
"Literally," Tsunade added.
Sakura gulped before asking, "W-What do we need to do?"
The Hokage nodded and retrieved a scroll from inside her desk before handing it to Sakura.
"This contains the instructions on how to decorate the village properly. If all of you hurry, you should finish by midnight, or just in time for Christmas. Now, the storage unit across the village contains all the decorations you need, so stop wasting time and get decorating."
As the three shinobi left her office, Tsunade took a deep breath and sighed while rubbing her eyes, hoping they could pull this off.
Sakura, Sai, and Kakashi stood outside of the building where the Hokage's office was located. Sakura was skimming over the scroll before she looked up and stated:
"Alright. So, if you, Sai, take the eastern portion of the village, I'll take the northern portion, and Kakashi-sensei, you take the western and southern portion, then we should have this done by ten-thirty tonight," Sakura smiled before blinking as she noticed that Kakashi was nowhere to be found.
She looked at Sai and asked, "Where did Kakashi-sensei go?"
The pale boy shrugged, "He said something about us being able to handle this on our own and walked away."
The pink-haired kunoichi grumbled, mentally noting to bury all of his Icha Icha books deep in the woods before grabbing Sai and pulling him towards the Christmas decoration storage unit.
Neither of them expected to see the copious amount of decorations that they saw when the door was raised on the unit. The ten-foot high, thirty-foot deep building was filled to the brim with decorations and seemed to nearly be pouring out of the building itself. Sakura and Sai set to work unloading all of the Christmas decorations when the worst possible person could have found them: Naruto.
"Hey guys! What's up?" The blonde shouted as he leapt down from the trees and stood beside them before blinking at the decorations, "What's going on?"
Sai looked to Sakura to response and the kunoichi replied, "Oh, Tsunade-sama wants us to do inventory and we're just finishing up!"
Naruto blinked, "But Christmas is tomorrow and the decorations haven't been up so why would you be doing inventory?"
'The one time he had to be smart, the one time.' Sakura thought as she tried to think of a response.
Suddenly, when Sai opened his mouth, Sakura panicked before sighing in relief as the pale shinobi said, "Tsunade thought that the village needed new decorations, so she kept the old ones down this year. Since decorations will be going on sale once the holidays are over, it will be the perfect time to buy new ones. So, we have to do inventory to see exactly want we will need to buy to replace the old ones."
Naruto nodded and smiled, "Oh! Okay! Do you guys need help?"
Sakura shook her head, "NO! I mean, no thanks Naruto. We're almost done anyway."
The blonde looked a little hurt before replying, "Alright then…I guess I'll just go to the holiday discount day at Ichiraku's then…"
Sai and Sakura told him goodbye before getting back to work.
However, they didn't know that the blonde, upon rounding the corner pressed himself against the building and began spying on them and was surprised to see that they continued to unload the decorations.
'So, they ARE putting up the decorations like Kakashi-sensei said….but they don't want me to help…' He sighed before smirking, 'I've watched the decorator do this before, it takes him weeks, they won't get done then I can step in and save Christmas!'
At around nine-thirty that night, Sakura screamed in frustration and threw down the wreath she was holding, "That's it! I quit! I quit I quit I QUIT!"
Sai blinked at her, "But Sakura, Tsunade said we could be finished by ten-thirty, just in an hour. "
A very frazzled Sakura looked at him, "That was when we had three people, Sai! Three! AND not even a quarter of the village is decorated! This is impossible! I'm going home!"
With that, she stormed off, leaving Sai very confused before he left as well, the decorations strewn in the street.
Once they left and quiet settled back upon the village, Naruto emerged from his hiding position, having followed them around all-day and waiting for them to finally give up as he expected. Making sure the area was clear, he created over one hundred shadow clones and called their attention to him as he stood atop a large pile of boxes.
"Alright everyone! It's just a few hours to Christmas and, as you can see, the village isn't decorated. I don't know about all of you, but I'll be damned if this is the first year without decorations while I'm around!" He smiled as the clones cheered, "Now, despite their best attempts, Sai and Sakura failed, so now it's up to us!"
The mob of clones cheered again before Naruto began delegating jobs. Twenty were to go to the village center to put up and decorate the large Christmas and the surrounding square, twenty more were divided up between the four village entrances and decorate the gates, and the remaining sixty were scattered amongst the village to decorate apartment buildings, store fronts, some houses, etc. Finally, when the clones dispersed to begin their tasks Naruto went home and finished wrapping the three small gifts that he had saved for the past three months to buy. And while the wrapping left some to be desired, he over compensated by tying massive bows on them. Once he finished, he sealed them inside a seal on one of his gloves and joined the clones in the square that were stringing several Christmas lights from nearby buildings to the giant star atop the tree. He aided them for several hours by wrapping ribbon around lampposts, hanging ornaments and wreaths, stringing up more lights, etc.
Finally, Naruto glanced at his watch and noticed, to his alarm, that it was four-thirty in the morning. He sat down on a nearby bench and pulled out a scroll, he studied it carefully before following along with the instructions as he moved through each hand sign. He rolled up the scroll and when he stood up, he smiled as he saw snowflakes beginning to fall slowly. He leapt up to the roof of a nearby building and smiled as the entire village was slowly beginning to be covered in a blanket of snow.
As dawn began to break through the created snow clouds and over Hokage mountain, Naruto thanked then dispersed all of the clones as they finished their jobs. He stood next to the massive decorated tree in the village and just smiled. He felt very proud that he had succeeded were others failed, but he was mostly proud that he had saved a beautiful Christmas tradition of Konoha.
Slowly, the villagers emerged from their houses and apartments when they discovered it had snowed and Naruto smiled as he heard the shrieks and laughter of children as they played. He smiled even more as he heard many villagers comment on the beauty of the decorations this year.
"Naruto Uzumaki!"
He heard a voice shout and he turned to see a winter-weather clad Tsunade marching towards him.
"Hey! Granny Tsunade! Merry Christmas!" He called while smiling.
The older woman stood before him, "Did you do all of this? When I went to bed last night, I knew that the village wasn't decorated and now…"
Naruto smiled, "Yeah, I did. I had to do it. The decorations at Christmas time were always my favorite part of Christmas when I was a kid and I didn't want the villagers to not have that same joy."
Tsunade blinked at his response before a voice from behind her called, "Naruto!"
She watched as Naruto ran past her and greeted Sakura, Sai, and Kakashi.
"Naruto, did you do all of this?" Sakura asked.
The blonde just grinned before stating, "I got you guys something!"
He unsealed the presents from his glove and gave them to their intended person respectively. He grinned as Sai actually cracked a small smile when he opened the gift to see a very high quality set of ornate paint brushes; Kakashi nearly fainted when he opened his present to see a signed edition of Jiraiya's unpublished book; and Sakura hugged Naruto when he gave her a new pair of ninja gloves and a pair of jade green hair clips that matched her eyes.
Naruto smiled as Sakura released him, "I'm glad you all liked them so well!"
They all thanked him before Sakura blushed, "But, we didn't get you anything Naruto."
He smiled, "Hey! Christmas isn't about receiving, it's about giving! And it's about being with those you care for the most."
Kakashi smiled, "Well said Naruto."
The blonde smirked, "But, if you all really feel so bad about it, a couple of bowls of ramen wouldn't be so bad."
The three of them laughed and agreed to his request.
Tsunade smiled as she watched the scene before her. Naruto's word stuck with her the most and she realized that, despite the commercialization of Christmas, she shouldn't let it damper her holiday spirits and ruin true meaning of Christmas: family and friends.
"Merry Christmas, Tsunade-san!" Shizune's voice reached her ears and she turned to see the young woman holding a gift out to her.
Tsunade smiled and opened it, "Shizune, this is a very expensive sake set, but thank you."
The young woman blushed a bit, "It was nothing, Tsunade-san."
The older woman smiled and gave Shizune her Christmas present to which the young woman enthusiastically opened to find a new and beautiful kimono for everyday wear.
"Tsunade-san, I-"
The woman shrugged, "I'm tired of seeing you in that old thing. I thought you'd want something new."
Tsunade blinked when Shizune hugged her before she hugged her back, "Merry Christmas, Shizune."
The two released when a snowball, thrown by Naruto, clocked Tsunade right in the side of the head.
Sakura stared wide-eyed as Naruto merely laughed at Tsunade's expression before a giant boulder of snow buried him.
"Just because you did all this, doesn't mean I'd let you get away with that!" Tsunade declared before all of them began sharing a laugh while snow slowly continue to fall on the village.
The End