Merry Christmas guys! or almost Christmas... Well, whatever! Here's a little something for you guys! And remember, stay warm, and have a good holiday season! :)

It was early morning. The sun hadn't even risen, leaving the sky a slowly lightening pale blue. With a sigh, Roach rubbed his eyes and stretched, a small grunt of content rumbled in his throat when he heard his spine crack and loosen. It was then he looked at the calender, and his content had sunk and vanished. Christmas. December 25th.

So what was it about today that made him suddenly so stiff? Well this year he hadn't gotten anyone anything, and he could be sure Meat wouldn't take too kindly to that. On top of that, there was always a list of things he usually had to help with when it came to getting everyone else in the holiday spirit. He never really had the chance to sit back and enjoy the day. The only bright side was that his cousin and his girlfriend both agreed to stop by the base this afternoon. That was all he had to look forward to.

Regardless, he got dressed and cleaned himself up before leaving the room with Roadie, Robot, and Rocket (they were put in rooms based on callsign names (works well for organization!)) still dead asleep. Maybe he could wake them up later... Maybe...

After breakfast, which was just toast and jam for him, he walked into the rec room in hopes of finding something to do. He hadn't figured that he come across five men standing in there setting up a tree. Now their definition of "setting up a tree" is get some cheap ass, fake one at some store nearby that's like British Walmart or whatever and decorate with about of random things they dug up since they didn't have any really ordiments. Last year it was just covers in a ton of used mags with a long string of paperclips as garlend. That year they had even stuck a paper star on top to complete it. Meat even took a picture and sent it to his buddies at home.

This year, he came across Meat and Royce bickering over who gets on whose shoulders to put the paper star on top (which had changed to a big paper ninja star that was signed by Poet in the center with small handwriting), Toad stringing on the paperclip garlend, Chemo hanging up the ammo clips, and Scarecrow hanging on tinsil (since he got his hands on some in his down time). It made Roach chuckle a little, it looked like they'd have a repeat of last year.

"Need a hand there, guys?" He asked.

Meat and Royce both stopped bickering a moment and looked to him.

"Hey man!" Meat said first. "Could you tell Royce to stop being such a pussy and get on my shoulders? We need to get this star on the tree."

"No." Royce said, yet again. "I'm NOT getting on your shoulders! Last time I did, you dropped me and I had a cuncussion for a week!"

"You were moving around!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

Roach sighed heavily. "Meat, don't bother..."

"Then you get on my shoulders and put the star on the tree then!" Meat insisted.

With that, Roach stepped back. "Uh, no! That's not what I-!"

"Please Roach?" Royce pleaded.

"Yeah, come on, man!" Meat added.

Now Roach grumbled undertone. "Fine..." He then got onto Meat's shoulders, and was handed the paper star.

"Just clip the thing to the top, alright?" Royce instructed.

"Yeah, yeah..." Roach sighed as Meat walked towards the tree. He pushed his bare feet into the man's ribs and gripped his head with his free hand to stay on. Much to Meat's displeasure.

"Dude! You're gonna kill me! Loosen up a little, would you?" Meat gagged. In responce, Roach pulled his feet up a little higher. To this the former continued to complain. "Ugh! You're feet! GOD!"

"Shut up!" Roach snapped back as he leaned into the tree and clipped the star onto the top, then admired his work a moment.

"Alright, you're too heavy!" And with that, Roach was thrown backwards to land on the couch. He simply laid on his back for a long minute, admiring the tree so far. It actually didn't look so bad. Not really at all. Sure it was covered in ammo and would never make it into an airport, but it was nice.

From behind he heard someone laugh. He was quick to reconize the accent and turned over to peak over the arm of the couch. There in the door stood Captain MacTavish holding a mug and hadn't truly bothered to get dressed up. He just stood there with a blanket over his shoulders and still wearing some flanal pants. Not that there was any training anyways. It was a day off.

"Nice job on the tree there." He commented with a smile. "You okay, Roach?"

He nodded. "Yup."

Meat was rubbing the spot on his chest where Roach had pressed his feet in. "I'm not! You have boney ass heels, man!"

"Stop being such a baby." Royce retorted.

Roach rolled his eyes and looked back to MacTavish. "Is Ghost getting out of bed soon?"

In responce to his question, the Captain leaned against the door frame. "Funny you'd mention that. I stopped by his room earlier to get him out of bed, and you told me 'fuck off'. So I came here to get some people to help me drag his lazy ass out of bed. Wanna help?"

"Sure." Roach pulled off the couch and he was followed by Meat, Royce, Archer, and Scarecrow. Toad had said that he'd prefer to stay out of Ghost's rage.

Now if Scrooge were a member of the Task Force, he would be Ghost. The man HATED Christmas with a passion. Never told anyone why, but he absolutely hated it. All he ever did on the holiday was lay around in bed and lock his room. He did that soemtiems on Christmas Eve too, saying that no one should bug him.

Thankfully, he hadn't locked the door. Now their Captain had breifed them on this mission, and they knew exactly what to do. Putting a finger over his lips, MacTavish turned the doorknob and cracked the door open ever so slowly. The room was dark, the binds down so that not even the beginnings of the sun rise outside could lighten the space. Now a bright stream of light came from the hall as the five stepped inside and crept towards the bed.

Ghost was curled up tightly in the covers, having fallen back to sleep. He even sleeps with his mask on! Also, they could smell alcohol. Maybe he went on a bar trip last night. They would never know.

Roach, Meat, Archer, and Scarecrow all took hold of the corners of the bed sheets and pulled them off, making sort of a hamic that they all kept a firm grip on as they started to carry the still sleeping Ghost out of the room. MacTavish kept the door wide open, because those things had a spring and closed on their own. Once outside, they carried the XO down the hall and then outside.

The sun let off a gold cast over everything, recently shoved snow that was piled up in snowbanks on the sides of the paths glistened in the light. They walked towards one, and everyone swung the sheet back, then in one even and well lanned toss forward, they sent Ghost flying up and straight into the top of the snowbank. He rolled off the backside and sunk intot he looser packed snow at the bottom in a man shaped hole.

"MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS, GHOST!" They all shouted in unisession.

Their responce was a string of groggy curses before Ghost's head popped up from the snow. "THE BLOODY HELL?" He even attempted to scramble over the snowbank to get at them, but the bed sheet and covers were so tightly wrapped around him that he trip and hit the snow face first. When he pulled his face up agian, flakes stuck to his eyelashes and his mask.

MacTavish helped him out as he laughed. "I told you to get out of bed, mate."

Ghost glared, then seemed to push past to leave, but when the Captain didn't bother to watch him leave he swung around with snow in his hand before throwing it. It smashed into the back of his head. But of course, MacTavish only grinned.

In a matter of seconds, he had turned on his heels, scooped up some snow and threw it back at Ghost, hitting him right in the face.

This became the epic snowball fight between the two, which the four others stood and watched with much interest. In the end, it came to finish when both men had charged and shoved snow down each others' shirts. Now soaking wet with melted snow, they called a quits and went back inside to warm up again and change into something dry.

After that, it was all very amusing to Roach, he wouldn't forgot the rest even if he tried.