"…hung by the chimney with care," hummed Xander Harris under his breath while he finished placing the last of his presents inside the Christmas stockings liberally festooned all over the massive granite fireplace of the New Council's Cleveland Slayers House. Various stockings there were embroidered with young girls' names in many other written languages than English, since these warrior women charged with defending the city's Hellmouth against hostile demons and other supernatural scum came to the Slayers House from all over the world.

Even if they normally didn't celebrate Christmas or practiced different Yuletide customs, every Slayer tonight sleeping snug in their beds upstairs instantly joined in when offered their own stockings by Xander. After all, nobody was dumb enough to pass up the chance for even more Xmas loot!

It got even better when the older Slayers told the newer girls about Mr. Xander's usual hand-made gifts done in his spare time. The exquisite wooden stakes personally carved by him were cherished by every single female recipient from the Prime Slayers themselves, Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane, to the most inexperienced noob hacking up inhaled vamp dust for the very first time.

Giving a satisfied look at the filled stockings, Xander went over to the enormous live pine tree draped with lights, tinsel, and colorful adornments at the building lobby corner and checked the water level in the stand. Great, there was still more than enough water to keep the tree in good condition until a couple days later on when a whooping mob of superstrong Slayers would bodily haul the pine removed of all its Christmas decorations to the hole already dug in the back yard and plant it in there, just like every one of the others from past years.

Thinking about that, Xander grinned while glancing up at the ceiling rafters high above. It'd be pretty hard to top last year when they actually had to remove pieces of shredded present wrapping caught there, the result of a whole bunch of squealing girls enthusiastically opening their presents-

"HO-HO-HO!" a stranger's voice boomed from behind Xander.

Twisting around hurriedly, Xander halted dead in his tracks to gape at this unexpected visitor…who clearly had come from nowhere else but through the unlit fireplace attached to the brick chimney leading to the roof. There were some other clues to his identity, not the least of which was the snowy white beard, a scarlet jacket and pants, plus the pair of spotless black boots.

Not believing he was actually saying this, Xander tried, "Uh…hello, Santa?"

Through a pair of half-moon glasses, Santa Claus himself twinkled merrily at the stupefied man wearing an eyepatch. "Alexander Lavelle Harris, as I live and breathe! It's good to see you've been a nice boy for all of this year!"

The Spirit of Christmas looked rather thoughtful after saying those last words. He plucked out from the air a sheet of paper to closely consult this. "Yes, indeed, quite different from when you and Anya Jenkins were definitely very naughty in Sunnydale! Not to mention that time, and that one, and…"

Santa trailed off after coming to a part of the paper sheet which appeared as if it'd been scorched by flames, to then start again most incredulously while reading from there, "…is this even possible?"

An unusual expression of bittersweet smugness passed over Xander's face. "Could you be a little bit more specific, Mr. Claus? Me and Anya, we did a lot of wild stuff together in our bed—"

"Yes, I know" briskly interrupted Santa Claus, vanishing the paper with another flick of his fingers.

"Anyway, I'm here to hand over your Christmas gift which was mutually set up by two people quite a while ago. I apologize for the long delay, but they were really insistent that only the finest natural ingredients from their proper region would suffice for you, so it took until now for everything to be ready. Tah-dah!" proudly finished St. Nicholas during his reach into this stout man's bulging sack carried over one shoulder to next produce from there a small box wrapped in snowflake-art packaging and tied up in a bright green bow.

Bending over to place the gift on the lobby floor, Santa Claus then straightened up to declare, "Merry Christmas to all!"

With a loud whoosh! sound, Saint Nick flew backwards into the fireplace, waving goodbye to a dumbfounded Xander along the way, and ascended out of sight up through the chimney.

His lower jaw dropping to nearly touch his chest, Xander stood there for a few moments trying to gather his scattered wits. He finally muttered, "Well, that's new."

Xander's attention became drawn to the small box innocently resting upon the floor. He warily eyed that item, and then gave an equally suspicious glance around at the Slayers House lobby. Just like the past few minutes, he was once again alone in here. If this was some sort of practical joke by his charges, all of who'd enjoy laughing their heads off by making Xander think a for-real Santa Claus visit had just taken place, they should've already jumped out now from their hiding places and yelled "Gotcha!"

But…nope, nothing like that. The lobby was as peaceful as ever, with the pine tree's Christmas lights glowing brightly, and numerous presents piled high surrounding the tree.

Scratching his chin, Xander sidled over to stand by the small box next to his shoes and crouched down to examine it further without touching this for now. It looked completely ordinary, a cubical object just large enough to contain a softball, maybe.

Once again searching around the otherwise deserted room to no avail, Xander tentatively called out, "Wils? If you're there, okay, you got me, big time. That was a neat trick, pulling off some major mojo with your magic. Whoever that guy was, he really had the Santa thing down pat!"

There was a pause in the lobby, eventually ended with Xander trying a final hopeful "Willow?"

Total silence.

Still in his crouch, Xander shook his head in slow wonder. "No way! Our lives are weird, sure, but that weird? Why would me and nobody else be the one tonight to get a visit from… Well, it doesn't need to be said, does it? On the other hand, wacky stuff like that can and does happen to us, too."

Xander stared at the box again. "Huh. A present for me from two people? From a long time ago? Finest natural ingredients? Doesn't ring a bell, any of that- Hey."

This curt grunt of discovery was due to Xander now seeing on top of the box a little card face down attached by a short length of twine to the green bow. Extending a finger, Xander flipped the card over to read aloud from there:

"Happy holidays from Angel and Spike."

The box promptly exploded in Xander's face.

A horde of Slayers in their nightclothes poured down the main stairway into the house lobby. All of them carried ready their favorite hand weapons, eager to confront and slay whatever had just done the noisy BANG! on the first floor and woke up everybody.

Once there in the room, these girls skidded to an abrupt stop, spreading out to gawk at how Xander Harris was lurching around in circles while sputtering inarticulate threats against two certain long-gone vampires, otherwise unharmed but dripping from every inch of his body a repulsive brownish sludge which reeked like—

At the forefront of the crowd, Iŋgá Somby, a Saami Slayer from Norway whose family in Scandinavia had for generations herded reindeer joyfully said in her accented English, "Mister Xander, he make smell like home, all covered with best boazu shit!"

Author's Note: Starting off this Christmas series is the chapter called 'Season's Greetings, Spike' in my story here entitled '10 More Encounters That Spike Never Talked About.' Next comes the standalone story 'A Visit from St. Nicholas' which leads to what you've just read…