Disclaimer: I will own LOTR when my skin turns purple and the sky rains green carrots.

Seems everyone else is doing a Christmas special so I thought sod it, I'll do one too. Same living arrangements as in How to teach a Dwarf to Swim, read that for more information. No real plot, just Christmas with the Fellowship which is rather warped.

Rating: PG-13 just to be on the safe side. Slight swearing, unorthodox Christmas festivities, strange shortbread and the token random weirdness you can always expect in my fics. Feedback much appreciated, I don't have much else to do.

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"Deck the halls with bows of holly, falalalalalalalala, 'tis the season to be jolly, falalalalalalalala," Legolas sang at the top of his voice, ignoring the shouts and abuse directing his way by the rest of the Fellowship because in his view it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do at 7am on a Saturday morning.

The elf slid down the stairs and down into the living room. "Good morning Gandalf," he said cheerfully. Gandalf grunted and went back to watching the morning cartoons, he was not a morning wizard. Now humming the tune of Spongebob Squarepants, Legolas went into the kitchen to check on the Christmas cake and pudding and added some more brandy and rum into the mixtures, before looking around quickly to make sure no one was watching and taking a large swig of rum himself. They had never been able to discover the reason, but every Christmas Legolas developed a profound fondness for rum and for saying 'aye' instead of yes. And then there were the miniature pirate ships he collected obsessively…

He went outside to check if there was any mail and was met with the complete and utter lack of snow. Merry and Pippin were going to be disappointed. He opened the letterbox and retrieved a large bundle of Christmas cards and walked to the house.

When he got inside he found that the rest of the Fellowship had got up and were rummaging around in the fridge for something to eat. "Snow?" Merry and Pippin asked hopefully. Legolas shook his head and the two hobbits looked crestfallen. Frodo had overheard the conversation and handed them a loaf of bread, the butter and two knives. The two hobbits went to sit on the couch and drown their woes in vast amounts of bread and butter.

"Any cards?" Frodo asked as he saw the mail.

Legolas sorted through the letters. "One from Celeborn and Galadriel… one from Haldir… one from Elrond…"

"Do they all say I'm rich and you're not, suckers?"

"No, Aragorn, they don't. And there's one from the community centre—" he didn't get any further because Frodo snatched it out of his hand.

"I'll look after this."

The others shrugged and Legolas looked at the last letter with confusion. "I don't think we know anyone called the Dursleys… must be next door's." He went out side and stuck his head over the side fence. "Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"We've got one of yours again."

"Oh, thanks dude." Harry looked at the return address. "If it's from these guys again don't bother. They… er…"

"If it's from relatives then we know all about that stuff. I should go get breakfast before Aragorn eats all the muesli."

"Merry Christmas dude."

"And a Pippin New Year."

"What?"

"Never mind."

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The hobbits were gathered secretly in the cupboard under the stairs, looking at the letter. "Let's open it!" Frodo opened the letter and they crowded around to read it. And began to grin.

"AragornLegolasGimli, we have something to tell you." The others began to make wildly inaccurate guesses.

"You're pregnant?"

"You're gay?"

"You're the ones who were singing Christmas songs at 7am this morning?"

Frodo rolled his eyes. "No. We're in the Nativity play!"

"Nativity play?"

"You know, the one the community centre puts on every year!"

"Wow, that's great! What are you guys?"

Frodo consulted the letter. "Sam's Joseph, Pippin's a shepherd, Merry's one of the three kings and I'm…" he look at it in disbelief. "I'm the Virgin Mary."

Merry looked at Pippin. "I'm a king and you're a shepherd! Beat that!"

Pippin stuck his tongue out. "I'm a shepherd so I get to eat lamb every day! Beat that!"

Merry couldn't think of anything to say to that so he stuck his tongue out too.

Frodo continued to read the letter. "Its says that there's practices every Saturday at 9:30." He looked at the clock. "Ten minutes to get ready. TEN MINUTES TO GET READY?! Guys, get dressed, grab something to eat, hurry!"

Exactly seven minutes and fifty-two seconds later all four hobbits were dressed and eating their breakfast standing up. "Aragorn, can we pleeeeeeease get a lift?" The hobbits put on their cutest faces.

"What? Argh… no… not the cute faces… dammit… how can I say no when they're doing their cute thing? Alright."

"Thanks Aragorn." The hobbits piled into Aragorn's Landrover. Aragorn reversed sharply and with a squeal of brakes, the car sped off. Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf waited until they had disappeared down the street before cracking and laughing so hard they got stomach cramps.

"Frodo as the Virgin Mary?" Gimli gasped.

"Just wait till he sees the costume."

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After dropping the hobbits at the centre, Aragorn wandering around the shops looking for something to do. He walked past the supermarket and remembered that Frodo had been going to make shortbread but Frodo was at the play practice now. Aragorn was about to keep walking past when he had an idea. He disappeared into the supermarket.

Two hours later the hobbits arrived back at the house to find Legolas and Gimli wrapping Christmas presents. Or rather attempting to wrap Christmas presents, none of them could remember the last time they'd had new wrapping paper and so the presents that were already wrapped resembled packages of small patchwork quilts.

"Where's Aragorn?"

"Kitchen. He came in about an hour ago and he was acting all strange, and now he's locked himself in the kitchen and we heard some swearing a while ago."

Frodo looked homicidal. "If he messes with my cooking I'll kill him."

Just then the kitchen door was opened. Aragorn walked out, covered head to toe in flour but looking extremely pleased with himself. He was carrying a tray from which came interesting smells. "Guess what I made!"

"What?"

"Shortbread! There's plenty for everybody." Aragorn proffered the tray.

"Cool, shortbread!" The hobbits, Legolas and Gimli each took a piece of shortbread and bit into it. Aragorn watched their expressions. "It's, er, good!"

"Yeah, really distinctive flavour!"

"Never had something like this before!"

"You should start cleaning up now if you want to go carol singing."

"Yes, that's a good idea. I won't be long." Aragorn beamed and went back into the kitchen. The rest of the Fellowship waited until the door was closed before hastily spitting out the shortbread and scraping their tongues. "Hands up for not letting him within ten metres of the kitchen."

All of those who had tried the shortbread put up their hands.

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"So you all have scarves and gloves?"

"Yes Legolas."

"And you have promised on the salvation of your share of the Christmas foods that none of you will do anything illegal? That includes not wrecking other people's Christmas displays."

There was a "Yes Legolas" from everybody, although Merry and Pippin had to be poked to make them promise.

Legolas relaxed. He was pretty sure that the threat of no Christmas food would make the hobbits behave, but he had convinced Gimli to go with them just in case. "Off you go then, have fun."

The hobbits and Gimli disappeared down the street. Legolas and Aragorn sat watching tv with Gandalf. Several minutes later there was a knock at the door. Aragorn got up to answer it, and was confronted with the hobbits and Gimli singing Christmas carols with great enthusiasm.

"What are you doing?"

"We're singing!"

"This is your own house!"

"We can still carol sing! Care to make a donation?" Pippin waved the collection tin under Aragorn's nose.

"You're not getting money out of me that easily. Go sing somewhere else." Aragorn slammed the door shut.

"I told you it wouldn't work."

"Well okay, it didn't work this time because we had our normal clothes on. So we take off all our warm stuff and rip our clothes and roll around in the snow a bit and we can pose as beggars! He'll give us money for sure."

"No Pippin, let's go try somewhere else."

"Or maybe if we get hippie clothes and say we need petrol money…"

"Pippin, just drop it."

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A/N: For those of you who are wondering, Pippin's rather silly ways of getting money are not real. If you want to pull something like that yourself, people aren't that stupid and I won't bail you out when the police stick you in the lockup.

I think that's all for this chapter. Merry Christmas and a Pippin New Year. You can show your Christmas spirit by reviewing. Everybody who reviews gets… er… free samples of Aragorn's shortbread? Maybe not…

~Enelya