Where Have All The Decorations Gone?

A/N: Stargate and everything that belongs to it does not belong to me… Umm.. Happy Holidays everyone! I'll try to get this story done before the New Year comes.

Setting: Christmas Eve (Suspend your belief a whiles: they do work on this day)

Jack O'neill walked into this his basement. This was the day—The day of liberation!

XXXX

Daniel Jackson walked into his office and was about to sit down and jump into one of the ancient books they found att an old deserted site when he noticed what day it was.

"Oh no…" he uttered as the old book fell from his limp hands and hit the floor with a thump.

XXXX

Sam Carter revved up her motorcycle. She was going to have a field day testing out the new engine. She checked her watch to see how much time she had before returning to base.

She stopped and squinted at the date the watch displayed.

"Can't be…"

XXXX

Teal'c the Jaffa (hey, I had to give him some kind of long appellation) meditated in his room. The scent of candles pervaded every aspect of the area.

As he opened his eyes, he took a deep breath.

"The day has come. I must prepare."

XXXX

Jack finally clambered out of his basement and shielded his eyes from the sunshine.

"Tis the day!" he yelled out to the world, "Tis the day I decorate the SG with Christmas merriness!!!"

Well, he didn't actually yell out to the world because that would be against regulations to inform the whole world about the Stargate, but he certainly yelled it in his mind.

Never was Jack more gleeful and cheery than on this day.

Of course, with all this happiness surrounding one man during Christmastime, there is always definitely one man who must be the scrooge—the total opposite of this happiness. The scrooge this year, which was becoming more of a yearly tradition, was the one and only General Hammond.

"JACK!!!" he roared as he stomped through the SG. "Get that crazy, red-eyed reindeer out of my office!"

Jack seemed to pop out of nowhere and interestingly enough, it seemed people were nowhere to be found.

"D'oh!" Jack responded.

This response only intensified the "scroogeness" within the General.

"Is that the only thing you can say?" the bald man yelled.

"That's where I put ol' Rudolph!" Jack exclaimed, "Hey, gimme a hand with it. I'm putting it in front of the Gate."

General Hammond stared at him blankly at first and then his faced started to light up (like a light bulb!) in anger, "GET-IT-OUT!!!"

"Okay, okay," Jack said as he rushed to the office to retrieve his festive reindeer.

General Hammond stood in the hall with his hands combing through his imaginary hair.

"Sir!" Carter said from behind.

The General jumped at this and turned around, "Don't sneak up on me like that Major."

"Sorry," she replied, "Well, are you sure you want that decoration to stand in front of the Gate where it may be the first thing that any visitor from another world will see?"

"She's right y'know," Daniel said.

"Where are you?" Hammond said.

"Here!" he said as his head appeared from behind a tree. "Could somebody get me out of here?"

Teal'c happened to be walking by and seeing his good friend in distress, lifted the tree and placed it in the corner. He smiled at his decoration placement.

"O'neill would applaud me," he thought to himself.

"Thanks Teal'c," Daniel said and then turned to the General, "Don't, I beg you, let Jack put that defective Rudolph near the Gate! Visitors will probably think it's some kind of deformed Goa'uld!"

"How is it defective Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c inquired.

"Rudolph is a red-nosed reindeer, not the glowing-eyed reindeer," Daniel clarified.

Teal'c nodded in understanding.

"I'm going to make him throw out that reindeer! Along with all these other… distractions!" General Hammond said, pointing at the tree in the corner.

The three raised their eyebrows at the General.

"Sir, this is the one time where you allot him this freedom. You even guarantee it in his contract. If you take this away from him, it'll crush him," Sam said. "Aside from that, the decorations do add a bit of cheer to this place… I only wish the Colonel would just lower his festivity level down one notch…"

"Yeah, not to mention that it'll probably scar him for life if you threw any of his decorations away. He might never look at Christmas the same… this is the only thing he has," Daniel added. "Please, just tolerate him. We've all learned to."

Teal'c nodded. The three left the General to contemplate their words.

"Hmm… he might never look at Christmas the same…," he thought, "Thus… he'll never put these decorations up again!"

A slow smile began to creep upon his face, a smile most unpleasant, and the old scrooge turned from old scrooge to old grinch…

To Be Continued…