Author's Note: Well, I'm a day late and a dollar short on this one (ok, 2 days late), but here's my Christmas oneshot for this year. Sorry if this one's a bit rushed. I tried something a little different for this, not sure what it ended up as, but hopefully it sticks.

Peach looked out over the mass of gathered Smashers with a proud smile on her face. It wasn't an easy task to run a Christmas gift exchange event with so many Smashers in the tournament. But she'd pulled it off. Perhaps that was a Christmas miracle in itself. She smiled as she saw Sonic pull out a new pair of shoes and Joker open a new set of gloves.

She sighed and sat down. Mario walked up to her and handed her a package.

"Here's your-a gift. It's from-a Falco!"

"Oh, thank you Mario!"

She opened the present to find a box of gourmet Cornerian cookies.

"Oh, that's awfully sweet of him!" said Peach.

"Speaking of cookies, who got Kirby's gift?"

Peach checked her list. "Um let's see….oh, Steve got Kirby's gift!"

"Steve? How'd he get Kirby?"

"I randomized the list," said Peach.

You sure it was a good idea to give a newcomer Kirby's gift?"

"I asked him about it after the name drawing and he said he'd be able to do it," said Peach.

"Oh!" said Mario, pointing. "There's-a Kirby opening his present now!"

Peach and Mario watched as Kirby unwrapped a totally cubical purple box. A letter fell out from the wrapping. Kirby opened the letter and then the box. His eyes went open as he did. He looked up, with tears in his eyes. He looked around for a moment, before spotting Steve. He waddled up to Steve and immediately hugged him.

"Thank you…for the best Christmas present I've ever gotten!" sobbed Kirby.

Steve smiled. "No problem, buddy! Glad you like it!"

Mario raised an eyebrow. "Best present he's ever gotten? That's-a high praise…."

"Very," said Peach. "What do you think he got him?" she asked.

"Something food related," said Mario. "Though what it is, I have-a no idea."

"Let's ask him," said Peach. "I'm actually really curious."

"Me too," agreed Mario. "But let's wait for Kirby to move away from Steve before we ask."

"Good idea. By the way, what did Red get you?" asked Peach.

"Oh, he got me a really nice tropical shirt from Alola!" said Mario. "I think I'm-a going to wear it next time we go to Delfino Isle!"

"That's very sweet of him!" said Peach. "That's at least better then Little Mac and Min Min giving out their respective boxing merch as gifts."

Mario shook his head, laughing. "Mamma Mia….wait, didn't Popo and Inkling give out merch as gifts too?"

"Popo has merch? I know Inkling's team is big at Splatfests, and Little Mac and Min Min are big names in their respective leagues, but what does Popo compete in?"

"He doesn't compete in anything. He gave Yoshi some of his cooking Smashtube channel merch," said Mario. "Remember that 'How to Make Water' video Ness was talking about? That was his first video and apparently his channel took off since."

"Really?" asked Peach. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah," said Mario. "Yoshi received a Captain Parka Man mug, tee shirt, mousepad and salt shaker."

"Oh dear," said Peach. "Well, I suppose that's what the emergency gift stash is for. I'll have to give him something out of the stash later."

She pulled out a note pad from her pocket and added Yoshi's name to the emergency gift list. She looked up.

"Oh! Look! Kirby just walked out! Let's go talk to Steve!"

The two moved their way through the gathered crowd of Smashers and eventually made it to where Steve was admiring the sword that Kirby had gotten him.

"Hello, Steve!"

"Oh, hey Peach! Hey Mario! Merry Christmas!"

"And a Merry Christmas to you too!" said Peach. "I see Kirby seemed pretty happy about his gift!"

"Ah, yes, the little guy seemed quite excited about it!" said Steve cheerily. "I'm glad he liked it!"

"So, Kirby is actually one of the easiest but toughest Smashers to get something for," said Peach. "Of course, he loves food so its easy in that regard, but it's also kinda tough to get him something, because he eats it all immediately. If you don't mind me asking, what did you get him?"

"Oh, its no trouble at all!" said Steve. "You see, I got him a shulker box of assorted food! Wasn't sure exactly what he wanted, but I figured that a variety basket wouldn't be a bad idea."

"A shulker box?" asked Peach.

"Yes. It will carry 27 stacks of whatever you put in it," said Steve.

"Stacks?" asked Mario.

"Err….you know….a stack? Like how many items you can carry in a single inventory space before you need to use another one?" said Steve.

"You can do that?" asked Mario. "I can only carry one item per inventory slot! How many can you stack?"

"Yes, I can," said Steve. "I can stack 64 items in each slot."

"Wait…." said Peach, the pieces coming together in her mind. "How many stacks did you give him?

"Oh, I gave him a mostly full shulker box. I had all of the slots filled except for the middle one, I was only able to put together 10 golden apples. Filled up the rest of the box up with some variety foods! 4 stacks of cookies, four stacks of salmon, 4 stacks of pumpkin pie, 4 stacks of apples, 4 stacks of baked potatoes, 4 stacks of pork chops and 2 stacks of steak!"

Mario pulled out a calculator. "Mamma Mia, you gave him 265 items of each thing?! Steve, you don't have to bankrupt yourself!"

"Bankrupt? No, this well within my budget! My automatic Guardian farm puts out about 12 stacks of salmon per hour and that's not counting the other drops, my semi-automatic potato farm gets me about 28 stacks of potatoes per harvest, and my cow herd needed a bit of culling anyway for the steak. My automatic sugarcane, pumpkin and egg farms out put enough drops to make at least 8 stacks of pumpkin pie per hour, and I traded with some of my villager friends for the cookies and apples. Their prices are quite reasonable, and they were really quite grateful for the extra business. I was actually wondering if I should have gotten him a second box, it only took me a few hours to fill the first one!"

Peach and Mario stood staring at him gob smacked.

Eventually Peach found her voice again. "Say, Steve, have you ever spoken with Master Hand about supplying food for the tournament? He's always complaining about how much it costs to feed Kirby, Yoshi and Dedede, let alone the rest of us."

"Huh. Maybe I'll have to go have a chat with him! Now that I think about it, I've actually been burning all the cod I've gotten out of my guardian farm. It's real shame, I get about 16 stacks per hour and I just can't eat all of it!"

Mario's eyes widened. "With that kind of food processing power, you could end world hunger in multiple dimensions!"

"Huh, what an interesting thought!" said Steve. "I do love to help out. Maybe I'll see if Master Hand can give me some pointers while I'm asking him about the tournament food supply. I think I'll go see if he's available now. Thanks, and Merry Christmas you two!"

As Steve made his way through the crowd, Peach shared a look with Mario.

"You know? I thought he was going to be a little weird when we first met him, but he's actually really sweet!" said Peach.

Mario nodded. "He has a heart of gold! I'm-a sure glad he got invited!"

"Me too!" said Peach. She paused for a moment. "I wonder where Kirby is now?"

Peach slowed down outside the dining hall and poked her head in the door. In one corner, she saw Yoshi and Dedede looking rather displeased at one of the tables in one of the corners of the room.

"4 sizes too small! 4 sizes! Can you believe it! And its one of those ugly Christmas sweaters too!" grumbled Dedede. "Like at least the scarf Nana got me last year looks good and it fits, right? Wasn't too much of a challenge for a 14 year old! Palutena's gift selection is about as good as her cooking!"

Yoshi just sighed. "At least you can hang it up or something. What am I gonna do with the stuff Popo got me? It's his Smashtube Channel merch! Like I guess it's a free mug and salt shaker and stuff, but did I really need a new salt shaker?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Peach saw a purple box approach them at a slow pace as if somebody really short was carrying it on their head.

"Eh? What's that?" asked Dedede, noticing the purple box too. "Kirbs? That you?"

"Yeah!" said Kirby, slightly muffled under the box. After a moment, he reached the place where they were sitting and popped out from underneath the box.

"I saw you guys didn't get great gifts…." said Kirby, opening the box.

"Yeah, tell me about it," grumbled Dedede. "4 sizes too…. wait, where'd you get all this food from, Kirbs?"

Yoshi's eyes widened as Kirby dropped 64 steaks on to the table, next to the stack of apples he'd placed there a second ago.

"Wait, Kirby, you don't have to share the whole thing with us!"

Kirby poked his head out of the box for a moment, and said, "Oh, don't worry, there's more in here!"

"Wait, WHAT?!" gasped Dedede in surprise as Kirby pulled out a stack of pumpkin pies.

Kirby hopped into a chair. "I'm ok sharing my gifts with you guys! It's Christmas after all! You're my friends! I want to share the Christmas cheer with you guys!" He reached for a piece of steak and held it in the air.

"A toast to a very Merry Christmas full of delicious food!"

Yoshi grabbed an apple while Dedede reached for one of the pumpkin pies.

"To a very Merry Christmas full of delicious food!"

Peach smiled as she quietly closed the dining hall door and made her way down the hallway, adding Dedede's name to the list of emergency gift stash recipients as she went. It was good to see the holiday cheer spread.