Notes: Okay, this is my little holiday fic. Fluff fluff fluff and some more fluff! And perhaps even some drama thrown in there. And yes, it's a crossover of SPN/Firefly/Christmas Carol (Is that even allowed?) I tried to make this as P.C. as possible, not too religious and also adding in some Hanukkah stuff. If one is offended by Christmas in anyway….I suggest not reading holiday fics.

P.S. This is a holiday fic.

Also…..This is going off of the Muppet Christmas carol….so just FYI…it's not as wondrous as Charles Dickens….

Disclaimer: I don't own SPN. I don't own Firefly. And I do not own Christmas…..but if I did I would totally be that overly happy Spirit of Christmas Present XD

CHAPTER 1

A few Days After The Events in Honor Bound - but before Castiel's talk with his brothers.

This sucked. This sucked so hard that Dean couldn't even begin to describe how pissed he was without his face turning blue.

He bent over to scoop up yet another cow patty off of the floor of his beloved ship. They seemed to be never ending, and Dean's toes kept on getting stepped on in the crowded hold by their latest job. Harrow's cargo had turned out to be two hundred full sized COWS. Living cows too, all expected to make it alive to their destination. So here Dean was, trying to lessen the horrendous smell and mess as much as possible, and the rest of the crew all decided that they had other, more urgent things needed to be done around the ship than help care for the cows.

Whatever he had done to deserve this, Dean was ready to get on his knees to beg for forgiveness. This unholy desecration of his ship would have been enough to raise his blood pressure to dangerous levels, but his crew seemed to be trying extra hard to mess with him even further today.

Each of them had come up to him with some ridiculous request after another, all with the same damn excuse.

It's Christmas Eve, Dean.

Dean was quite aware what the date was, but that didn't change the fact that there were two hundred eating, chewing, smelling, crapping cows on his gorramn ship! Angrily he scooped up another pile of steaming…

"You seem angry, why are you angry?" Asked Castiel quietly from above him on the catwalk, his head tilted to one side.

His mental tirade interrupted, Dean sighed and straightened his back, trying to work out the kink that had been developing slowly as he continued to work. "I'm pissed, not angry," he informed the young man, glancing up at the catwalk that held him.

"I do not understand the difference," Cas mumbled, still very confused.

"I'm pissed that everyone trying to shirk their responsibilities to deck the halls instead of clean them!" He said agitatedly. He scooped at another patty a little too hard and it just ended up skidding across the floor.

Dean didn't move after it, he just glared and decided he needed to rant to someone, and lucky Cas happened to be right there. "Sam was the first one, he actually asked if we could stop at a planet to pick up a tree today. A tree!"

"It is a well known tradition of Christianity practices where they would pick a tree, most commonly pine…" Dean cut Cas' lecture off.

"I know what he wanted the tree for, Cas. But stopping on a planet to pick one up, especially when we have a deadline to deliver these cows…it's just dumb." Dean leaned on his shovel, glaring at the cow in front of him, as if daring it to drop another load.

Castiel nodded, but didn't look like he agreed totally. Dean went to pick up the last patty he saw in the hold when he heard a splat behind him. Never ending supply indeed. Dean decided that he needed to rant some more now. Lifting his arms helplessly in the air, shovel still in hand, he looked at his friend again, pleading for sympathy with his eyes.

"It's not just Sam either! Bobby and Anna wanted to break rations to make a feast! The idea is nice and all, but it's not like we have a ham stored away anywhere! It's all just protein blocks. Hard to make a feast out of it, and why waste what little we have on something that isn't even going to taste good. Bobby even asked if he could hold a service before dinner!"

Cas looks like he was about to answer but Dean cut him off to continue, "And Chuck came bumbling through the halls earlier with our spare parts and light bulbs all strung up on a chain, claiming that they were a "string of lights". It looked like some medieval torture device! And we might need those spare parts!"

Cas tried to comment again, but Dean was really on a roll, "I caught Gabriel putting up mistletoe in every hallway on this ship, in the oven, in the control room, in every friggn cupboard, in the bathroom! Balthazar is pretending that he is a decent singer and won't stop spouting carols…. it seems the only sane ones on this ship besides me, are you and Meg!" He finished with a lowered shout. He didn't want to startle the cows anyhow. He looked at the silent Cas, frustration rolling off his shoulders.

"Well, aren't you going to say anything?" He asked impatient.

Cas paused, seeing if Dean was actually finished before answering, "Well, I wouldn't actually call me sane…"He said deadpan.

Dean threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.

Dean was washing his hands back in his room, trying to get them sterile after that less than sanitary experience. He stood up once he felt they were clean enough and smiled happily, until he noticed that his clothed reeked. He scrunched up his nose in distaste and started tearing off the clothes to put on fresh ones. Today was just not his day.

It wasn't that he hated the holiday. Really he didn't think about it much. It had never been a big deal when he was growing up. Dad had always kept them on the move, so there was no decorating the house for the holiday. They had no other family besides themselves, so they didn't go to visit anyone. And they didn't have his mother there to bake them a wonderful feast.

Dean wouldn't say that he never regretted not having that holiday experience, but he wasn't about to drop his responsibilities to fool around for a day.

Pulling on a new shirt he left his cabin to seek out his crew and make sure that they were actually following his orders and not dashing through snow that Chuck had made out of torn up toilet paper and one of the fans...

His trek was to the engine room first where he found his mechanic struggling with his earlier creation. He was completely tangled in the chains where they were hanging off his arms and shoulders making clanging sounds every time he moved.

"I thought I told you to dismantle that thing," Dean said testily.

Chuck looked to him helplessly, "I'm trying, I just got all tangle while doing so." He really looked pitiful as he said this. He probably really was trying to get it all sorted out.

"Well hurry it up, I want you to double check the back-up engine and also check the temperature regulator. The cows seem to not like how cold their lodgings are." Dean ordered. Chuck just nodded absently.

"Dean, I know it's not my place, but…maybe you should give everyone else the day off or something. A lot of us could use a mental and emotional vacation." Chuck suggested timidly.

"And I could use a crew that pulled their weight for a change! If we didn't have two hundred gorramn cows trotting around downstairs then maybe I would give you guys a break, but we have a job to do and some dude born thousands of years ago isn't going to get in the way of that!" Dean said and stormed off.

"Something tells me that you might feel differently later. You just have to talk to a few people." Mumbled Chuck as he continued to try and untangle himself.

Next Dean found Sam sitting alone in the dining area, cleaning the dished from breakfast.

"Sam, I'm going to need you to take care of some things…" But a loud splash from the sink stopped Dean. Sam had dropped the plastic plate he had been washing to turn and address Dean, wearing one of his more common bitch faces, # 4 The "Dean, I want you to open up to me" face.

"Dean, why are you so against us celebrating the holiday? I mean, I get that you want to finish the chores and all, but there would still be time for us to do something."

"Sammy, I don't want to deal with that right now. I just want those damn cows fed so that they can continue making messes for us to pick up. Now finish the dishes and then go find Meg and Balthazar and get to work. And I'm going to be stopping by at some point so I can see Balthazar's face as he's working in the hold, so I better not find you guys slacking." Dean said, accusatory finger pointed to Sam's chest.

Sigh, "Yes, Dean."

"I can't believe him! He did this on purpose! He is trying to ruin the last set of decent clothes that I have left simply because he is jealous of me! And what a Grinch too! No, no, we can't have a Christmas, that would be too happy and would mess up my brooding schedule and disrupt my balance of man pain!" Balthazar mocked as they shoveled out the hay.

"Chill dude, it's just how Dean does the holidays. If he works hard enough he doesn't notice how much the holidays actually bother him." Said Sam soothingly, but he may have threw the hay with a little more force than necessary.

Meg grunted from behind, "Whatever, family holidays suck ass anyway. But I would have liked to have the day off at least. I'm not getting paid enough to shovel shit and put up with his shit."

Bobby walked into the hold and wrinkled up his nose at the smell, "Well, I thought I might lend a hand here, but if you've got it all covered…" He started to walk away quickly, obviously not expecting the chore to be so daunting.

"Oh no preacher man, pull up a pitch fork." Meg said warningly and Bobby walked back reluctantly, taking one of the offered tools and mentally preparing himself for the work ahead.

"Oh balls. At least I'm somewhat used to this. We had a little barn at my old Abbey where we kept a few cows for Sheppard Warrick's morning milk cravings. We even had a few chickens running around. Once a year we were allowed to choose one of the chickens for our Christmas feast. Easter we would choose one of the pigs." Bobby was smiling nostalgically as he started to shovel at the mess. The sharing of his memory was a welcome distraction for the others in the hold, and they listened intently, wanting to hear more.

"What else did you do to celebrate?" Asked Balthazar leaning on his pitch fork.

Bobby looked up surprised that anyone would be interested in his past holiday experiences, but he answered dutifully. Perhaps sharing would pass the time faster."Oh, the usual, ran a Christmas service, had a nice tree set up in the commons room. Extra prayer time….but I'll tell you my favorite part. It was the nuns."

Sam and Meg snorted and Balthazar openly laughed, startling one of the cows next to him. He patted it's side to calm it down again, smile still on his face.

The preacher gave them all a reproachful look. "Not like that, ya idjits. It was their singing. You never hear such singing from them until Christmas time. Normal hymns are beautiful through the year, but they are all about worship and respect for God, even a little bit on the overbearing side of things. But… Christmas, the songs are about celebrating the Birth. Much more lively and always with joyous feelings. Songs practically make you feel warm and toasty inside just from hearin' 'em. It really makes a difference." Bobby said wistfully.

Sam smiled softly at this, he could almost hear those lovely choruses.

"We used to sing in a chorus at church when we were children," murmured Balthazar.

"Even Gabe?" Asks Sam his voice full of doubt. He mentally pictured a young Gabriel in one of the chorus risers, doing bunny ears of moose antlers to the poor kid in front of him during a song. Sam lost the thought when the very subject's voice entered the room.

"You'd be surprised Sammy-doodle. Back in the day I used to be a well behaved alter boy, a picturesque angel child. All three of us were." Gabriel had appeared in the hold, obviously sneaking out from whatever corner he was using to hide from Dean in. Initial surprise lost, Sam smiled at Gabe…and then handed him a pitch fork, receiving a dirty glare in payment. Now the five of them went to work, but it was only silent for about a minute before curiosity got the better of the Sheppard.

"What were Christmas' like in the Novak household?" Inquired Bobby, glancing between Gabriel and Balthazar. The two brothers shrugged at each other and Gabriel took the lead.

"They were small. Just us three usually. But I'll have to say that one of my favorites was Cassy-baby's second one. He was maybe a year and a half old by then, and we were still not sure what to make of the little drool monster." Gabriel started, laughing at whatever memories were floating through his mind. Balthazar picked up on those memories and continued the story.

"Oh, yes. That one. We weren't watching Cassy too closely and he had crawled away under the tree where all of the presents were. Gabe and I were to occupied inspecting the new bicycles that were there that we didn't notice that Cassy had unwrapped everything else with his fat little baby hands and was playing with all of the wrapping paper, tossing it in the air." Balthazar was laughing harder now and Gabe picked up the story again.

"Once we finally took notice, we were a little angry. Ripping off the paper was part of the fun of Christmas for us, but when we went up to scold him, he just looked up at us with those big baby blues of his and threw paper at our faces and screamed, "Cown-fetti! Isa pawade!" And we just melted. Little goober was just too damn cute. I think we all had more fun with the paper that year than we did with the presents!" Gabriel's eyes were surprisingly red looking at the end of the story. Sam was happy to know that even the troubled Novak family had a few good Christmas memories.

"What about you and Dean? What were the Winchester holidays like?" Asked Bobby softly, just in case it was a sensitive subject. But Sam smiled softly.

"They were also small. Usually just me and Dean actually, but it was enough. Dean used to try extra hard to give me a real Christmas when I was younger. Once year I woke up to find that he had gone out to cut down a cactus from outside and had tore up an old shirt into a long ribbon to put around it like a garland. Cut his hands to shreds to do it, but he still smiled when I woke up and saw how happy I was to finally have a tree like everyone else." Sam said, smiling softly at the memory.

Dean had always tried to hard to make Sam happy, and to give his little brother a normal Christmas like everyone else. He hoped that Dean knew somehow, deep down, that Sam was forever grateful for that.

He continued on, a faraway look in his eyes as he recalled his own past holidays. "Another Christmas I remember was about five months after I had joined Dean in the war. It was a holiday in the trenches where we celebrated with bad scotch and an extra can of spam. It was our first holiday feast that I can remember." He laughed at this, even the war held some fond memories.

Up on the catwalk, unseen by those below, Dean stood listening to all of the memories of Christmas' past. He also remembers that year he had brought in that stupid cactus. He had pulled needles out of hands for the next month. Times had changed. Sam didn't need to be coddled anymore. If Sam was still that 6 year old who cried when he found out that their dad wouldn't be around for Christmas again, then maybe Dean would have stopped on a planet to pick up a tree. But they were grown up now, even over-grown in Sam's case, and didn't hold fantasies of picturesque family holidays. He shook his head and walked off.

Behind all of them Meg appeared to be ignoring the nostalgia, but if the men were to move closer to her, they might have heard her humming what sounded like the dradle song under her breath.

Woo! That was a long chapter. But I was happy to get so much into one. I got "Scrooge's" chained warning ghost (Chuck) and the ghost of christmas past (the whole crew kind of) in there. Next chapter will be posted tomorrow and will have the spirit of christmas present!