"Henry! Henry!" JJ called after her son, a laugh in her voice as she chased him around the kitchen.

Her son just giggled as he continued to run, crumbs all over his face. FBI Special Agent Jennifer Jareau may be able to outrun UNSUBs any day of the week but her son had her beat. Mainly because he could make detours under the table to get away from her. And the fact that she didn't really want to catch him. Not quite yet anyway.

"Ah ha! Got you!" She said, cornering him next to the counter.

"Aw!" He complained, a pout on his face.

"Caught our little theif?" Will asked, chuckling as he returned from the bathroom.

"Just about."

"She pretended to go left when she really went right," Henry informed his dad solemnly.

"That's sneaky," Will told him.

"Mommy is the sneakiest." Henry agreed, nodding his head vigorously.

A piece of the thing that he had been holding (and the reason why JJ had been chasing him in the first place) dropped to that floor.

"Uh oh," Henry said with comically wide eyes but JJ just chuckled and shook her head.

"We aren't going to have anything left to build tbe house if you keep eating all the gingerbread!"

"But it tastes so good, mommy," Henry said, putting the rest of it in his mouth and spraying crumbs everywhere.

"And it will taste even better with all the decorations on it when it's in a house shape," she tried to persuade him.

Henry thought for a moment before agreeing with her.

"Icing!" He said excitedly and then he looked down at his now empty hands in dismay. "But I ate all of my piece."

"You did," JJ agreed and then pointed to the two baking trays which were still cooling on the counters. "It's a good thing we have a lot more."

"We do?"

"We do, buddy," Will said with a smile, ruffling his hair. "We knew that we'd lose some of it to a certain someone." And he gave his wife a knowing look.

"Who?"

"Someone who currently has his face covered in gingerbread crumbs," JJ said, tapping his cheek.

Henry raised his hand to his mouth. "Oh, its me!"

"Exactly."

"Does that mean I get to eat more?" He asked hopefully.

"Once they're decorated."

"Can we do that now?" Henry asked eagerly, bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet, the eating of gingerbread forgotten in his eagerness to make a mess with icing sugar. JJ wasn't entirely sure she had won here.

"Of course, everything you need is right over here," she ushered him back to the counter.

Her and Will decided that instead of getting the usual gingerbread house kits from the store, this year they were going to make them from scratch. Henry currently adored baking and cooking - especially anything sweet - and they all loved making the gingerbread houses every year. It was the perfect combination!

And it had been. Reid had managed to find them a recipe online for gingerbread of the perfect consistency for house building and they had bought what was probably far too many sweets for their creations. JJ had tried to get Reid to join them but he had already been claimed this weekend by Emily to decorate her flat. So neither of them were going to be seen this weekend if JJ knew them. And they'd probably come to work on Monday shedding tinsel. Emily always went all out with the Christmas decorations. Which JJ always found hilarious. Unless you knew her, you'd be very think that Emily was a Christmassy person. Hallowe'en? Sure. Emily basically oozed the Hallowe'en spirit. But Christmas? It always surprised people just how into it Emily was.

JJ shook her head to bring herself back to the present and noticed her son was eyeing up the gingerbread again.

"Okay, why don't we move on?" She suggested. "And mix up the icing so we can stick our houses together?"

"Yay!" Henry cheered, thankfully leaving the baking tray. "I want to do the mixing!"

JJ heaved a sigh of relief, glad that she had managed to distract him. Even though she had just potentialy exchanged one mess for another.

"Let me and mommy cut out the house shapes and then you can get going," said Will.

They had these nice templates to cut around so everything ahould match up. Hopefully the gingerbread wouldn't crumble on them.

"Can I do the cutting?" Henry asked, holding the knife with wide eyes.

Will exchanged a panicked look with her before carefully pulling the extremely sharp knife from his grasp.

"Why don't you leave that to the grown ups?"

"Aw!"

"You don't want to hurt yourself, do you?" Will asked.

Henry frowned. "But I use knives all the time! I cut vegetables now!"

Yes, he did. With knives that had the little kid holders which ensured his fingers never went anywhere near a blade. Defintiely not massive knives like the one he had taken out!

"This is harder than vegetables, baby," JJ said and then, noticing the wobbling lower lip, quickly added, "Come on, let's get the icing ready for daddy."

"Okay," he said agreeably, the possibility of eating more sugary things winning out over his want to use a knife.

"I want to cover my roof in gumdrops. Red and green ones."

"That sounds nice," JJ agreed, steering Henry away from Will so he wasn't anywhere near the knife.

"Uh, JJ?" Will asked, frowning in confusion at the template. "What way round does this go?"

[xxxxxx]

An hour later, their houses were decorated and they all had sticky fingers from handling all of the candy. There was even some icing inexplicably smeared on the window. They weren't too lopsided and there had surprisingly been enough gingerbread for all three houses, despite Henry's munching.

"I'd say we did a pretty good job," Will said with a satisfied look at their creations.

"We did," JJ agreed.

"They look yummy!" Henry said, looking at the three houses lined up next to each other's.

His was tbe messiest looking, having been very liberal with his icing use so his candy was sliding off his house. But he didn't care, he thought that his was the best and his parents were liable to agree.

Will had tried to make a Christmas tree from stakcing gumdrops in a pyramid, which looked... interesting. JJ had kept hers traditional, outlining the door, windows and roof in icing sugar. Of course, with a good amount t of candy on top as well.

"I want to lick the icing bowl!" Henry said, reaching across the table.

"Because he really needs more sugar," Will chuckled though neither of them moved to stop him.

He had already had plenty of sugar, licking the very small amount of dregs in the bowl wasn't going to hurt him. Too much anyway. Oh, well, they already had plenty of pepto-bismol in the house.

"Look! I have a helmet!" Henry said happily.

JJ and Will turned around to see Henry woth the icing sugar bowl on his head. Well, more like *over* his head as the bowl was so big it came down to his nose. JJ covered her gaping mouth, unsure whether to be horrified or not. You see, Henry hadn't exactly licked the bowl clean before putting it on his head.

"Look! I'm a spaceman!" He said gleefully and proceeded to try and walk like a robot around the kitchen.

Will quickly removed his makeshift helmet from his head to reduce the chance of injury. And sure enough, just as she had feared, Henry's head had a thin layer of sticky icing coating it. That was not going to be fun to get out. At least Henry loved his bubble baths.

"Hey! I need that for air!" Henry complained.

"Wow, spaceman, time to tidy up and get a bath," Will chuckled.

"Aw!"

"A bubble bath," JJ added.

"Yay!" Henry cheered, raising both arms in the air. "Lots of them?"

JJ looked him up and down, taking in the amount of icing and crumbs and pieces of candy that was all over him.

"Yes, lots."

That made Henry start cheering again as well as bounce around the room. Which just spread crumbs everywhere. JJ tried to catch him before he spread the stickiness any further. Not that there were many flat surfaces without something sticky on it in here. It was going to involve a lot of cleaning up but it had been worth it. Today had been so much fun. They had made Christmas memories, got loads of photos and had made something really yummy. A win all around.

Will caught her and pulled her close, taking no time to press a kiss to her lips. One which she returned happily though she did give him a confused look when they pulled back from each other.

"What was that for?" She asked. "Not that I'm complaining."

Will pointed above them. "Mistletoe, Cher."

"It means you gotta kiss, mommy," Henry said earnestly.

JJ laughed and shook her head, putting her hands on her hips. "Even when the mistletoe is held up by little boys who really shouldn't be standing on the table?"