Heather's Winter Awesome-land

by CJ33333

Christmas-themed Over the Hedge fanfic centered around Heather and her Winter AWESOMEland (not to be confused with 'wonderland') that comes to be. Rated T for suggestive elements, some language, and general maturity. *All existing Over the Hedge characters and settings belong to their respective owners. Disclaimer: Contains implications/instances of an RJ x Heather relationship.

Note: This chapter has an illustration made for it. If you're reading on FF, you will NOT be able to see this image (since you can't add images into the text). The story is posted on DeviantArt and AO3 as well, both of which include this illustration. This illustration in particular IS actually pretty crucial - because it's what this fanfic is based on and gives a necessary visual of what's going on - but I'm still posting it on FF for the sake of being inclusive.

This chapter has an original song written for it. Just for reference while reading, each set of lyrics comes AFTER the sequence of actions associated with it.

Starting this set of stories now is weird in that it's technically canon in my main fanfic, but takes place AFTER that story. Obviously, we're not even halfway through the 1st episode of OTH2, meaning I have to be REALLY selective with what I choose to include here. So these first chapters may seem like they have a lack of characters and setting, and that's intentional. They'll get more inclusive over the years as the main fanfic progresses.

With that said, don't question the 2 sentient floating cans of Spuddies, 1 of whom has a Louis Armstrong voice.

Also, the characters themselves may differ a bit from the main fanfic. I dunno. I haven't written the whole thing to know exactly how they end off personality-wise, plus they're definitely a bit more comical than usual in this version, simply because this is supposed to replicate more of a TV-show style.

And for those of you who have no clue what OTH2 is or what it's about, all that's important for you to know as a mild disclaimer is that RJ and Heather are TECHNICALLY being shipped here, but it's not the main focus. Long story short, they're a couple at this point. That's just some context that'll make some of their interactions make more sense.

OTH2 sprouted from the idea that every art piece had a story behind it. And in this case, that couldn't be any more literal. For me, this whole month is a celebration of my mind, and also the niche Heather fills in my mind as a canvas of sorts, so here you can join in and catch a glimpse of it.

---

Chapter 1: Silver Stars

...

Now Playing: Heather's Winter AWESOMEland

Original Song (duhhh)

Opening is the night scene encompassing the dancing fireplace passing by.

(Happy intro jingle)

A slick, naked tail parts the thick snow, a black drop of sunlight in a white blanket over the greenery peeking from underneath. Exposure to the biting winter doesn't hinder warmth in spirit, melting the depraved senses of bitter cynics incapable of appreciating the beauty of the cycle. A sacrifice in a body's form and function brings rich reminders of the life seen in the stray tails of a grass carpet waiting to be greeted by the hospitality of one darker, but brighter, and far more jovial.

"Some nights, I dream sweet dreams of chocolate cake"

The end of the tail gives a little flick and a wiggle, urging to follow.

"Other times I've got these frosted daydreams

That keep me wide awake"

Underneath the silver moon, the entire forest, overtaken by pine trees retaining their lively color, is topped with icing snow. Life is proven to live, as even deserts host the lushest worlds, and playful penguins would be ready to take in the amazing scenery. One figure of gray, an odd fuzzball in paler, fallen snowflakes, takes up the opportunity those birds left with glee.

"They said 'Heather ya don't even got a naaame

For this totally awesome place'"

A pile of snow starts to slip down a tipping branch.

"And y'know, I'm ridin' down a Christmas street

That'd spread a gingerbread's grin across your faaaace"

2 large, pointy ears make room for a giant plop to smack the curved strokes of fur jetted back on the top of her head like an aspiring rockstar's hair. Heather shakes off the brief disturbance, without dying, mind you, and rolls her eyes. Out comes a smile as she corrects her hairdo and strolls along.

(Pre-chorus, with louder instrumentals)

"Silky shiny ribbons of silver 'n gold, so like

New-ee-ee-ee-e-e-e-e-ewww!

Just missin' jolly holly in the carolin' crew, without

You-oo-oo-oo-o-o-o-o-ouuu!"

As she travels past a droopy pink flower, withering from the weather, her tail tickles its face and nudges it back up straight as a pollinated plant would rejoice.

Falling under the stars, she passes over a magnificent red carpet laid far over the floor, shifting her path. Her feet halt after another step.

"If you're lookin' for some milky wonders

To dip your cookies iiiiii-innn

Don't leave 'em hangin', dive in with a cannon-ball"

(Sharper, with a more prominent electric guitar)

"'Cause we got an open house, come in!"

What lies before her does not disappoint. The click of a switch from down the path enters a gleam into her pupils in a palette of tones lighting up the night. An overseer's satisfactory grin follows crossed arms.

["We're rockin' to the top of the treeee, c'mon!-"]

The pair of slanted trees forming a gate to the site present the string of lights circling the branches all around. A ring of winter fireflies left by the animal elves working within wrapped the village, bustling in the woods. Fanciful, exuberant scenery speaks to Heather like the north star. The destination marked itself by the ornamental sign held from the rounded hands of a glorious gingerbread man, height spanning Heather's as much as thrice even from a distanced perspective.

'Happy Home-idays' he says. And a busy home-idays at that! Scaffolding of playground framing sees frequent usage by those more suited for the tallest heights, supervised by the stoutest, proudest authorities. A swinging claw salvaged from an arcade machine lifts presents and packages in a marvelous display of invention-ry. The kids? They've invaded the snug, packing-peanut-stuffed hibernation blankie of Verne, gifting him with a present of his own - a red frosting moustache.

The frozen awe of an ice cube containing her smug ebullience is chiseled away. The cans of icing shoved into her face startle her, duller shades of a skunk and opossum's arms uninvitedly diverting the vantage point. Except the icing well makes up for it. Stella nudges back to the next batch of plain gingerbread cookies baked up and ready to go on a metal tray.

(Chorus)

"'Winter Won-derland' sounds so- not cool

Like you're dippin' in a steaming hot cocoa pool

Don't need just jazz! We ordered jazz 'n style

Ya got me sittin' on a gum-drop to think a damn long while"

There's no way she could turn down a taste test, especially in the duty she so bravely undertook - it's not anyone who could possibly be willing to binge the sugar swimming pool presented to them. Her fingers dig into Ozzie's chocolate and Stella's vanilla.

(The instrumentals die down to just a simple rhythm in the background, while she stays on beat)

"Hmmmm-mmmm-mmmm…

That's me thinkin', hang on"

Taste buds rejuvenate in a funny sea, tides pounding against one another. There's chocolate, there's vanilla. She flickers between the options, only to end up with the sweetest headache ever known. Lips tense but wildly satisfied (nearly too satisfied, a grouch trapped in her head would answer), a second's pondering leads to a final answer ready for her heart to spill.

She points to both at once.

Ozzie and Stella shoot puzzled, unresolved looks, but commence forth.

"Hmmmmmmmmmmm…

Yeah, I've got nothin'"

The oven bursts open with another hot batch. 2 sets of hands relay it to the conveyor belt of full and fluffy paper towel rolls, loose ends clear-taped to prevent the clogage of a fluid process, heartfelt and hectic, down the lane of a feral workshop.

Meanwhile, Hammy spins like a motor around and around on a lever moving the belt.

The new trays of happy gingerbread cookies, shifted and sailing along, some crafted as merry fellows and others unclear, yet beautiful shapes pass under a waxing clock marking the days as the seconds pass, and another hand-made job is completed to perfection. At the decorating station, artisans of fur go to brisk work mixing brown and white and the colors spread atop the canvas.

(It resumes)

"Su-gar sweet on the peppermint moon

Lost in- a stuffed plush aaa-venue

Eggnog fills your heart's empty mug

When ya ring the bell at Heather's Win-ter Wonder-laaaaand!"

A playful black tail is seen creating a trail in the snow, entering a burrow of leaves far off into the den of another, less furry kind - the kind bare as the muscle of the tail, though rather, suffocated by mountains of silk and cotton. Lights emit for the night as Christmas goods sell out in minutes. And in silent corners, the slimmest critters are given a chance to roam the lanes of holly vacations and snowflake rooftops under December's rainbow of heaven hanging all about. For normal critters, that is. Abnormalities, shining brighter than possibly imagined, expose themselves to the magic inside a hedge.

(Short instrumental transition)

["That still doesn't sound right"]

["Whatever"]

RJ's fur is saturated by the saccharine surroundings infecting his head. The lack of needed contrast makes every aisle of the decorated Christmas shop pass as a blur, hurrying past while the repetitive radio intensens the thumping in his chest. And the same songs play again. And again. And again! His sneaking runs thin in correlation to the tolerance stretched to the brink of winter insanity. The ginger smell of a cookie flooding his nose doesn't assist his perception. No matter where the pads of his feet land on patterned squares, no aisle starts a suitable route of escape.

(Verse 2)

(Replicating the melody of 'Jingle Bells', all while imitating a radio call)

"'Ji-ngle bells, jingle bells

We got the elves on aisle eiiiiight

Someone's stealin' rhythms now

But they're toppin' charts, got-ta saaaaay'"

Heather emerges into the suburbs, one hop less needed to reel in a line between hearts, minds, and tails.

She frolics up a sidewalk past a warm yellow house. Disregarding the eye-catching decor flashing loud in presence, her mind frees itself from these minimal distractors. But, saving her from passing blind, her tail hooks itself onto the mailbox near the driveway and backpedals her feet. She now stares back at the epitome of a wonderland, truly irresistible to the eye - a set of trash cans sat on a platform up some wooden steps on the right side, opposite to a back door.

(Back to a more original rhythm)

"On the 1st of December, I'll have you know

We've been totally waitin' all year for the snow

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, that's how the numbers go

'N everyday I'm gettin' hun-gri-er, y'knoooow!"

RJ's teeth clench as he rounds the corner of an aisle lit by a defective light hanging from the ceiling, flickering in and out. Hiding behind a ceramic snowman figurine, he avoids a group of security guards posed as the elves of Santa's elite force practically trampling over their own licorice shoestrings, flashlights armed.

A blip comes over a can of whipped cream spray on the opposite low shelf. He grins mischievously.

(Overlapping lines)

"Fill up my belly with that coo-kie plaaate

Just like Hammy'd stuuuuff an acorn sack

Stockings been fiiilled, bursting with candy caaanes

Just let me sneak out one… little snack"

Heather's head slams off a silver lid, back from the riveting receptacle realm. Though, she slouches an elbow over the rim at the empty carton of eggnog scavenged by her tail. Its insulting insults irk her and the tighter, dipped eyebrows on her face. It was so unappealing as to not even tempt any teeth out her mouth to have a single chomp of the box itself. So, she tears it to shreds and sprinkles it like snow into the snow (yeah, words) over the balcony.

(Pre-chorus)

"Oop-sie, thank god we've got the 5 second

Rule-uu-uu-uu-u-u-u-u-ullle!

'Cause I'd so ra-ther get some snow in my fur than

Drool-oo-oo-oo-o-o-o-o-oool!"

Backpedaling with the can in his arms, RJ trips off the corner of the surface, slightly elevated from the floor, onto a soft Santa toy lying abandoned in the shop streets. He feels his foot press onto a rigid box hidden inside as it sinks into Santa's stuffed stomach. It reacts merrily, jingling and jangling by the bell on its hat, whatever carols vibrating the limp doll drowned out by an ambient musical performance.

The elves, ready with launchers loaded from ornaments, halt in both openings of the aisle and slowly turn towards the burglar, whipped-cream-handed. Little Santa's jolly seizure continues, crushed by the paralyzed raccoon.

"You're never ever gonna dip your toe in the water

If ya never crack the iiice

We've got a hammer, got a sick ol' nail"

(Sharper again)

"That'll make ya smile 'n stay the niiiight!"

Before they have the chance to pile onto him, he quickly stores the can and leaps from wreath to wreath on a white rack behind him, flinging up to the top of the entire shelf as the elves tackle and trample each other in an attempt to capture the likeness of his photo, wanted by the authorities of the North Pole, with stocking-shaped nets. Their rims scrape the edges of his fur.

["Show's startin', we ain't missin' a beeeaaat!-"]

RJ dodges from atop the shelves as they unload projectile festivities in a flying holiday, lobbed high at him like jets of water above a slip-n-slide. He grinds a leg forward by the base of the paw to duck his body low and skid underneath a bushy mistletoe coming at him, jerking his eyes open at the threatening aura it displayed from whomever he would fall victim to.

The only preferable option still pouts out the open top of the trash can back in town, leaning her top half backwards over the edge and letting gravity decide where her limp arms go. Tossing and turning Heather's head only a slight bit in unresolved boredom and frustration makes all the difference - a crack of homely lighting divides her face and cuts through her pupils. Squinting intensely, the door appeared to be angled slightly inward into the kitchen. Suddenly, an alternative comes onto her menu.

(Chorus 2)

"'Winter Won-derland' sounds so- not cool

Like it's got some taste that makes it so old-school

But when we're green as an evergreen we're chillin' the sky

Ya brought some batteries? Pshh, our lights are juiced up by Christmas tiiii-"

Darting inside, her silhouette conveys the actions through windows on the house's front. The little girl at the table faces the appearance of some eldritch form only expected to see in rough, rigid concept art as a hairy beast, back bent far outward. An unsettling hiss of the stereotypical figure leads to a shriek on the receiving end. The creature's twisted tail grips aggressively onto the shape of a carton outlined in mint condition atop the table and continues breaking through from the right.

In the bedroom on the 2nd floor, a vent-dweller on the far wall shocks a love-making couple on the bed of the opposite, left end. It leaps out and over the top of stripped bodies as they experience the horror, heading for the window above the bed with the loot salvaged.

["-iiime!"]

"Daaa-da-dada-daaa-da-dada

Daaa-da-dada-daaa-duuuh-dat

Daaa-da-dada-daaa-da-dada

Daaa-da-dada-daaaaaa"

A cutesy vermin pops through the other end, high on the house's wall. Clung onto the windowsill, Heather brushes thoroughly through her entire coat, wordless in the concern department. Nonetheless, she drags down the paint of the wall, prize secured, into the soft snow.

Just like that, another conflict resolves. In her lonesome she realizes the ample opportunity to consume what had been wrongfully deprived from her. What flavor? Did eggnog need a flavor? Who cares, because this one had the glory of being beamed upon by Heather's delight… the pure taste of… eggless eggnog. As it turns out, the label clearly stated phoniness. Chicken soup without chicken. Pumpkin pie without pumpkin. Who'd drink 'nog'?! Her fists clench, jerking violently.

["Daaa-da-dada-daaa-da-dada"]

"Su-gar sweet on the peppermint moon"

["Daaa-da-dada-daaa-duuuh-dat"]

"I'mma drink hot cocoa while I sing this tune"

["Daaa-da-dada-daaa-da-dada"]

"Mmm-mhm-mmm-m-m-m-mmm-mhm"

(Breaking the rhythm)

"Mmm-mhm-MMM-MMM! Jeez, I burnt my tongue…"

Depressed, she rocks herself around in a sleigh on a spring planted in the front yard. The ship plays with her seasickness in soulless white waters. She checks the eggless eggnog again, dares to tear the lid open, and sniffs inside. It's surprisingly undistinguishable. Tempting, though the betrayal felt in her throat refuses to acknowledge.

(Bridge, with a different, slow rhythm)

"I've so gotta write a bridge heeere

'Cause that's just like, how songs go

And then I'll throw an awesome rhyme theeere

While my tongue chills in the snow"

But just then, another message enters a nostril. Cheese dip. Not a single shower since last year. The lovely aroma of a loved one.

(It breaks into a sudden, dramatic, pacing buildup with sleigh bells)

(Sharp whispers of her own voice relay to her, while she responds out of song)

["Awesome"]

"Wait"

She faces a heart-opening reminder - a raccoon statue in a yard across the wooded street catches her eye between snowy trees. Across town, a connection builds, giving her new intent.

["Awesome"]

"Hold on a sec'"

A candy cane prop staked in the ground beside her is plucked to be utilized as an oar. She shoves her body in alternating directions to rock the sleigh so hard it snaps right off the spring, flying through the air and crashing into the snow.

["Awesome"]

(Bells play a bright, harmonic melody)

"I think I got what I got…"

(The electric guitar returns, and she sings loud)

"And what I got, yeaaah that's really hittin' the spoooot!"

Determination crosses her countenance as she sails the yard, the little divots and hills vibrating her boat. From the pavement she gains pole-vaulting momentum, jabbing the cane into the rock to thrust herself up out of the sleigh and through the air down the street, narrowly avoiding the roof of an SUV happening to race past at her initial takeoff.

Just when the adrenaline is at its highest in her travels, the bottom curve of a wreath suspended by an overhanging street light catches her clumsy self. Upon offsetting startlement and the fleeting kicking of legs, she's swung straight for a giant Santa inflatable on the chimney of the nearest house. Her body squishes into it, the responding force shoving her far into the distance over the rooftops of the suburbs.

(Final chorus)

["Daaa-da-dada-daaa-da-dada"]

["-ooot!"] "Su-gar sweet on the peppermint moon"

["Daaa-da-dada-daaa-duuuh-dat"]

"Lost in- a stuffed plush aaa-venue"

["Daaa-da-dada-daaa-da-dada"]

"Eggnog fills your heart's empty mug

When ya ring the bell at Heather's Win-ter AWESOME-laaaaand!"

At last, she faceplants flat at the steps of Snickey's Christmas Mart - a moderate shop decorated immensely at the entrance around the set of front doors above a raised patio. The workshop of gingerbread and its amenities create a playground too intense for even her eyes to handle. But as the initial head-throbbing clears, what's left is the image of opportunity left in a nutcracker embedded in the wall. No sign of a raccoon left her with a low range of options.

(With a musical outro)

["It's pretty AWESOME, y'know, writing a song or two!"]

["How 'bout ya meet me once I'm done under the mistletoe, in a few'!"]

From the gutter on the edge of the roof, she hangs down in front of the soldier guarding the door, intrigue in the hand on her chin. Its face, painted and lifeless, requires deep scrutiny on her part. She twirls herself around and drops to the balcony.

(After the song ends)

"My tongue's still burnt by the way

Like, actually, HELP"

---

Heather looks at the eggless eggnog in her tail again, frowns sternly, and pours it out back behind the balcony. The snow parts, and the eggnog returns to the earth. The soil moistens as it sinks in, fertilizing with Christmas cheer. Heather crushes the empty carton and chucks the large, pointy ball up into the gaping mouth of the giant nutcracker embedded in the wall next to the doors.

Bonk.

It rudely thrashes the nose and rebounds back to her lap. She chucks it harder. It graces its bottom teeth. Then the elbow. A flurry of empty cartons unleash to pelt the polished man, none landing a dead shot. A possum makes her way up the soldier's painted wood and clings onto the arm. Heather carefully slips the carton in, smiles, and whizzes back to her seat in front of the balcony's fence.

"Yo. Cracker of nuts. Tell me my future."

The bottom jaw grunts and grinds like a temple door as it begins to enclose on the junk. In its callous face, the nutcracker accepts the worthless sacrifice thoughtlessly. The tipped corners bend against each other, wooden teeth squishing the revolting carton into oblivion. It poofs. The coarse, dull surface inside the mouth thuds from the block.

"I say ol' chap," the thing speaks in a painfully British British accent. "You will spot a raccoon flying out a chimney in a snap!"

The chimney over the dark chocolate roof explodes in the very back of the building. The grandest eruption of whipped cream one would ever see dazzles the air. Gushes of these foamy fireworks blast off along with the faint blur of a brown pellet flapping in the wind. The balcony shields Heather from whatever unnatural disaster (or miracle, however it's sliced) RJ had committed capable of pelting the walkway cream-full. Though it's not his questionable spraying abilities that excite her more than the guy himself raining butt-high into the snow beside the sidewalk.

"Sick!" Heather exclaims, nudging the nutcracker's leg with her elbow. "National stereotyping came in the clutch."

She hurries down to meet him.

Tickled by stubborn snowflakes, he raises his head, exhilarated as the RJ angel given life by his imprint. A breathless laugh escapes. "Would ya BELIEVE me if I said they fell for the ol' 'whipped smoke chimney' trick AGAIN?!"

"They should really, like, just lock up that fireplace, honestly." She takes hold of his hands to restore the footing he needed. Short arms leave little space for the cold to part the warmth of close fronts. "Sounds like a liability waiting to happen."

"Now hey, that cashier looked SO cold, her silky smooth lipstick was freezing on her silky smooth lips. I think it'd be doing her a favor."

Only stray flakes take the road even such measly distance provides, polite as to not cling to tips of hairs meeting between, white stomachs already paired in their appearance of fellow snowflakes, only to keep true colors waiting for the other to uncover. Deep chroma spotlights come faint over them from the building - the tones they already knew present, no plain sight necessary.

He stares at her with hands held, completely bare in this environment and no saturation in her fur. Her fingertips were frozen in his. Crevices fold tightly, and blood pumps between. His own tail wore a stocking of rich red, dangling bells playfully jingling while its owner sags low at her concerning unconcern of her frigid standing.

"Should I even ask how YOU'RE not cold?"

She releases from him to explain, lively on a cold pad of stone, surrounded only by snowy airs chilling all exposed hairs: "It's December, dude. That means my body won't be telling me if I'm cold for like, mmmm, maybe like 25 days or something." Gleeful nonetheless, her tail flicks about the area, jarringly animated in such a climate. "Y'know, normally my tail'd be FROSTbit by now. Luckily it's like, SO numb I can't tell one way or the other."

A heated racket breaks through from inside. It takes a javelin of a giant candy cane to come flying out the glass window into the ground behind RJ's bum to give his tail something to prop itself up once again.

"Look we'll stick it in an oven or something later otherwise they'll be toasting marshmallows under our stake," he urges her in retreat. "Little do they know I snagged us a choo-choo chariot from the kids 5-through-12 TOY section!"

Manning a remote control, RJ has a large toy train bust through the opposite front window and soar onto the sidewalk.

"Ho...ho...HALT!" A fat discount incantation of Santa busts open the front doors, having had enough of the pillows stuffed under his coat and a belt tight enough to combat the grip of the Christmas season on the lives of American consumers everywhere (in other words, America). That discount couldn't pay anywhere near enough for a proper exercise plan, despite what training RJ provided free of charge. "PLEASE! Give our kids 5-through-12 toy section MERCYYYYY!"

RJ jumps onto the front car. "They're 'bout to be sendin' Santa's Little Helpers jingle-janglin' after our asses." To the sky, he hollers, "Allll aboooAAAARD!"

The light, pre-recorded whistle of the train sounds their exit, Heather hopping onto the caboose by the time Santa manages half a staircase. She faces the store behind them, greatly amused by the act, as the little plastic wheels race on each car down the sidewalk and right into the Hedge.

Bark becomes the first attraction beyond the boundary. As the portal's foliage scatters from their faces, the train earns itself a concussion head-first against the trunk of a bulky tree - and (hopefully) no concussions earned for the passengers on board. Jammed, their ride has ended.

The Christmas contents of RJ's bag come pouring out in a mound. Examination of every square mint, Jailbreak-Bob, and excessive, excessive quantities of hot chocolate packets slam his breaks at the stop sign of an immediate, glaring issue. "Heather, upon closer inspection, I'm giving your liver one mission: Spare us from Verne's eternal wrath this year. Turns out if we're gonna die living, he wants to be awake for the show."

"Why don't you marry my liver next time?" These snarky words pass like bullets.

"You were gonna eat it all anyways."

"I'm on it."

While she's inhaling mints, RJ's interest peaks at the small, portly game box last to be shaken out of the bag. He brushes off the green lid covering a red base, so generic for the stinging aesthetic of the season that no difference, no gaiety comes in response to a chocolate bar in a candy treasury. "Oh yeah, and I found this stupid game too."

"Oh shit, stupid games?!" She practically tackles him to shove the box away, ecstatic.

The front of the box reads to her:

'Deck My Halls'

"How do you play this thing?" she asks.

"Well, I can't say I'm a walking pocket manual."

She taps him with the rigid corner as he approaches apathetically. "You stole it and called it 'sTuPiD', you gotta know what it IIIS!"

"I think the stupidness was more of an ambient thing…" he sighs, face squinted at the recent memory. "I used it as a shield against Santa's signature candy cane crossbow."

That would explain the dent in the top corner. In fact, every glance tatters the kiddy cover, revealing creases, cracks, and the war-torn scar of a bell's imprint in the center. Projectiles of any sort managed to fossilize such shapes across the damaged cardboard. The folktales always subtly mentioned the sheer versatility of the jolly man's crossbow, said to spruce up a village of who-knows-who in a single shot. All those happy faces, happy souls… That was until the Involuntary Manslaughter of '64.

They sit across from each other in the snow and throw off the lid gloriously. Heather first finds a small envelope, courtesy of the elves themselves, stamped accordingly. Listed instructions come included on a small slip of green paper caught between her front teeth after biting it open.

"'Sorry, we ran outta puns'," she recites.
"'So here's some Christmas fun

Grab a card, then find some decor

And spice up your partner's holiday some more.

P.S. It took us ONE minute to write this garbage.'"

"Wow," RJ reacts in a hush, suddenly enthralled by the impressive, minute-made literary kung-fu needed to craft such a masterpiece as this.

As if moderating their secrecy in the matter, she breathes discreetly, "Yeah, how do you run outta Christmas puns?"

Then comes a new voice, amplified tenfold: "Oh deer I sleigh, that sounds impossi-bell!"

And what to their twitchy little eyes did appear? Ozzie. It's Ozzie. Hanging between heads, treading across a club and mace, expression beaming and chest puffed so sprightly as leaping carp flapping fins from the fishing hole. Rid of eye contact. Puns- a plenty. Bait taken, and still the catchers reluctantly reel in. Bottom lip gaping so high an ornament could fit in there.

RJ shoves an ornament into Ozzie's mouth and smacks the box hard on his head as to relinquish the possibility of conscious ears having to endure the censored outburst nearly spitting and ripping through Heather's tongue and jaw.

They couldn't even talk of the embarrassing effort it took to conjure up the origami figures in a time that could've been hours later for all they knew. Half the cards of the deck, plainly solid in color, are already represented by the tiny decorations placed on each of their paper creations corresponding to three 'festive' pictures: a gingerbread cookie, Christmas tree, and 'Santa' (or a deformed doppelganger, rather). Turns go by, nothing noteworthy, honestly, and the devilish thing seems to salvage the sacred bits of joy remaining in their frowns to transfer onto the glitter-powdered accessories passed between converging arms.

RJ picks a gingerbread card from the deck. He pulls a gumdrop sticker from the box and sticks it on the chest of Heather's 'gingerbread man'.

Heather picks a tree card from the deck. She pulls a gold ribbon from the box and wraps it around RJ's 'tree'.

RJ picks a Santa card from the deck. He pulls a plastic candy cane and finally picks up the nerve (and vindictive tendency) to stab it right through the stomach of Heather's 'Santa'.

"Okay, this is stupid," admits Heather.

RJ can't bear it. "There's no objective, there's no funny pieces, there's no free parking spaces, there's no-! We might as well be decorating each other at this point. What even IS this-?!"

"Wait," she interrupts. "Say that again."

"News flash: We're in a literary medium!" he spits back. "More of our words get recorded HERE than they do by the government spies in our phones!"

She laughs it off. "Oh yeah."

She jumps up and slams down something in the nature of a projector screen, displaying a log of everything recorded by time and narration itself thus far, these very words stretching its height farther. Unfortunately the visible resolution of a visual medium this could be envisioned on is too short to display her line of interest, just about to slip away from her reach as the text piles up from the bottom. Painfully the mountain crunches into place from two plates. What are those two plates? One is persistence - the ability to speak when no one did ask, and to continue regardless of the circumstances, the characters, the audience, banging their chairs into tables and slingshotting tomatoes as the monologuing sentences pile on and on, though the produce-proof glass of the stage weakens none, and instead continues shielding a stinging lullaby, void of any compelling formatting or literary substance. The second is awareness - the ability to maximize the 'immersive experience' a medium has to offer.

Flailing hands and clawing against the surface fails to drag the line back down for her to read. Instead, Heather stretches higher to the tippy toes of her tippy toes, efforts futile. "Wait! Scroll UP!"

Marco.

Polo.

Marco.

Polo.

"Screw you." Perhaps a rather explicit attack on her part would prove more effective, though a twitching, inactive hand suggests hesitation on the option of a finger gesture given to the sky behind her.

Now, a solution is presented: if RJ were to speak such words again, they would be sure to appear for Heather to view.

A click sounds in his head. Memo gotten. "I saaaaiiid 'We might as well be decorating each other at this point'."

The words appear from the bottom for Heather to view.

"SEE?" Knowing her ears were not deceiving her, all but the pointer finger clenches tightly against the palm of her hand stabbing the evidence. Or eyes. Her eyes weren't deceiving her either. "THAT line! RIGHT there! When you said THAT-"

One more line would vanish the dialogue.

"Aaaaaand it's gone again. But it gave me an idea… One of those real- good, like, Christmas-y kinda ideas."

She yanks his hand off to the side, explaining the plan out of view. Pure courtesy. Had the surprise been spoiled, the minute passing by in a still environment could've been unappreciated in the wait. A wilted leaf rocks in the wind. That's about it, actually.

"We're already decorating the-!" RJ protests, hidden away.

"No no no, THEY'RE decorating it," she corrects. "This's like, my place, bucko. From now on, you work for me. I'll be Santa, and YOU are my little elf. Now c'mon!"

"Hey hey hey! Ow. Owww…"

Linked tails follow Heather's casual waltz back into view. As she effortlessly drags him along, tail coiled around his, RJ's low body skims and scrapes the ground in resistance. Unfortunately, snow provides no such support, simply allowing Heather way over the winter landscape with a portable raccoon towing behind.

Just as his footing begins to return, the snow makes one excellent pillow to collapse into. Though just the same it jests him and has no form to stop his muzzle from plopping deep and poking the hard earth. "You really need to stop with the… y'know, tail-to-tail action," he grunts while lifting his face up, flakes tingling to the nose. "Ya think?"

Her arms cross as he regains height over her. "Yeah uh-huh, and what's your excuse again?"

She yanks his hand and zooms him up into the nearest pine.

"-Oh yeah, EVERY night?" The low width of the earthy branch, dimmed by the cone of spiky leaves surrounding the tent, fits perfectly to her slim side, lying innocently on the wooded bed, eyes beating. "'Ohhh, like, I don't wanna fall outta the tReEeEe." Wiggling the tail at him from her rear, tenderly-locked hands plead into his melting chocolate heart. "Could you pweeeease do that THING-'"

"Shut up," he stabs at her mental fireplace, threatening. "You've never seen me fall outta that tree. Which means you are doing a GREAT job. Now…" His back hunches like a gremlin once he throws his blunt hands flat forward. "I am not your little elf! Capiche?"

And the shot only briefly stuns her. Given the conditions, her milk was not yet spoiled. The milk in a jug, to be clarified. She props her head up in a hand-hip pose, snapping her lips back into a wide, derpy grin. "Can you still call me Santa?"

A tape measure clicks and stretches from leg to head over the slopes of her side and protruded hip. RJ bends backwards, frontwards, and all-wards inside her personal bubble to acquire the reasonable angle he needed to sufficiently analyze her structure, though her posture only gave a perspective from one end or the other. He climbs over the top of her to wrap her waist with the tape and get a good reading on her slim torso, the latter end of his own intruding on her face, bouncing against her cheek, pestering. For the final test, he gets a scale and lifts her upright onto it on the flattest edge of the branch. The blank reading on the electronic meter doesn't think to change.

RJ takes a good long minute to process the physical implications of the skinny cotton ball he had let himself fall to. Something with such low weight… no, LITERALLY weightless, could defy the laws of gravity itself. Honestly, the fact that this possum hadn't outright sprouted wings yet drew some surprise. Santa wishes he had goddamn wings. Though the stomach volume would absolutely break some world records. Heather possessed nothing of the quintessential sort. "The results say… nnnnno."

She frowns in an instant. "Hey, y'know I'd totally KILL him in a food-eating contest!"

"A fact which is not arguable-"

"Wait... y'know what I just thought of?" She sneers at the idea. "Ha, it's funny, like… I thought of somethin'."

"Bold move in OUR society-"

"RJ, hit me with the jam."

Noodle legs below RJ slip out and plant him back against the trunk. Without thinking twice, he throws a jar square at her forehead. After bonking against her dome, she tears it open with her teeth and starts dumping jam straight into her mouth.

She senses the jam soak through her flesh and into the fabrics of a civilized, philosophical mind, studying such complex subjects as curly fries, and that little imperfect tuft of fur on RJ's neck. Arcane knowledge overrides, and what's left is the ingenuity matching his in the mirror, dropping the branch between her legs in the same fashion. "So this is kinda sick, alright. See, Santa can't get his belly full o' jelly without eating…" Her brain juices the jam. Digests it. "So, if I can eat MORE than him, y'knoooOOOww… OBJECTIVELYYYY…"

RJ's once-smug smile bends the opposite way, and his eyelids follow through. An expanding mass of gray fur overtakes the black of the night up the mild slope of the wooden limb. Down the uneven bark she comes in a fanfare, honking nose-to-nose and knee-to-knee onto him, a bit less impact than expected.

"...I'm the better Santa."

RJ's forehead waves the mark of shocked defeat. "The brain-feeding properties of grape jam strike again." Consulting the roof of leaves makes for the only option, thrusting his nose up. "I've been BRAIN-JAMMED! Dammit… So YOU wanna be Santa?"

"Our Santa," she winks. "Yo, call me like…" She stutters for a second to decide on the spot. "'Heather Claus', I dunno. Wow, that's actually kinda gooOOOd, y'know?"

"And how are you gonna do that?"

"Well first things first…" she ponders, filled to the max intellectual grape-jam stimulation possible. "I gotta look the part." She glances between him and the stupid game box down on the ground and grins again.

RJ frowns.

---

The game box leaves itself lost in the woods as they walk down the line of the Hedge. Only the deck of cards remained strapped to RJ's hand, the pieces and other contents abandoned purely through the undoubtable possibility of Hammy looking to play dress-up as well. Call it fear, call it laziness, call it both - to be fair, the existence of a 'Hammy Claus' definitely undermined the existence of a 'Heather Claus'. They approach a far-off location, beyond the perimeter of the Hedge itself.

Tucked in RJ's arm is the golf bag. "Alright ma'am, how you feelin' 'bout this one?"

They are gathered at the base of a large pine tree at a peak overlooking a downward, snowy slope, perfectly suited for their needs. That view spoke stories, and the thought of having it all to read just out a back window couldn't be let up. Who else happens to be under this tree at the edge than a squirrel, yawning away.

"It has Hammy," notes Heather. "That's a plus."

At the peak of his optimal yawning technique, Hammy coughs out a butterfly, free to paint a cold winter with warm colors.

"Hammy's always a plus," RJ agrees.

Taken some time, they leave their bums to cold seats. Heather mixes up the cards and shuffles the deck between her hands. The boys stare at her, waiting. Performing the sickest trick in the book, flicking two halves of the deck together, she accidentally spills it all. Slowly, she picks each card up one… by… one… and considers them shuffled.

"Okay. We're bakin' up a ginger wonderland, but first, we gotta bake up me. So, we got the goods-"

Holding up said goods, Hammy attentively broadcasts: "Sprinkles! Mints! Icing!"

"We got the supplies-"

"Ovens preheated and ready to roll!" RJ confirms.

"W-wait, ovens?"

"Yeah." Bringing attention to the giant oven behind them, unscathed by the elements, fails to relax. "To warm your tail. And bake you in the process, conveniently enough."

They breathe flames. Hot flames. Very hot flames.

"I… think we'll hold off on the ovens."

Soon, she lets herself fall back weightlessly into the snow, legs kicked up and sprawled out on her landing. "Hey," she points sharply. "I'd better be tastier than that limited-edition 'Turkey Feast-wich' they've got at Arnie's."

To the operating table they approach the patient, so bold as to insist on consciousness during the cosmetic surgery. Both stretch down the oversized rubber medical gloves on their tiny hands and snap them back, Hammy's launched to space at phase 2. RJ slams a hand on the top of the deck between them and flicks a card up to his face.

A gingerbread card comes first. RJ slides it down and tensely squints his eyes. Impressive progress had already been made on the snow angel in Heather's place during the wait. Enough to tempt RJ's intent observations off the subject and to the patterned trails in the snow. Luckily, he still calls for the operational tools. "ICIIIIIING, STAT!"

Hammy hugs a large, white pastry bag to hand it off to him. "Non-suggestive icing, READY!"

"TOO suggestive, Hammy!"

A blue one comes next. "Less suggestive icing, READY!"

"BLUE icing?! What is this, the 4th of July?! C'mon, c'mon!" Shooing, Hammy flees from his aggression.

He returns again with the same white one.

"That is what this doctor ordered." Satisfied, RJ bends over top of Heather and aims it down at her stomach. "Time to spray this sweet stuff!"

Delectable vanilla icing pours over her entire stomach. She eyes the puddle intensely as it quickly takes its shape on her, lip pulsing back to keep her tongue from shooting out for a taste. RJ holds the bag stoutly at his side as Hammy swipes up the next card for his turn: Christmas tree.

Hammy scoops up a thin vine of pines, long enough to capture Heather's armspan and some room to spare. He loops and loops around her, spiraling the pines over both arms up to her wrists. The excess sags as a leafy swing rocking facetiously below her shoulders behind the back.

RJ pulls a Santa card.

After he struggles to fit a small Santa hat on her head between her ears, Heather lacks the feel-good, tingly sensation of perfect swag. Instead, her visage expresses insult. "Oh yeahhh, veeery creative."

RJ yanks it off and instead smacks it over her left ear, leaving the right uncovered for some extra Heather style.

"That'll do."

Hammy's own Santa card has him dancing a red scarf around her neck, bordered by fluffy white clouds. Spinning like a top, her sudden dizziness reflects only the start of a faster tempo. Cards are rapidly thrown from what could be a leafblower. Heather moves down like a conveyor belt in a reference pose, having her pines decorated with lush mistletoe berries. She scoots back the other way, now having spherical multi-color bulbs spread as well.

Back in the snow angel business, RJ and Hammy arm pastry bags and weave their squiggles and splatters in decorative formations: red stockings over the legs, a vest over the chest, and stubby knees dipped in delectable fudge.

Atop her head, Hammy drips a little gloop to blanket the tip of her exposed ear (the one with Heather style). RJ takes to a lower angle, spreading the white icing on a butter knife over both hips, topping them with colorful sprinkles sure to create enticing dashed lines leading to the cutest present under the tree.

Another gingerbread card results in Hammy crawling over top of her and dropping off 2 chocolate candies like buttons on her frosted stomach.

RJ, close enough to her to feel the jovial breaths from her nose, tucks 2 strips of licorice under her scarf as straps, freely dangling down her front. Heather slides her hands down them. They wonderfully remain in place as partial suspenders only hooked to a top but no bottom. No pants, not needed. Overrated pants.

Both stick a peppermint bowtie in place, held by the plastic wrapping twisted to the sides.

Now, the deed's been 'done'. The work 'finished'. But RJ immediately senses insecurity left in her tasty design. He only frowns. Hammy uncovers the mystery clogging his railway to fulfillment - her tail, completely bare, the toy unwound by their craftsmanship. Decking these halls required specialized adornment suited for its slender structure. Icing would slip right off. Santa didn't have a tail… at least they'd presume. RJ hurries through the small remainder of the deck in search of a tree card. Out of the last handful, none appear. Anxious panic ensues.

Out of nowhere, Heather kicks the whole deck away, flying into next week. The gore of cards messies the ground. "Guys, these cards are stupid. Too stupid. I'm like your canvas, alright? So like, p-paint me, yeah. That's a good metaphor."

Now she'd said it. The freedom of a toymaker, unrestrained by meaningless expectations, excites their faces. The last of Heather becomes a free-for-all. They take no hesitation extending a string of Christmas lights to spin around her tail all the way to the tip, festivizing it for the holiday season. The blackness of this limb never sees darkness again, for it has been made new.

A second later, RJ has a tiny mistletoe to add to the end of the tail as a finishing touch. Apparently Heather had picked up that this scene was meant to be a silent film. She shakes her tail while tugging flirtatiously on her licorice straps, back facing him. An offer of empowerment - RJ is unable to hold back a sly grin in response. He shoves the mistletoe in. Immediately, the tail takes the opportunity to slap him across the cheek and wags against his nose. He curses at it. It whips him again. Silently, of course.

At last, the finished piece sets herself in prime positioning for a camera pose. Her decor overwrites the nakedness of the tree behind her. To ensure it's never mistaken for the focal point, RJ flips on obnoxious spotlights waiting on the ground, piercing into Heather's pupils. Daytime in a nightly bout blinds her as a bat.

"And lastly…" RJ concludes. "...dramatic effect."

Dramatic it is. The sky can't shine without sun, yet those spotlights radiated a solar flare from her broad change of appearance. Judging from her front alone, she'd already been picked fresh from the oven. Straying off the cookie pan, the seasonal accessories adding glam to her head and neck felt a more authentic texture from the hills of silk to the cotton edges. The pines rendered her not a dessert to mess with. Poking out on her back side, these pricks proved her inedible. The most any seer could do was leave their hungry mouths drooling at the star. The scattered bulbs fill the mug of a disco ball. They alternate on and off for a jubilee.

"You look… delicious," says RJ.

"Very delicious," Hammy excites himself, fingers twitching and mouth nearly ready to water. "Almost… too delicious."

"I'd eat her any day."

"Awesome!" Heather exclaims. "Now all I'm missing's the eggnog."

RJ coughs nervously.

Thus, her whole vibe is ruined. An entire vibe, dead. "You didn't get eggnog, did you?"

"Ahem, I-"

Getting right up in front of him, the muscles in her arms lock following every shake underneath his. "You didn't get the goddamn EGGNOG when you were literally at a CHRISTMAS mart?! Dude, I paid you good money for that stuff!"

So now RJ's WILDLY confused, having no change on the mind nor money in the pocket. "No you didn't."

Blindness falls upon her, as the world she knew took from her the sight such precious eggnog granted. She lets him talk to her back with shut eyes. Not even he could save himself from her incoming tangent. Thus, she laments: "I paid with love, RJ. Paid. With. Love. That's the currency that really matters in this world. Y'know? You think we could've blown up that claw machine thing? Put a fissure through the earth? You think… we could've ended it all, and started anew… without LOVE?!"

"Hammy get us the hell outta here," he pleads in a whisper. "Remind her we're gonna build a gingerbread house."

He gasps, "WE'RE GONNA BUILD A GINGERBREAD HOUSE!?" It takes a reveal like that to release a prank can inside him. The opportunity and sudden unravelling of a diamond egg compels him to shout - excited and unaware as the one he's supposed to be exciting and awaring.

Heather goes abruptly silent and stretches a grin, face wide.

---

The two are clung onto RJ as they bungee down the chimney by a yo-yo, bobbing dangerously deep into the forest of smoke raising overgrowth into their throats. The blazing fire urges to poke at their bums like an angry crowd once they swing over into the cushiony lounge area of a recurring marketplace. Inside the mart, the open fireplace warms all the red recliners and couches nearby, splattered with whipped cream. But their arrival heats up the tension of the building more than a steaming cauldron pot could.

Interrupting the cleanup crew of elves, Santa senses the animals enter the shop behind them. Rather than assisting in tending to the whipped cream disaster ruining the furniture in the blast zone, he gets his candy cane crossbow ready. "THEY'RE BACK!" The elves rush to his aid.
"STOP them before they get to the WHIPPED CREAM, ho-ho!"

Bells strapped to boots jingle wildly. As they gather artillery, Santa scatters the animals, opening fire from the canes loaded back on the tinsel string. The canes whiz at them. They snap in half on the hard floor at a miss, propelling erratic shrapnel as tiny knives flying about. Hammy speeds off to the right past every aisle coming and going like houses on the road. RJ and Heather slip past the elves and collect themselves behind the shelf of the last aisle on the left. Opposite to them appears to be a small row of shopping carts on the back wall, green with festive decor painted across.

Hammy manages to lap the entire shop twice before gathering a barely-manageable armful of ornaments, streamers, and lights.

On the refrigerated shelf of the wall, the dairy section holds NO eggnog, to RJ and Heather's displeasure. Heather backs down and gazes out blankly while her back uses the slanted base of the shelf as support. The hand of another, grasping her drooping own, makes for a better form of comfort. RJ lets his feet slip from below his legs just as hers does once she plops down in disappointment. "Heather, 'possum pal, we got a whooole month ahead of us…" he apologizes, tone genuine. "You 'n me. Sorry about your eggnog deprivation. Really. I-"

Her tail circles his lower body as she swerves close after accepting the circumstances. "That's okay dude. I'm sorry too." The radio from the roof's speakers numbs away, and they're left with just themselves and a set of pristine tiles, reflecting vague silhouettes merging structures, closely bonded. "I've realized that I never needed that stupid eggnog anyway. You're like a whole eggnog ocean to me. But like, hold the eggnog... and hold the ocean... but a LOT more RJ. Yes please."

Coming onto his chest, the side of her head rubs affectionately against him. She lends to him her appreciation, leaning from the side, stretching short arms as far as they could manage around him. The little tuffet at the end of her hat neatly brushes his fur, and the scarf wishes it could only just fit his neck with hers inside one ring. Mistletoe peeks from RJ's other side.

"Is this how you solve things?" RJ smirks, left out of place in the environment.

"It's how I solve things with you," she smiles.

So let it be known, they have their moment… only until the poster at the end of the lane comes to their attention. It boasts the unthinkable - a whole new flavor of the trademarked brand Egg-Nog, soon to come in stock. 'Silent Spice'. The yuletide tunes resume, and Heather breaks free from sympathetic scenery. The traffic of bustle and business continues to progress, competing at the stoplights.

"Alright NEVERMIND," she doubles back, pushing him aside. "The eggnog talk is SO back on the table now."

Passionately, left in the dust, discarded for a seasonal beverage, RJ tromps towards it. "Can I BE Heather's eggnog for ONE second!?" He assaults the poster in whatever appropriate fashion. "I got cream for DAYS, egg-shot!"

Once he kicks the base of the stand, the sign only folds and topples onto him, anticlimactically.

A moment later, reentering Christmas city from the subways of solace, the elves patrol the opposite end of each aisle the two sneak past. Rattling briskly, though nowhere near subtly, the shopping cart they push enters the hall of candies, vacant among the rest. Every shelf and hanger stocked its sugar to the brim, radiating down onto them the energy consuming them would've brought regardless. Faces alight.

"Target sighted!" RJ shouts. Heather climbs up to the baby seat from the cart's frame before RJ has completed the judgement: "Let 'er roll!"

The cart takes momentum transferred from RJ's own, angled low to thrust his arms at the bar between the back wheels. The pads on his feet barely cling to the slippery floor; his legs slide back. Once their ride takes off, he leaps onto the side and scurries up. They take to the left and right edges, hanging off by an arm to reach and snag items off the shelves with the other as it rumbles down. All at once, stealth loses to invigoration and every tile thumps the wheels louder, a mound packing in to intensify this exposure.

RJ checks off the list as bags are relayed into the cornucopia jumbled on the baby seat. "Peppermints! Gumdrops! Pre-baked gingerbread!"

Her tail proved far too occupied with the mistletoe in its grasp to assist. Heather leans far out, bundling goods by the pound. "Candy canes!" She scores a second bag. "LOOOOTS o' candy canes. 2 bags." There's the impressive find. "JUMBO candy canes?! Totally need those."

Hammy strains as he lifts his lump of holiday groceries onto the chilly counter of the cashier, her skin pale from the cold, just as RJ had described. Meanwhile, Santa stumbles across the aisle RJ and Heather must be busy terrorizing in the back of the shop. "They've breached aisle 2!" he gasps. "Initiate the 'North Pole Barricade'!"

White light makes the cashier's face devoid of color aside from the faded lipstick, eyeshadow, and blonde hair underneath an elf hat. Hammy's breaths come wheezy following his efforts, greeting the sleepy cashier warmly to reheat her skin: "Hello, attractive lipstick lady. May I make a purchase?"

"We got marshmallows!" RJ resumes. "Chocolate bars!" A heavy fire extinguisher happens to get plucked straight from its column against the shelf. "Fire extinguisher! Wait, fire extinguisher?"

Funky music from the radio thrusts Heather's heart rate up. "Ooooooh, we've been down this road."

Unmoved, the woman stares Hammy down so drowsily that his stature makes no noteworthy abnormality to the night shift experience. "Will that be credit card or cash, sir? Ma'am?" The squirrel stands peppy-toed on the marble counter, orange fur indiscreet in the setting, but unidentifiable in its details. "Whatever you are."

"Uh, actually, I'm Hammy." Speaking abilities distort, as they should from digging deep through his mouth to scavenge the currency. "Uhhhhhhh-huh. Juuust a sec'." Out of both cheeks, he somehow excavates a pile of crinkled dollar bills and spare coins to offer, disregarding the black credit card reader. "Cash please."

Finally, the cashier lifts her head off of her hand.

RJ hops on the back handle, tightens his grip, and aims the fire extinguisher behind the cart. A harsh squeeze unloads the spray, blasting the cart forward down the lane, ready to take down Santa and the crew in one sleigh wreck. The fat man's eyes bulge following the drop of his crossbow aim in the face of the painted metal on his trajectory. Collision comes to the pillow in his stomach. He's pinned to the wall in a crash, frantic wheels on the cart left spinning in the trauma.

As Santa recovers from the dizziness, all he sees is the cutout of a gray, hairy cookie decked out in Christmas and candied apparel alike. The thing scampers to the front rim of the cart. It stands against his plump sugarplum nose. Close contact doesn't cease to clear the fog - if anything, the fuzzy, frosted texture appears even more unclear to his squashed brain.

Heather rips the striped red and white crossbow from his hands. "I'll take that."

Santa eyes one of the startled elves, quietly baffled. "Why is this furry Christmas cookie sentient?"

RJ claps with Heather at the front before laying a new carpet of beard over Santa's face with the fire extinguisher, fwooming them back the opposite way which they came.

"Sorry, I'm little on the short end today, I spent WAY too much on my last dental appointment," Hammy rambles as the cashier scans the last of the items, tolerant of the questionable customer. He eyes every movement of hers, each object swiped over the screen, precisely. Intriguing as a chestnut itself, he tracks the faintly-coated nails of her hand.

Smooth moves, he's reminded. Smooth moves. He props his elbow over the cash register. "Healthcare, am I right? What's up with THAT?" Then a shopping cart launches backwards out the front doors in the background. Frigid air scares itself inside the store, clinging against the surface of the doors to debrief, lingering and vulnerable to exposure. "Oop, gotta go! Bye!" Just before jerking away, he backpedals to burp up an acorn into the tip jar on the corner of the counter. "THANK YOU!"

He's away in an instant, grabbing his new belongings.

"That's a nice squirrel," the woman comments. "If only I knew a single word it said."

---

The bare tree is where the goods amount.

Saluting to RJ, Hammy secures a surplus of ornaments now loaded onto the crossbow, tied in one huge ball by rubber bands. "LOCKED AND LOADED!"

Heather's casual attitude comes to an end once she's pelted by the ornaments shotgunned across the tree's branches. Red streamers she holds flutter as she dodges them.

A moment later, and a tongue out, she tilts the instruction sheet for the gingerbread house like a steering wheel on their plot of empty land, unsure of how to interpret the unintelligible hieroglyphics apparently involved in its construction. Hammy thoughtfully rips it to shreds for her and gets to building right away from the unorganized pile of materials. She shrugs and jumps along in, spraying candies out the rear onto the walls Hammy frosts into place.

The moon makes its arc above them over the house, growing larger into a lobby, spread out into a gingerbread village at the hill's edge, the decorated tree as the landmark. With each new abode, presents compile in a community underneath, other friends additionally stacked nearby by the time space squeezes thin. Another passing hour means another hot chocolate break. 'Til the moon nears the curve of the earth, they work. And they work. The lobby packs higher, taller, larger walls. Fellow oaks link electric cords like telephone wires, radio boxes strung high to make merry ambience.

Together, they put a sign on a candy cane stand dug into the ground, though slightly crooked:

'Heather's Winter Wonderland'

After completion, they stand at the entrance, marked by a path of chocolate leading to the red carpet below the main tree, lit like a candle. Their shaded backs leave the majestic light in front to illuminate their outlines.

"Hmm. Pretty cool place," Heather understates, arched forward, arms crossed.

Hammy just shivers. "Did anyone bring m-mittens?"

RJ sways himself in towards Heather. "Oh REEEAAAALLY?"

She relaxes the youth in herself. "C'mon, it's an AWESOME place. Like, really awesome."

Hammy persists. "Mittens? Mitty mittens? Please?"

"SOOOOoooooo," RJ starts checking the list. "Including all expenses, hot chocolate packets, and mittens for Hammy, that would totaaalll… juuuust a lil' somethin' in return."

After thinking it over, Heather paces close. "Here, you get an early present, how 'bout that bargain?"

She hugs him.

"Can I get an early present?" asks Hammy.

"Absolutely."

She comes to hug him too, to his surprise. "My Christmas list had mittens on it…" Though not the present he was hoping for, Heather's front proves just as satisfactory in comfort. Snugglier. Messier, too. But snugglier. "...but that works too."

RJ finds something irritating to the eyes at high altitudes above the city, or lack thereof, that crinkles up his face.

Heather and Hammy weave beside the sign. By the time they disperse, Heather's frosting imprints on Hammy's cheek as though he'd tripped into the snow. Tripping onto Heather might as well feel the same. She takes him in an arm like a little brother, spinning back beside the front sign. "Guys, THIS place is gonna rule! We'll have that one Christmas station streaming 24/7!"

"Yaaaay!" Hammy cheers.

"We'll have, like, these nightly cookie-baking sessions… 'n I'll be the taste-tester!"

"Yaaaay!" Hammy cheers.

She leaps her head to the sky and waves her arms. "WITH EGGNOG 'N MITTENS FOR ALL!"

"WOOP WOOP, WOOO-LO-LO-LO-LO!"

"Wait, hold up, gotta pep myself up for this one…" She clears her throat before sending her voice to the mountain peaks and the lowest valleys of the downhill coaster behind this new carnival. "Wel-coooome to Heather's Winter Wonderla-!"

"Hate to pitch the cocoa here, but ehhhh…" RJ clicks his tongue to the roof of his mouth from the rickety tip of the tree, echoing two stories down from the highway of frigid winds. "I don't think we got a star…"

Hammy clenches his hands on head and stomps his feet. "No star? NO STAR?!"

"Hammy, get us a star!" RJ commands.

Still drug in Heather's wing like a stuffed doll, he dashes away and immediately returns up the other side of the tree to RJ, squirming nervously. "Umm, that mature, independent young mistress just called me a star. That's something!"

His butt comes down on the tree. RJ sticks him there, the new star vibrating like a flimsy board. Ding. The glow he emits quickly flickers out. Vigorous, maniacal shaking never resumes the brightness. Hammy sits as a dull, orange lump of hair on top, painfully unlit.

"What now?" Hammy breathes.

"IMPROVISE, HAMILTON. IMPROVISE!"

Hammy's legs anxiously cycle as a racecar before he flies off. He comes first to try a box of speculaas.

"Nope."

A crisp slice of toast, otherwise perfect had it been a Thanksgiving meal, goes next.

"Nope."

Lil' RJ - the stitch-tended, olden plush of a raccoon. Its messy hairs stuck to one another. No showers (much like RJ himself). Hammy tests it carefully as to not impale the innocent thing through its vulnerable belly.

"I like it."

That's a thrill... only for a second.

"Meh, I don't like it anymore."

Hammy heaves up some brick of a fruitcake, arms wobbling. For a Christmas bonus, biting into a loaf of concrete never seemed too appealing.

"Nope."

Its hefty removal into his hands leans the tree to the side, sags the tip and tosses them off. They plant in the snow on both sides of the chocolate pad Heather stands on, milky and smooth.

"Guuuuysss, chiiill, we don't need some stupid sTaRrR." She wraps around them and turns to face the incredible metropolis. "Let's just step back, binge some nachos, take a sec' and appreciate what we've got."

Hammy chomps the first crunch into said bag of nachos. Under regular circumstances, Heather'd be leaping to dig in. Instead she substitutes the opportunity to just nod like a derp.

That's when the sign falls over.

The board had come loose. Sudden imbalance knocks the candy canes of the stand flat into the snow. One pounces on the bright red button of a balloon inflator. The air pumps from a black tube. A giant snowman takes liftoff. One radio bobbing in the treeline budded its squarish formation with fatal corners. It pops. The dying corpse cries and wails to the Christmas pine. It scathes the tip. The empty outline of a star on top blinks. Nothing stops the crippling blimp from terrorizing. It bombs into the mug of hot chocolate at the windowsill of the lobby. The steaming cocoa dumps inside and takes cover at the lowest edge of the wall supporting the building. The foundation moistens. The muddy ginger scares a crack out of the quicksand. It scales the center of the roof. Split in two. A crumbling wall dominoes into another. It all comes down before a single intermission in the action, rolling the inappropriate credits at last.

Heather's eyelid twitches among the static nature of all else.

Once it's said and done, Hammy is still snacking. "Is- is the nacho binging still relevant?"

Heather takes the first chance she gets to rocket-launch her whole face into the bag to cloak her misery. A girlish scream acts as her only remains, aside from her entire shameful, delicious body uncovered.

She passes the bag to RJ, after puking up some mortification, for him to stuff his own into. Sounds of crunching fill the gap instead.

Collapsing backwards, Heather reverts to stressful angel-making. Surprisingly, her limbs pick up the motivation to even grudge at all. Stars in the sky twinkle onto her while she's clung sideways on the earth. Stars didn't have to worry about balloon terrors or gingerbread earthquakes. They could do whatever they wanted to do, hoisting her hand as a pen, drawing lines to dots, dragging their nodes, building scenes and dreams, that and more... RJ falls defeated, nacho crumbs around his mouth. There and then, a weeping violin joins them.

"Our kingdom's so dead," Heather grieves.

RJ displays just as much distraught. "This must be just how Genghis felt."

"We, like, conquered Christmas… without a star on our tree."

"Hammy's playing the violin… Thank you, Hammy."

Hammy addresses them from his little violin seat atop a gumdrop. "You're welcome."

They both die on their sides, happening to meet nose-to-nose in the snow. Heather's melancholy face doesn't flinch. But RJ smiles and hooks her fingers into his. "You know what we need to do?"

Her lips remain as tainted as sour milk. "I dunno what we need to do."

"Here's the basics… What do I have?"

"Me."

"Great. Now what do you have?"

When she can't cheer up, her eyes take the work at his mention. "You…"

"So what we gotta do?"

Together, they rhythmically shake limp hands. "Start with what we know."

Heather leans up. Ravaged towns just barely prevail, but their toppled pillars bury the history, lost to time. The moon makes for the universal clock - one without numbers or hands. But it flows an inch a minute, taking the arctic sculptures deeper to the grave as they dwindle in the fire. Melted ice makes water. Its molecules spread, lose form, to what was once thought to be unbreakable. At this site, trickles of jelly beans run down the road to the drain. What's a dump for Christmas junk? This was it.

"Well I know it looks like shit," she remarks.

"Then what do we need to make it shine?" He follows her in the motion. "Not in hours, but in minutes… aside from a quick caffeine injection to Hammy."

"What about that nice beaver guy who helped us nail bread to trees?" Hammy suggests.

RJ and Heather stand up. Their eyebrows lift as their eyes gain focus on the other. And then it clicks.

"We got someone better," speaks RJ. "And free."

RJ and Heather firmly link pinkies, and cross linked arms up, down, and to the sky. Together, they chant the conjuring spell as follows, recited a thousand times over: "Breadsticks! Mayonnaise! DOOOOOWN THE GULLET!"

Snapping both at once, the manifestation of a Spuddies can, purely forged in solid gold, otherwise standard in size and shape, rises behind their backs. It leaves behind the hint of mythical background, born from the pinky-est promises shot through the wires of the summoners. The chant powered it to the status of a godsend, radiating passionate enthusiasm for the bountiful mix of breadsticks and mayonnaise. It refuses to be dormant. Personified animation becomes clear from a fast spin into the air.

Gravel comes out the gutter to hit the vocal cords as the jazzy, raspy tone of a male trumpet player. It vibrates through the grain, drying the arid rocks on some silt Hollywood road. "Aaaaaahhhhhh, the Spud-stah's BACK, baby! Back from the corporate beyond!"

"It's… it's…!" Hammy gasps incredibly, crumbled by wonder. The mythical being hovers closer down upon his lucky sights. "IT'S THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS CONSUMERISM!"

Who lies before the container's view but a furry Christmas cookie, looking like a treat in its sentience? Smooth chocolate candies, fluffy frosted stockings, and a sticky peppermint bowtie - the rustic texture of the exposed ear, along with its pink tip, make for a familiar figure underneath all that holly and jolly.

"Hey lady gal," Spud laughs. "Why you lookin' like that cookie I ate from Santa's plate!? Ha-ha-ha!"

"Sir! Sir!" Hammy shouts to the celebrity. "Do you eat the arms or legs first?"

"Head's gotta go first, maaan. Screamin's killin' me." The golden vessel slips down a magical, airy ride into Heather's face. "What about you lady gal, lookin' to get ya head bit off today?"

"You don't even have a mouth."

"Not one you've seen."

Out of another great beyond approaches a silver Spuddies counterpart creeping down upon the scene. It takes a survey of the commotion, and a dreadful yellow friend accompanying. But the sad state of the opossum decorated blandly, without glint, reels its interest in.

"Incredible," Spud grunts. "Now here's a mouth."

Blatantly bipolar in attitude, the new arrival jerks between spectrums of feminine elocution - one moment, it speaks the articulation found in the edge of a pissy teen, all before recognizing the sweet honey of life, transforming into the nicest office lady to be gifted to this earth. This evolution knows no bounds nor reason. It comes in just the flip of a roulette switch: "SHUT UP! It's Christmas."

"It's actually December 1st, Prin, but y'know, everyone celebrates differently I guess."

In his confusion, RJ darts his eyes between the pair, the loosened jaw peeking numb from inside his mouth, unaccustomed to silver pacifism. "What brings you here?" The unlikely circumstances draw an eyebrow up.

"The holidays are a time of haaappiness, and being togetheeer," Prin sweetly replies. Upon addressing Spud, the grumbling, vicious volcano overtakes its mood. "Not like YOUR depressing-looking a-"

"Remember that thing about happiness and being together? Go back to that one," Spud urges. "Biiiiig fan o' that one. Not the 'together' part though. Go away."

"Do you want me to help out or not?"

"Help with wut?"

"Do you see this girl?!" She furiously orbits Heather's pathetic appearance, drowned by icing. Saturated but dull, the lack of heart irks her. "It's STUDless for god's sake! It's probably just wearing the hat to FEEL something, the miserable thing!"

Hammers of light take no actual presence, but sprout from their lids regardless, bashing the nearest target around (happening to be the top of Heather's head). A throbbing forehead is all that results - certainly not the soporific treatment any sane doctor would prescribe. Her knees jerk to the floor as she tries to shoo them away, only creating greater ache by allowing her brain to think in the first place rather than embracing the pain mindlessly.

"You okay in there?!" Spud hollers in her ear. "You're FLINCHING!"

"Are we STUPID!?" Prin chokes. "It never works…"

"Nah hold up, she's flinchin' out here. Do it again."

Prin whams her head as comically as possible using the thickest head of a hammer available. "You feel that crap or WHAT?!"

The pounding cracks into the crevices of her brain, releasing shockwaves into her nerves. The corner of her mouth grits as she rubs off the sore above, irritating a lump down her throat. Grape jam glued inside disperses from ground zero. "Ow. Just a bit."

Such concluding evidence forms a mystery to Spud. "Light has… no weight-" At that, its lid nearly pops off once he throws his upper half up from a slump. "Waiiiit a second."

Both sweep Heather airborne from underneath and loft her high, bobbing on the bouncer by the seat. The cold metals chill her, though the potato chip vessels see no struggle in the action. "Hmmmm, she could use some weight…" Prin pleasantly observes.

Heather mutters, "I swear to god-"

"Heavier's harder to glitter-fy…" Spud ponders. Heavier's harder. Lighter's easier. And with no weight to spare, the twin cans face each other at the realization. After releasing her, Spud spreads the glowing gold ribbons of a solar eagle, pride burning loud as the sun. The arms encircle the lucky winner. "Well congratulations lady gal, YOU'VE been selected as the unfortunate guinea fuzzball for our RECKLESS SHENANIGANS! WooooooOOOOOP!"

"Yo, for real-sies?" Plucked out of Heather's heart is a giddy rabbit. The idea of incredible opulence sparkling her gray body turns the wheel to a new course. From miles away, the envisioning of a true Christmas miracle living in the forest could blind every reindeer in the sky. As Rudolph crashes the sleigh, the winter would be there to admire her and the spinning energy unseen to the lushest Advent dreams. "I'm 'bout to be the world's swaggiest furry Christmas cookie! Uh- Claus!" On the ground, she checks out the swanky pines spiraling her arms. "Yep. Feelin' like a Claus right about now."

The sign is still toppled over; the gingerbread houses demolished. Heather's break snack beside the place, Arnie's exclusive Turkey Feast-wich… uneaten.

"Wait that's not what we-" RJ attempts to correct in gritty panic.

Here's what silences his presence: Heather's peppermint bowtie, now treated by the agents of silver and gold. SILVER AND GOLD! The plastic tufts sticking out both sides, once transparent, feel a new, metallic texture to her tempted fingers. The touch of both beings against her, even in the most trivial performance, inspires awe in her countenance. For once, she wore the treasures of the planet right on her chest. The surfaces disobey what light they lacked beneath the shadowing cloth of her scarf, by being light in itself. Bewildered, the words come shoved from her throat in a jam - no jam included. "Yo chill dude, you are NOT ruining this for me."

Before RJ can object, wrapping paper clings over the muzzle to snare him. Hammy hurries forth, holding a handy, revolutionary tool - a handheld box-wrapper fitted with an inverted cone on the head as a barrel, otherwise drill-like from the handle down - and clips a little fancy bow above the tip of his nose. 'Don't open 'til X-mas,' warns the sticker stamped by the squirrel. RJ's pointed finger droops.

"What's next?!" Examining Heather, the opportunity invigorates Spud. "Scarf? Licorice? Puttin' some jingle in that hat, 'ay?!"

The last standing 'wall' of the 'lobby' crumbles into bits of gingerbread, lucky enough to not crush any bystanders in the process. Spud and Prin weave their focus away from Heather's once-patheticness and to a wrecked 'wonderland' only just now coming to their notice.

"Oh huh, this place is quite the mess!" the peaceable Prin gasps.

Strange intensity comes in his gravitation towards Prin for a comment, felt as an attack in some indistinguishable fashion: "'Sure it ain't too sore if you live in a dump."

RJ's chugging train of face-slapping suffices as communication.

'Well whaddya say!?" Spud exclaims, having already returned to Prin the angstier attitude. "We got some juice to spare, babe!"

"Call me 'babe' again and I'll remind you why you're a mass-produced entity."

"They say it takes one to know one. Your chips ain't tastier than mine… BBBBBbabe. It's like skin 'n guts. Our guts are the same. Taste the same. You want my guts? They're delicious."

"Let's just get this over with, gut guy. Never again."

The two converge, revolving up the tree before shrinking to become ornaments hung above Heather's head. From congruent branches of delicate pines their power begins to crawl like worms towards each other. Boundaries leave themselves far behind, repelling opposites part the seas. A single, luminescent string knots and entangles in the central point in front of it all, embracing head-to-head like rejoining friendships from coast to coast, intimacy ever increasing. The ice shatters; white and yellow meet ends; silver and gold cling in unity around the tree for a spectacle never seen under skies sprinkled by such hues. The red streamers circling the tree, dirtied in the rubble, now glow fantastically as their lended magnificence takes hold. The first flickers of renewal trickle in from the sides, glossing them into the form of the sprightly entrance they sought.

A first encounter of these newly-combined forces sends Heather's awe over the hill. "Holy jeezums…"

The conversion of these red ribbons to gold in silver is a surprisingly gradual process, though enthralling to Heather nonetheless. Unlike drying paint, this artistic conversion had that extra sparkle to it. The grape jelly kicks back in, and the mathematics swarming her explain the phenomenon - there is no explanation. What lay ahead, releasing her crunched shoulders from intense thought, broke the boundaries of the existential plane in order to rebirth a sense of childish dreams kept away inside a lucid bedroom.

Unmoving as she was, and speechless as himself (literally, in his case), RJ takes notice of the hypnosis brought to her by the chip cans cleansing boorish colors through the optimal means of glazing the donuts of existence. Somehow not yet suffocated by the present his muzzle had been made into, he jabs at Hammy. Then, he nudges towards the ruins of the lobby.

Hammy guides his eyes. He comes back to Heather. Then the broken sign. Finally, the two ornaments - already creating a winter world in front of Heather's amazement, slow as it may be. Her world.

Until RJ now cracked open a familiar, caffeinated can, it seemed impossible.

Limpid observation banishes from mind, and a jerk up of his tail alightens the refreshing chill in his legs. He chugs the soda down and races to whirl around the place, unseen by Heather, restoring and replenishing the life lost in the scene they built. The gingerbread walls come up like a stack of cards on a foundation of steel. Frosted ten times over, the house reaches a state of gumdrop glory capable of stealing one's consciousness in the fireplace of candyland. Jumbo candy canes hoist off the defeated slumber of the snow and onto their feet, housing the greeting sign in front. It's a simulation, or so it seems, what with the entire city structuring itself inside the uncertain tornado of a squirrel. In the fray, the wind he generates blows the wrapping paper right off RJ's muzzle, to his impressment.

Heather's first glimpse comes not a second too late at the finale of Spud and Prin's work. Pupils capture just one look at the cocoa rooftop overhead. She whips around. It's like her feet leave the floor, but her toes grasp into the cracks between chocolate rectangles on the path. Those mass-produced embodiments created the life of a fantasy, stacked as a skyscraper of layered cake! Once ruined became reborn; once undone became unbelievable. The marshmallows bouncing in her head come to fruition. Undeniably, this was more than a trip to the local Christmas mart.

"It's… it's a wonderland…"

RJ attracts her attention. "Mmmmmm close."

She appears confused, understandably so.

Hammy finishes his work with a pastry bag on the sign, pulls it off the candy cane stand and turns his prized art for her. Among the refinements, text mushed into mud pudding prior, a single adjustment stands out… The same white icing overwrote the 'Wonder' in 'Wonderland', splashed on top instead by a red, magical word. Just that one magic word encompassing the blender of emotions Heather's heart felt.

"It's an AWESOMEland!" he sings.

A pretty sweet name, to say the least. Something she could literally write a whole song about. Following her initial jocose reaction, the blank corner in the top right halts her tender gasp. "Wait wait wait." She motions towards the pastry bags in the snow. "Lemme see those things."

RJ passes them to her. She dual-wields white and red to draw herself out as a smiley face with an ear, hat, and… duh… a comically enlarged nose.

"Now it's an AWESOMEland."

Homely celebration ensues. Pairs of arms work the sign back onto the board together, warm as the hot chocolate steaming its rich scent from the open windowsill of the lobby yet again. Somehow, indecipherable to her, Heather's tail thaws - the frostbite had never been there to begin with. It died with the arrival of winter, unprepared for the heat she was ready to emit just by being able to now throw her pokey arms wide around the boys again.

"Are you guys DONE making out in the fur-corner?!" Prin shouts.

Spud and Prin stare awkwardly from the tree. Spud clears his throat. Between the marshmallow gumdrop gate, a spot at the base of the tree underneath them was waiting for Heather like an altar. An empty set of strings dangles beneath them in mangled-up knots. They lack the link of a host to be pumped into, to refresh, to flow throughout. Feathery joy of her own even attracted frisky heads from her distance, waving in winds unknown to the skies, but hiding within. They find themselves longing for the greatest source of spirit to be found.

She goes forth.

"Don't worry, dear. We'll take great care of you," Prin now softly hushes, ironically enough.

As Heather turns around and scoots back into the testing chamber, Spud thrusts the lever by announcing the beginning of a little ecstasy trip: "Feel lucky you're weightless, 'cuz now we got NOTHIN' TO LOSE, BAY-BAY!"

They latch to her glowing puppet strings penetrating the boundaries of her bushy fur coat and ignoring the walls of the skin. The initial sensation, sharp and tingly as tickling mechanical tubes, stabs deep into her torso from both sides, unreserved; untamed. Her knees fall crippled by the throbbing gush of intensity searing between ribs. Into her veins the magic so naturally pumps, and her heart experiences the control of an exterior, supernatural force, crowding the station of her bloodstream. Large liquidy lumps travel inside to the tips of fingers and down through the length of her tail. The energy is borrowed out of the heart, temporarily weakening her muscles and blurring her vision to the state of an abstract blackout. But awareness soon returns stronger than ever, releasing the shock seen in her visage as the images traverse. Blood burns across her limbs, seeming ready to burst before ripping back up her body into her tranced brain, becoming lax themselves. The sun flashes in her head. The moon next. Charts of stars map themselves across the walls of her mind, following under her authority. The celestial throne left a love letter for her.

They form from faintness like angels themselves. In the night sky, lines connect elven galaxies 1-by-1 into the shape of an electric guitar, two canes curving into a heart just above. The link created at the bending tips of the latter spawns an outline of Heather, appreciating the simpleness of a child's drawing, to juxtapose the rigid formations and the full curves making up a new form. She takes the hilt of the guitar as a slide, bumping off the sharp corner onto a 2-liter below. It blasts off from the cap aimed diagonally down and circles her up the incredible height of a flag pole stretching higher and higher into the stratosphere. Atop she dismounts to unravel a glorious Arnie's flag above it all. 'AAAAAAAA', she screams, graciously provided by starry writing.

There she returns, head flowing left and right. Reality overtakes her, or the disbelief thereof - a blinding aura of silver and gold explodes from the core within the peppermint on her chest, the first to be concealed in the transformation. "This's real…" Yes, it is. As her hairs rattle up, the puff on the back of her head blows astray. She's encased in the nurturing egg of enlightenment - what comes into existence is the strains of color hiding inside, timid to the mind but riveting at release. "Ye-ah! This's REALLY real!" She giggles buoyantly after announcing, "Hold on!"

She twirls in a fast circle before throwing an arm up, and the gilded silhouette of a microphone forms in her grip to initiate the calling. The gemstone quickly disappears in a shimmer, and her fingers clench together.

It begins. The ground trembles. Underneath their feet, RJ and Hammy nearly trip at the sudden force. All the way from the suburbs, red and green ribbons slip from houses and little porch decorations through the ethereal night sky at whimsical, category 6 speeds. Lights on house strings flicker in fear. Some bulbs combust outright. A bow pinned onto a stocking decorating a door is plucked off. Within the eggless eggnog household, a smaller bow detaches from the small child's soon-to-be-licked candy cane, now beamed up the chimney and out of sight.

Traumatized by such a meager act of witchery, the kid screams her way up the steps: "IT'S THE GRIIINCH!"

The magnet of Heather's concentrated awesomeness summons the giddy items from all directions, whizzing past RJ and Hammy in the hurricane. Hammy quivers. "It might be just me… but I don't think we need a spotlight for this one."

Indeed, she needed no spotlight to shine brighter than the lights already presented in her soul, waiting for a medium to be released into the world. The constellations lend their might, connecting the dots into the very figures Heather sought to convey the emergence of a new, lively being, given more personality than ever before. She conveys the newfound, thirsty desires of a growing flower as the heavenly being she now was. "IIIII AM THE POSSUM OF CHRISTMAS SWAGGER… I REQUIRE BUT ONE SACRIFICE OF EGGNOOOG… and, like, a candy cane too I guess."

RJ and Hammy hesitate not a millisecond to quickly scamper and return with the tribute items.

"Thankfully they've got the new eggnog cartons in the back, conveniently labeled as Heather size," Hammy remarks to the fellow peasant in the face of a weightless goddess.

The hairs on RJ's tail frizzle and tense. "Boy howdy do they know their market."

She extends both hands out of the light to accept them, rejoicing in the downtime of the fray. "Al-riiiiight! LET'S GET IT EGGNOG-GY IN THIS BIZ'!"

Light fades away. The strings had been detached, having purified her flesh, the ritual complete. As the mantelpiece introducing the grand tree, one ribbon circling her waist, travelling over her hips, placed a giant bow on the back alongside its smaller counterpart on the front. The gold and silver ribbons around her torso rose to shining heights so grand that even the stars themselves seemed to attract their nutrients to silk rivers. They defied all shaded landmarks around, remaining secluded from the darkness strengthened only by non-awesomeness. Past the curve of her back one crossed, looping both materials over either arm between the pines already coiling her. The fruity lights past held now shined their new colors.

"Yo, I got the legendary cane of silver and the eggnog of gold! Golden eggnog!" she laughs in disbelief. Her fate continues nonetheless, skipping high-headed into the soaring clouds of limitless possibilities, long locked away in the imagination. "Cornelius would so be KEELING right now, like-"

She's interrupted by her own chug of the eggnog. A gold and silver glow remains from her transformation, the tips of each ribbon brimming with cheer. Freed veins of light pulse in a dance to make shimmering yarn strings powering her. Each proudly displaying its own character and liveliness dwelling within, having parted from her body and onto the accessories now functioning as one inside her conscious mind. The largest ribbons precisely follow her slightest movements, so long as it's the mind who wills. From the treasured end of the candy cane rises a skiing slope into the night, all the little paper-crafted angels and future flakes of new to slip down a slide drawn by an arm's twirling peak. It's that grin across her face - that kind where that one dorky tooth sticks out proudly - that warms the hearts of lucky onlookers, namely a raccoon so long-accustomed to a spirit of youth and yearn, innocent but learned. The tail's hairs calm at the sight of the soul, tinsel wrapping the tree it saw in the structure so simplistic as the unrefined, baked forms they had worked to replicate.

Oh, and the star does come to be alright. But the top of the tree sees no change, bare forever, left unattended ages ago. Must've slipped the mind. They probably wouldn't even notice to begin with. Seriously, whose eyes are gonna be lost up there, when everything they've gotta see is right in front of them?

There's already a star. There always had been.

So, a broad step forward on the chocolate path, a bump of a hip and a little wink too, sends Heather's ribbons soaring in a new wind, for all to view.

"Wel-coooome to Heather's Winter AWESOME-laaaand!"