Hey-lo and a slap on the back to all my readers out there...and sorry that it's been a month since I've updated *feels guilty and shuffles feet nervously* BUT! This is just the first part in a Christmas Two-Parter that I have in store for you! But, don't worry, the second part won't take as long for me to update ^_^

Now, for the...drum roll please...

Boots: *Enters with a snare drum and starts a rhythm from 'Drum-Line'*

OK! Although I find that infinately cool, and very cute, I must ask you to do the COSTOMARY drum roll!

Boots: *Glares at Geneva* If youse gonna be dat way you can stop tinkin' dat I's gonna do any moah drum rolls foah you...oah save ya from dat evil disclaimah!

Oh, well, SHOUT OUTS!

Sapphy: I love your reviews! There, that's my belated Christmas presant to you. You are one of my most faithful reviewers and I must say that knowing that I will always get at least one review is a wonderful feeling. I am planning to do some revising as I go on, probably after the two-parter Christmas thing is over...which it almost is. I've found too many contradictions in my story, and I's gonna fix 'em! Be proud of me! Ah...yes, the razor...if I wear no stockings and knickers I'm not ever, for the life of me, going without my legs shaved nicely...sorry if that sounded mary-sueish...it wasn't meant to be.

JustDuck: Another one of my favorites! Hello! Yes...if rich is the term then so be it. And Christmas will be quite a Brew-Ha-Ha...though I'm not quite sure of the exact definition of that. And foreshadowing is bad for your health...so please refrain. ::Shivers at foreshadowing::

ShortAtntionSpaz: I totally know what you mean about the dragons...sheesh, I've had to beat them off with the stick every time, not that that's helped, but it keeps off the ketchup ^_^ And thank you, *Bows* for your marvolous review...it makes me *Wipes away tear* feel so loved...

~Disclaimer~

AAAAAAAA!!! NO! Save me from the disclaimer!!!

Boots: Tol' ya once, I ain't doin' it!

*Sobs* But, the disclaimer, makes me follow rules!

Skittery: *Flies in with SuperMan costume on* Never! I shall vanquish the disclaimer! *procedes to vanquish*

OH! Goody! Sorry ta Disney if they actually wanted to see that. It said that I didn't own Newsies...think of that! What a horrendous lie! ^_^ GEORGE CLOONEY'S LAUGH LINES ARE SOOOO HOT!!!! *Several Newsies step in to fan her...including Bumlets...Hehe*

Ahem... Andyways, I love that word, on with the show!

~~Strangers and Presents~~

Here it was, and not a moment too late; Christmas-eve. Red smiled and shivered in her threadbare coat.

"I'm dreaming of a green Christmas...just like the ones at Atitlan..."

Oh, for Holidays in the tropics. Well, there may be people going swimming for Christmas where it's not a bazillion degrees below zero, but they also weren't going to have Christmas with the boys. It could get worse. Red stamped her feet in the falling snow, quite picturesque, but a tweensy bit too cold for her. She needed a sweater, and maybe Mr. Denton was going to give her one...he said he would...but his salary was low enough as it was anyway, he didn't need a burden like her to drain his pockets of what little he had. Especially after the strike.

"Where the lake...glistens...and I listen..to hear...coffee being made..."

She had the money, all of it, and kept putting her hand in her deepest pocket to make shure it was still there, along with the list of what else she needed. Red had gotten almost everything, except for the Christmas tree and a few odd cooking materials.

"Red! I told you that you could come into my office to wait, it's plenty warm in here!" Denton was shouting from the second story window of the 'Sun' building.

Red sighed. "I need to go now, Denton! I have the list!"

The reporter hurried on down the stairs, after grabbing his coat, and came almost flying out the door. "You have it? And the money?" He was in the process of putting his coat on when he reached her, still rubbing her cold, red ears.

"All right here. I need all of the stuff on the list and bring back all the extra money." Red rubbed her thinly mittened hands together, "But buy a pape from every Newsie you pass with a really good headline, especially if it's an improvement on one of yours."

Denton smiled as he brought a parcel from behind his back. "Yes ma'am. And a Merry Christmas!" He shoved it into her hands and was off like a shot...to catch a carriage.

Red caught her breath as she ripped open a small corner of the brown paper. It was a sweater; a lovely dark green one, very thickly woven. "Thanks Denton!" Red yelled back, suddenly full of smiles, "And a Merry Christmas to you too!"

She had already given him his christmas presant. A small book with all of the mistakes made in headlines over several years, which Red thought rather odd, seeing as how she never knew that there were blooper books so far back, but Denton had loved it.

Red hurried back through the snow, which was falling heavier and heavier by the minute. She had a Christmas dinner to make, and a plum pudding to, um, figure out. She tore the rest of the paper off of the sweater and threw it in a nearby fire in a barrel where some bums were sitting around, telling stories.

"Merry Christmas, guys!" She smiled as she threw in the paper and dragged on her sweater, holding her coat in one hand, and then putting it on over her sweater.

As soon as she got back to the lodging house she barged in throught the front door and started finishing up the work on the stuffing for the turkey, and brought out the apples she had already peeled for the pies. Apple pie, what a thought, Red hadn't had any in a long time. She usually had it on her birthday...

A realization hit her like a brick: She forgot her birthday this year, she was now fifteen years old. "I really am getting old if I'm forgetting my own birthday, and I never even told anyone about it." She started chopping onions and talking softly to herself, among the blessed warmth of the small kitchen. Red stopped when she heard voices, male voices, obviously. It was Skittery, Bumlets, and Dutchy. It took her a moment to realize that they were singing.

"Deck the halls with boughs of Holly..."

She trooped out to meet them at the front door, joining in.

"Hello, an' a good day ta youse, Red!" Bumlets, almost always an optimist and very often euphemistic, swept her up into a big hug.

"A good day ta youse too, Bumlets. How was da selling t'day?" Red tried to hide the apple that was in her hands, that she had in her hand when she came out and hadn't noticed.

"It's always good on Christmas-eve, an on Christmas. Lots'a tips. Whatcha got dere in yoah hand?"

Red relinquished the apple to the hungry boys and watched as they shared it. "I's cooking back here, for anyone who wants ta help." She let them into the kitchen and set Skittery, who had made her angry recently, to chopping the onions, while she made the pie crust.

One by one the boys came in, a few helping in the kitchen, the rest hanging around, smelling, tasting things, giving suggestions, singing carols and generally getting in the way. After about the fifth round of variations of "On the first day of Christmas, Weasel gave to me..." Red was just about ready to throw out the lot of them so she could finish her cooking.

"BOYS!" God bless the Kloppah. "Get ta bed befoah I calls oaf Christmas!" Kloppman walked through the crowd in the kitchen, shoving the boys out the door one by one. Racetrack set down the apple he had been nibbling on and walked up to Red, holding out a cigar.

"Foah 'my true love' dis is what I give ta youse," He stuck it in her grinning mouth with a flourish and a peck on the cheek. "Marry Christmas- eve Red!" He lit it and started up the stairs.

"Night ta you too, Scabbah!" She called around the cigar as Race reached the top. He leaned over the banister and waved his hat.

Over the next two hours Red finished the apple pies, had them stored in the cupboard, and was now starting on gingerbread, singing to herself, one of her favorite Christmas carols.considering it was talking about bar-hopping, although the only thing she touched these days was beer, and only occasionally. She was singing it out of tune, stinking in flourishes, and giggling to beat the band. "Here we come a wassailing among the leaves so green, and here we come a wand'ring, so fair to be seen." And she remembered something she had left upstairs in the bunk-room. "Dang it!"

She wiped her hands on her ragged apron and started up the stairs as quietly as she could. Red had forgotten one of the packages, this one for Boots, upstairs in a cubby hole, that really wasn't supposed to exist but did due to a fist fight that missed and hit the plaster about two months ago. She stepped over dirty laundry and tip-toed over to the hole near.Itey's bunk. He was the lightest sleeper of all the boys. Just her luck, and she could never really sneak unless she was in her bare feet. She slipped her boots off where she was and tried not to gasp as the cold floor made contact with her stocking feet.

Red slid over to the hole and extracted the parcel, knowing that it had not been seen, nor touched since she had placed it there. She held it gingerly, trying not to make a noise with the brown-paper wrapping it. Red slipped past the window, and paused. There was a man down there, in the street, quite close to the door, and out in that weather. Red raced downstairs, just remembering her boots and returning for them after she had reached the door. She pried open the front door after sliding down the banister to speed up her progress.

He was hunched over.that morning's paper, and shifting his thin coat every other second.

"SIR!" Red called out into the street, barely catching the man's attention. "COME INSIDE!"

The man plodded towards the lodging house, his longish hair and beard flipping this way and that in the wind. He reached the front step and handed her the paper. "Buy me last pape, miss?"

Red grinned. Anyone with a sense of humor at 20 below couldn't hurt a fly.and was officially in her good books for the rest of their life. "Come inside and have some coffee, you look frozen." She took off his coat and led him into the kitchen.

"Making dinner, I see." He sniffed the air with a happy expression on his face, as if even knowing that someone was doing something nice pleased him immensely.

"Yeah, and gingerbread, I haven't started yet. Here," Red placed a chair near the stove. "You need to get warm, sit here." She handed him his coffee as he sat.

"So, how has your Christmas been so far?" The man asked, sticking his feet in the door of the stove and popping the paper in, making the fire grow slightly.

"Not bad at all. I'm awful glad to be here, but I kinda miss my family, ya know?" She dumped some four in a wooden bowl she had placed in front of her. "Why were you standing out there?" Red indicated the street with her spoon as she re-read a section of her recipe.

"Waiting.for Christmas."

Red raised an eyebrow. "A nice thing to wait for, but why out in the cold? Did you just get off work?"

"No. I'm never really off work."

"What do you do?"

"Well.I'm sort of a Jack-of-all-trades, rather like your band leader," He smiled. "But I mostly just fix things, and I'm a carpenter."

"Do you like your work?"

The man turned to look at Red, raising one eyebrow, and then running his fingers through his beard. "Yes, I like it a lot. Why do you ask?"

"I guess, well, it doesn't really matter what it is, as long as you like it, right?" Red brushed a piece of hair out of her face, only to have it fall back again.

"Quite true. Do you like yours?" He turned back to the fire, and sipped his coffee.

"Yes, mostly, but as I said before, I miss my family." She cracked an egg on the side of the bowl and poured it in.

"Where are they?"

"Not here, obviously, but I got here, and I guess.well, I got lost. I don't know where they are, or how to get back, both of which would hinder my progress in finding them. I talked to a friend of mine a while back who came here later than me. She says that my family is having problems dealing with my leaving."

"Why did you leave in the first place? Where they unkind to you?" He stood up and poured himself another cup of coffee.

"Oh, no. I'm not sure I ever really wanted to leave. My parents are the kind everyone dream about, ya know?" She poured the finished batter into a bread-pan. "Really nice, talk to me 'bout everything, reasonable, and they love me a lot, and they tell me so, all the time. I miss them, and my brothers, and my sister." Red nudged aside the stranger's feet and put the pan in the small oven.

"But you don't know how to get back? Didn't you ask your friend how?"

"Yes, but she doesn't know how either." Red sighed as she poured the rest of the batter into the remaining bread-pan. As Red put this pan in she happened to make eye-contact with the stranger, and as she turned away she shivered.

Fire and Ice, and Power, and Love, those eyes.

Red decided to change the subject. "How exactly were you going about looking for Christmas?"

"I'm not sure, really, it just sort of came to me, to find it, I mean." He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. "Who was it that's doing all of this for those boys? Is it you?"

Red paused and looked at him, almost thoughtfully. "Well, yes and no."

"Which one is it?"

"I hate to say it, but part of it is for me.not JUST the boys, though I'd like to think that most of it is." She felt almost ashamed, but shook it off and started pulling out the packages that she had hidden in the various parts of the kitchen and arranging them on the counter.

"I see, but don't feel guilty. The human race can't help it, unless you're not human, and then I shall scold you quite harshly." The man smiled. "How long is that gingerbread supposed to stay in the oven?"

"Another two minutes." Red answered, turning things over in her mind.

"Well, I'm afraid I must go." The stranger stood up and set his coffee cup in the sink. "And don't worry, there'll be a way home for you soon."

"But the weather." Red started to protest, she didn't want him to leave, it was the first time in a long time that she had talked about her family to anyone.except maybe Tigger, whom she visited regularly now. Race never wanted her to talk about it.he always avoided the subject anyway, so discussion was scarce.

"Never you mind the weather, you have to get Christmas ready for those boys.and thank you."

"For what?"

"For helping me find Christmas." The man smiled as he pulled on his overcoat and stepped out the door, but before he closed the door, Red's mind felt like it had been snapped open.

"Sir! Wait!"

He paused on the bottom step. "Yes, Geneva?"

Red shivered again and she looked again into his eyes, and tossed him the apple she had in her apron pocket, the one she had saved for herself.

"Happy Birthday."

*******************

Did anybody get it?

Please R&R...no matter who you are...no matter what your time limit, I just want reviews...just a line or two, please?