Prologue
It was the day after Thanksgiving, and Nell and Eric had just put the finishing touches on their Christmas tree. Wait, make that Nell's tree in Nell's apartment that Eric just so happened to be spending almost all his time at. (Though Eric did bring over his boxes of decorations, after Nell "accidentally" mentioned a few days earlier that her tree always looked "under-dressed." He also suggested hand-making ornaments, which he may or may not have regretted later.)
Eric stood back to admire the finished product, a majestic white pine (or so the box said) wrapped in white lights and a fake-cranberry garland. In addition to their ornaments (various childhood keepsakes, lacy angels and teardrop-strands from Nell, and brass lattice balls and snowflakes his great-grandmother crocheted from Eric), the pair added metallic gold- and silver-painted jingle bells on festive red ribbons, red and green candy cane mice, reindeer made using old-fashioned clothespins, classy blue, green, and gold swirled balls created with tempra paint, and pasta angels. The latter were an adventure to construct, since Nell couldn't quite remember which varieties of pasta were utilized. The project was saved by the wonders of modern technology; a quick text message to Uncle Danny later, and a photograph confirmed the assembly. Penne formed the body, with a bow tie for the wings, elbow macaroni for arms, and wheel-shapes atop the wood bead head for a halo. A thumbtack lamp completed the ensemble.
White Christmas lights were strung outward from the ceiling fan in the kitchen to the cabinets, creating a tent-like effect. White and baby blue paper snowflakes dangled from the light strands—Nell had pointed out that a pro of being short was they could vary the heights of the snowflakes, or even hang one below another, without having to duck around decorations to actually use the kitchen. Eric's Peanuts nativity graced the top of the trunk-turned-coffee table, and a stocking hung on each end of the fish tank, since Nell didn't have a mantelpiece. There was only one thing missing from the picture…
Presents. "Hey, Eric."
"Yeah, Nell?"
"Do you have plans for after Christmas?"
"Like, when after Christmas?"
"Um, anytime?"
"Actually, I was hoping you could rescue me from a Christmas recess of boredom," Eric replied. "I'm afraid video games would get a little old by day three or so."
Nell grinned. "Actually, I have a Christmas tradition I was hoping you could help with."
"Sounds great! When is it?"
"That's the thing. Y'see, back when we were in college, Randy and I rented a house, with Nate. We…didn't go home for Christmas any of those years for more than a day or two. We would put up a tree, this tree, actually, but instead of putting gifts to each other under it, we put them in stockings. Every year, we would divide up the twelve days of Christmas between us and find something we could do to make other people's Christmas a little merrier, one for each day. Then we would get everything we needed and wrap it and put it under the tree with a tag with the day. The exciting part was you couldn't tell anyone else what your projects for your days were, and on Christmas we all unwrapped the boxes someone else packed, and found out what we got to do and who we were going to help while we didn't have school or work."
"Wow," Eric breathed, "that sounds awesome. I'd love to help you with that!"
Nell smirked a little. "There are just a few rules, Eric."
"Fire away."
"Rule one: no telling any of your plans. You find the need in secret, plan the project in secret, buy the supplies in secret, and wrap them—"
"—in secret, just like with Christmas presents to each other."
"Rule two: economize as much as possible. That means you use what we have around if you can. Like, if you were going to help wrap Toys for Tots gifts, which you actually do on Christmas eve, but Nate did as a Christmas Eve gift one year, he put scissors and ribbon we already had in the box with wrapping paper and gift bags."
"Alright, what if we run out of scissors?"
"Only put one of anything in, even if we'll need more. That's part of the reason we open them all on Christmas—one year, by the 21st nobody could find scissors, and we had to use pocket knives and kitchen knives to open everything until Christmas!"
"Any more rules?"
"Rule 3, which is probably the most important one. Find things that you love, that you know you're good at, and things that are outside of your comfort zone. Randy is so not artistic, but every year he would put going and coloring with kids in some hard situation on one of the days."
Eric nodded.
"It's part of the fun."
"Are we allowed to ask people for ideas?"
"You can get one idea per person from a couple of people, maybe we can just say from each team member. We're each allowed three projects we need extra people on, to invite the team to help us with, but you're responsible for making sure the schedule works for your projects, and I'm—"
"—responsible for scheduling for yours."
Nell grinned. "Oh, and days are first come, first served."
"So when do we start?"
"ASAP. The more time you have to plan, the better. I always would start my brainstorming on Black Friday after we put the tree up."
"Um, even. What are we waiting for?" Eric grabbed his tablet and sat in the sleeper chair, his back against one arm and his legs over the other, so Nell couldn't see what he was typing. She took her tablet to the sofa, stretching out in a sort of half-sitting, half-lying down position.
xxxxx
Eric saw an opportunity the Monday after Thanksgiving, when Nell had gone for coffee and Deeks popped into Ops. "Hey, Deeks, I have a question for you."
"Sure, what?"
"Um, I'm looking for ways to volunteer while I'm off for Christmas, to help other people have a better holiday. Do you have any ideas, know of anything someone needs help with or would like to have?"
Deeks considered for a minute. "What about this, Eric? You could find a shelter for women and children and take a computer and projector and some games and throw them a game and movie night."
Eric grinned. "That's a great idea! Thanks, Deeks!"
The cop smiled. "One condition, Eric. I get to help."
"Of course. I'll send something to your phone when I need to set a date."
xxxxxx
Nell sat back in her chair and rubbed her neck. She had a lot of good ideas, but still needed one or two more projects for her and Eric. Her ear caught a conversation between two other workers in Ops.
"…it's a great school, but they don't have a lot of money for security. They got cams as a Christmas donation from a big company, but they don't have money for someone to install them."
"And with it being a special ed school, I know they want to have lots of ways to keep workers accountable, especially with little kids."
Nell walked towards the other techies. "Excuse me, I didn't mean to eavesdrop but I'm looking for some projects to volunteer on over Christmas. Could this school use some technical help?"
The older of the two workers smiled. "My daughter's school, this really great small private school for preschoolers with disabilities, got surprised with a security camera system from a local company, but they don't have anyone to install it. They have enough cameras to do full interior and exterior monitoring, but the school doesn't have the money to hire someone to do the install."
Nell reached over for a post-it note and a pencil from her desk. "If you could give me their name and phone number, I can probably help with that."
The man eagerly jotted down the school title and number. "Thank you so much! It's a really great school, but they run on a shoestring budget because they want the best for all their students."
xxxxxx
Eric's phone vibrated, and he nearly dropped his tablet rummaging around in his pocket for it.
From: Callen, G.
This's awesome Eric. The everybody can play playground going in at 3rd and elm wants helpers for the install on the Sat after N Yrs. Was going anyways but youre welcome to join.
Eric grinned, and pulled up the file named "Don't open this Nell". Next to "day 10" he typed "install Everybody Can Play playground."
xxxxxx
Nell caught Kensi in the locker room as she was headed up to Ops. "Hi, Kensi, you have a minute?"
"Sure, what's up?"
"I'm looking for some places to volunteer over Christmas. Do know of places that could use a little extra cheer?"
Kensi's eyes lit up. "When I was little, a lot of the bases we lived on had a craft day where all the kids could come and make Christmas crafts, just a little something special. I bet Pendelton would love for some people to come and throw one! You'll need to—no, wait, she doesn't know you. I'll call the events director at lunch and let you know."
xxxxxxx
Eric stood in the baking aisle of the grocery store, feeling about as out-of-place as a polar bear in Antarctica. After a few minutes of studying, he selected the ingredients from the recipes on his phone (thanks, Hetty) that weren't in the cabinets, and knelt down to examine the various types of icing and sprinkles.
xxxxxx
Nell kept an ear cocked for Eric as she rifled through the catch-all drawer in his, err, the guest room dresser, searching for a memory stick. A quick look over her shoulder showed her computer had finished the iTunes purchase; she grabbed the USB stick and slipped back into her room to start copying files. Turning the tablet screen so it wouldn't be visible to Eric should he arrive unnoticed, she started searching through storage bins in the second closet, before pulling out one labeled "Dance Sound/Lighting etc."
A/N Reviews, please!
I plan to write and upload a chapter a day for each of the 12 days of Christmas. (The chapters will be published the day after they are set.)
