A/N: Merry Christmas, from your friendly neighborhood dinosaur! I hope it has been splendid! My Christmas was good, even though I got sick and became a mouthbreather (Haha get it?). Anywho, here's some Christmas drabbles, brought to you by our boy Will Byers. I couldn't figure out how to properly end this, so I hope that's okay.

English Assignment: In honor of Christmas, I want you to write a paragraph about how you celebrate Christmas with your family. Be sure to use proper grammar and punctuation!

My Christmas

By Will Byers, age 10

Christmas is my family's favorite time of year. These days, we spend it on our own, since our uncle hasn't shown up for the past three years. But according to my brother Jonathan, that's a good thing because he is "a bum". After Thanksgiving, we always try to convince my dad to hang up our Christmas lights, but he doesn't get around to it until a few weeks later. We don't have a lot of Christmas lights to hang up outside, but we have enough to put along the roof. It doesn't look as good as other people's houses, but we like it. This year, our lights wouldn't light up because of one bulb, and we had to take it down after Dad and Jonathan had put it up to find the faulty bulb. It still flickers on and off, so this year we decorated our doorway with the lights so we could reach it easier to fix it when it went out.
We spend more time decorating inside, but Dad lets us do that on our own. He gets a tree, and then we decorate it. We have a lot of fun, because Mom plays her favorite Christmas songs and we put up the ornaments from when she was a kid.

Music blared from a record player and of course, the Byers couldn't sit still to the catchy Christmas tunes. Between hanging glass ornaments they danced and tapped their feet, and sometimes even sang along. Jonathan scanned the mostly-decorated tree for a place to hang a ball ornament, cradling it gently in his hand with care. The two boys had done plenty of ornament-breaking in their time, and Jonathan had learned to be extra cautious. Will pulled a mouse-shaped ornament and grinned, admiring it, as it had always been his favorite. "There used to be another one to go with that one," Joyce said wistfully, "But I broke it."

Will's eyes widened. "Really? You never told me!" He said, glancing down at his favorite ornament and wondering what the other one might have looked like.

"Yeah. The other one was pink." She grinned. "It was my favorite."

Will blinked, surprised at this fact that he had never known before. She liked the mouse ornament, just like him-albeit the pink one. He smiled and gave the remaining one to her. "You should hang this one up." He said.

"What? No. This one is your favorite, I can't hang it up." She insisted, but he kept pressing it toward her, looking at her with those big, sincere eyes.

"The other one was your favorite. I can hang it up next year." He said.

After receiving a hug and a kiss from his mother, he returned to the ornament box to search out a new one. "Hey! You can't put that there, it's too close to the airplane!" Jonathan said, and Joyce laughed playfully.

"You're taking all the fun out of it." She said, poking the young teenager in the side. "I'll hang this wherever I want!"

"He- HEY! Mom, no!" Jonathan protested as she quickly hung it way too close to the airplane anyway, pushing at his shoulder to keep him away. He was getting stronger than her, and she only had enough time to hang the small mouse before he had pushed back against her arm and taken the mouse off to move it over. They fought over it for several minutes, Joyce laughing and Jonathan scowling and taking things a little too seriously before he gave in, finally backing off. However, Joyce ended up hanging the mouse in a place that was open, like he had wanted all along.

During December, my mom tries to cook traditional Christmas meals and desserts. Turkey, cookies, gingerbread men. She isn't a good cook, so Jonathan usually tries to save the day. We are used to eating burnt food.

Smoke billowed from the oven and filled the kitchen within seconds. Joyce and Jonathan coughed heavily, and Will walked into the kitchen to watch, having smelled the smoke from the living room. "No! No, no, no, no," Joyce spewed out protests and curses, which she tried not to do in front of Will, but she couldn't help it. Jonathan quickly pulled out the smoking bird, waving an extra oven mitt by his face to clear the smoke. "It's bad, this is bad, I knew I should have gotten it pre-made..." Joyce moaned, running her hands through her hair.

"It's fine, mom. Maybe the meat is still okay." Jonathan said, searching for a knife and a fork.

"NO! It's gonna be too dry!" Joyce exclaimed, shaking from exasperation. Jonathan ignored her, as if to silently assure her that it would be fine. He cut it open, and squinted past the rising steam to look at the meat inside. Joyce hovered over his shoulder, distressed but still curious. "Well? ... Well?"

Jonathan forked at the meat, frowning, then he looked at his mother, sighing. "It's a little dry." He said, then quickly spoke again to keep her from exclaiming her deep despair. "But we'll just put some gravy on it, it'll be fine! That's why we picked out that can of gravy, anyway."

Joyce spewed curses anyway, and could only be silenced by the touch of Will's hands clutching at her arm. "It'll be good, mom!" He chimed, grinning up at her with his most sincere smile. He glanced back at Jonathan, and they silently agreed that they would make sure that this was the best Christmas turkey ever, even though it was far it.

Joyce held back tears as she and her boys made the best of her failed cooking, but they still chimed with "Mmm"s and "This is actually pretty good!"s. Her mother had always made delicious meals during the holidays, and just in general, but this was a standard that she simply couldn't live up to. Thankfully she had Jonathan there to save the day. She put down her fork ten minutes into the meal. "You know what? Let's go out to eat." She said. Jonathan and Will glanced at each other, hardly believing their ears. "Come on. Let's go to Benny's. You two deserve better."

"What about Dad?" Will asked.

Joyce shook her head. "He can have this." She deadpanned, and both boys' mouths dropped open. Yet, they didn't argue.

My mom has us write Christmas lists and hang them of the fridge for her to look at. I help her find the things on Jonathan's list and we put one of the gifts as from me, and I think Jonathan does the same thing for me. He usually finds a way to surprise me, though. My parents are hard to get gifts for, especially my dad. Since we have trouble getting them presents, my mom will pick things for herself for us to wrap. My dad doesn't really want things. He just buys whatever he wants whenever he wants it, so he doesn't always have any presents. He doesn't mind it though.
Every year we go to the Wheeler's Christmas party, and I get to spend time with my friends. After the party, I get to stay over for a few nights, and we play Dungeons and Dragons. Every year I try to get Jonathan to stay and play with us. He isn't ever interested. Even though it's the Wheelers' party, it's pretty much our biggest tradition. Mom makes us dress up, even though we're just with friends.
On Christmas Eve, mom lets us open one present before we go to bed. Then, in the morning, we aren't allowed to go and open our presents until my parents are awake. Usually me and Jonathan wake up really early and have to wait for mom and dad to get up.

"Jonathan!" Will hissed, peering through the doorway of his brother's room. "Merry Christmas!"

A grunt came in reply. Will slipped inside the room and inched to the side of the bed, where his teenage brother was sprawled out in a tangle of bedsheets. "It's time to get up!" Will persisted stubbornly, poking Jonathan's shoulder.

"Mom and Dad won't be up for a while. Go back to bed." Jonathan mumbled, moving away from Will.

"So? We always get up early."

More grumbles.

"Please?" Will begged. Jonathan slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Fine." He muttered. With a low whoop of excitement, Will dragged his tired brother into the hallway, where they would do their annual waiting.

"Do you think Santa brought us a dog?" Will whispered conspiratorially as he sat on the floor across from Jonathan. Jonathan shrugged. It had been a routine topic of discussion the entire year for the two brothers. And from the looks of things, they had pretty high chances, seeing as their father actually wasn't against the idea. Still, having a dog would be another mouth to feed (and more money to spend).
The two spent thirty minutes waiting, Will trying to keep his brother's energy up. Even though it had little purpose, waiting in the hallway on Christmas morning was a necessity. It was a strange little tradition that had only been made because sometimes Santa Claus hadn't put everything under the tree in time, and Joyce had to make sure everything was there before the kids came tearing down on their gifts.

The moment their parents' bedroom door opened, the two were instantly going to the tree, Jonathan's tiredness being stifled by excitement that couldn't be outgrown. The boys opened their gifts and tried to hold back a small amount of disappointment that there wasn't even a hint to getting a dog. The familiar mix of joy from what they did receive was sort of hollowed out by their disappointment, and it was unusually quiet.

Until the word "shelter" was mentioned by their mother, and all the energy that was usually there on Christmas morning finally arrived.

We don't have a lot of traditions in my family. But every year we have fun with each other, and I guess that's why we like it so much. I like getting presents, but just celebrating this time with my family is my favorite part. This year, I hope we get a dog. Me and Jonathan have planned everything out since the summer. I can't wait to see if we actually get one. Merry Christmas!