On a cold winter's night when much of the base was fast asleep, there was one who hurriedly paced down the hallway, her expression anxious and her purpose clear. Normally, she'd be sound asleep by now, dreaming all kinds of different dreams from funny to whimsical, yet tonight, she was wide awake, all because of something she saw.

The little toy she carried with her at all times, floundered in her grasp as it too was surprised by the little girl's burst of energy during such a late hour.

Upon arriving at her destination, the youth quickly opened the door and cried out "Ms. Yorktown, Ms. Yorktown, you have to wake up."

Yet the person she was addressing remained silent, no doubt enjoying her own dreams right now.

"Ms. Yorktown," cried the little girl again, bounding into the room then proceeding to shake the woman lying on the bed "you have to wake up or else you'll miss it."

"Wazza, how many mangoes now?" she mumbled.

"MS. YORKTOWN," she shouted, in a rare display of force which ran opposite to her usually subdued personality.

"I'm up, I'm up," said the woman, quickly shooting to an upright position "what's wrong? Is there another attack on the island?"

"No, Ms. Yorktown, I saw it again," said the little girl.

It took a moment for the words to register in the woman's mind, but once it did, she quickly understood what was going on.

"Unicorn, sweetie," said Yorktown "you were dreaming that's all. There's no way you saw anything flying in the sky."

"But I did," said Unicorn, sounding very insistent "at first I thought I really was dreaming so tonight, Uni and I stayed awake looking at the window."

"And we saw it," she added, while her little doll floated beside her and nodded in agreement.

"Come on, you should see it for yourself," she said, grabbing Yorktown's hand in an effort to get her out of bed.

Realizing that her student was not going to give this up, Yorktown let out a long yawn then slowly got out of bed. She put her feet on the cold stone floor, then shivered a little before maneuvering her feet to her slippers.

Now off the bed, Yorktown and Unicorn headed to the window. There, Unicorn pointed to a part of the sky saying "I saw it right there."

Convinced that Unicorn was indeed dreaming, Yorktown decided to humor her a little and look outside. After a few minutes of seeing nothing but falling snow, she could hopefully convince the young girl that she was indeed dreaming.

Yet, as Yorktown stared out the window, she did indeed see something flying in the sky. At first, she thought she too was dreaming and resorted to rubbing her eyes a couple of times. This was why she was both surprised and astonished to see there was in fact something flying in the sky.

Because it was late at night and the snow made it difficult to see anything at a distance, all Yorktown could make out was that the object in question looked like a vehicle of some sort.

"See Ms. Yorktown," said Unicorn "now do you believe that I wasn't sleeping?"

"I definitely do believe you sweetie," said Yorktown, "the only question now, is what do we do next?"

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"A little to the left," said the white-haired girl on the ground to the blonde-haired girl who was standing at the top of a ladder.

"How does it look now Eugen?" asked the blonde-haired girl, moving a golden bauble from one branch to another.

"Yes, that's perfect," replied Eugen, with a thumbs up "you can come down now sis."

"Honestly," said Hipper, sliding down the ladder like a professional fireman "why do I always get stuck doing the leg work?"

"Because we both know that I have the eye for design and you're the only one who can help me bring those designs to fruition," replied Eugen.

"And let's be honest," she added with a smug smile "you just love to help out your little sister, don't you?"

At this, Hipper, the older sister of the two offered no word or retort of any sort. She could not dispute what was true.

"Alright Eldridge, we're good on our end," called out Hipper in an effort to keep Eugen from teasing her further.

"Light…. Tree," said Eldridge, holding a plug in one hand and a plug point in another. By connecting the two, the many rows and rows of lights placed around the tree lit up, along with the lights strewn about the courtyard.

Many of the girls who were busy working on some game or food stalls stopped what they were doing to admire the sight.

"A job well done," said Hipper, taking pride in her work "now I'd better go find Saint Louis and the others and start rehearsing our set list."

"Oh?" asked Eugen "Is Polaris gracing us with a performance this Christmas?"

"Yep," she replied "we've been working on some updated version of a few classics and I for one can't wait to try them out."

"I look forward to it sister. Now then, I should head to the meeting room and see if there's anything important to do today."

From the carpets being red and green to plenty of hanging baubles, candy canes and snowmen, everyone was getting in the Christmas spirit. Pennsylvania and Arizona were putting up streamers, Hornet, Nevada, Oklahoma and Phoenix were busy working on an elaborate ginger bread house and the maids were overseeing everything, making sure the girls were moving according to schedule.

Eugen honestly couldn't wait for the day to come. A whole day spent singing songs and playing games with her family, listening to a spirited performance from her sister and friends and plenty of snowball fights: she was looking forward to doing it all.

So when she opened the door to the meeting room, she was genuinely taken back at how the mood in the room ran counter to the one outside. Everyone looked deeply concerned, their attention so focused on Yorktown, none of them even noticed her coming in.

"I tell you I've never seen something like that before," said Yorktown to the others in the meeting room.

"It was a land vehicle with an open top and a pair of long, narrow runners on the side," she continued "it's the first time I ever saw a vehicle like that flying in the sky."

"This is really strange," said Enterprise "and that we're only seeing it a few days before Christmas can't be a coincidence."

"Hey," whispered Eugen to Cleveland "what's going on?"

"Last night, Yorktown and Unicorn saw this weird vehicle flying in the sky," she replied, covering her mouth so no one noticed she was talking "so now we're all here trying to figure out what to do."

"By the way," said Queen Elizabeth, addressing the elephant in the room "where exactly in the Commander? He's not the type to miss these daily meetings."

"Now that you mention it," said Friedrich, "he wasn't in bed this morning either. I believe he slipped out under the cover of darkness."

"Roon?" asked Tirpitz "did you notice anything out of the ordinary?"

"No and that's what's weird about the whole thing," she replied "I'm always awake at night, standing over the bed and watching him sleep. Hell, I even have video cameras in place just in case I missed something. But today… I don't know how he managed to avoid them all."

Sidestepping that troubling confession, Yat-sen turned to Belfast and asked "did he show up for training today?"

"I'll have to ask Sirius, she was in charge of his training today," she replied.

"Here's what I think we should do," said Akagi "we'll divide into two groups, one group is in charge of finding the Commander and the other will learn more about this mysterious vehicle."

"Agreed," said Enterprise "we'll meet back here in the evening to discuss our findings. And let's not let it slip that the Commander is missing. We don't want to cause any unnecessary panic among the fleet."

"I think the girls will catch on really quick," said Cleveland "Christmas is the perfect excuse for him to throw a fancy, lavish party for everyone. Right now everyone's busy setting things up but after that, they're sure to notice his absence."

"Then all the more reason we find him quickly," said Akagi and the others nodded in agreement.

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After a decent dinner, the girls gathered outside Neptune's Café to discuss their findings.

"Unfortunately I have had no luck in locating the Commander," said Warspite, lowering her head "Saint Louis and I asked around in the usual places but there's no sign of him."

"He showed up for training as usual," said Belfast "but after that, Sirius told me that she only looked away once and by the time she turned back, he had vanished."

"He hasn't been showing up around the class either," said Yorktown "he'd normally never miss a chance to play with the kids."

"This is really starting to worry me," said Akagi "why would the Commander just up and vanish without telling anyone?"

"How are things on your end?" asked Tirpitz to Enterprise, in the hopes that her group made some progress.

"Scant at best," replied Enterprise "with the exception of Unicorn and Yorktown, no one's ever seen some flying object in the sky."

"That's mostly because no one is awake that late at night," added Eugen "given how cold it gets and the upcoming festivities, the girls want to get a good night's rest so they're fresh and ready come tomorrow."

"The only reason we even know about that flying vehicle was because Unicorn just happened to be awake at that time," added Queen Elizabeth.

"Then perhaps," suggested Tirpitz, stroking her chin "we should try and see this vehicle for ourselves. We'll sleep in shifts, that way if one of us sees it, she can wake up the rest."

"A sound idea," said Friedrich "the only question is, what happens if one of us does see it? What then?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," replied Akagi "for now, let's head back to our rooms and return here with a mattress and pillow."

"Now that I think about it," said Cleveland "this is the first time we're having a sleepover."

"Actually there was that time when we were all turned into children," remembered Enterprise "everyone from the Eagle Union and Sakura Empire had an impromptu sleepover in the cafeteria."

The girls quickly dispersed and followed their instructions. They returned soon afterwards, all dressed in their night clothes and equipped with a mattress and pillow. With nothing else to say, they placed their mattresses on the floor and one by one slowly fell asleep, leaving Belfast on the first watch.

As Belfast watched everyone drifting off into their own dream world, she could not help but find deeper meaning to this gathering. While on the surface, this group was on a wild goose chase, the idea that the four major factions of the world could come together like this almost sounded like a dream.

For as long as she could remember, it was always the Eagle Union and the Royal Navy versus the Sakura Empire and the Iron Blood. Though the first War brought the factions together, after that was done, everyone drifted apart. In an unintentional way, the second War brought them back together again, the only difference this time is that even with the war over, no one wants to go back.

Historic rivalries like Enterprise and Akagi shifted to a new battlefield, the Iron Blood shared their knowledge of the retrofit procedure to everyone else and friendships that seemed impossible were now the norm.

Leaning on the entrance, Belfast looked at the quiet, starry sky and said "if only you knew the effect you had on others, you'd come back home as fast as possible."

Call it strange timing or even coincidence, but at that moment, Belfast noticed something moving about in the sky. She blinked a couple of times then rubbed her eyes to confirm that she wasn't imagining it. Now seeing that there actually was something flying in the sky, she quickly went into the Café and woke up the rest of the girls. After that, they all went outside to get a better look.

"Hold on a second," said Cleveland, "doesn't that look like… a sleigh?"

"A sleigh?" repeated Tirpitz.

"Yeah, I remember seeing that thing in one of those Christmas books we have at school."

"True it does look like a sleigh, but sleighs can't fly though," said Yorktown "it's an impossible feat."

"Then care to explain that?" asked Eugen, pointing at evidence to the contrary.

"If I were to guess," said Enterprise "it's a Siren ship disguising itself as something else so that we'll lower our guard."

"That makes even less sense," argued Akagi "for starters, why would a Siren ship turn into a sleigh and we haven't seen a single Siren for months now. Why show up now of all times?"

"There's no point in trying to debate the what if's," said Roon "shoot first and ask questions later."

With that said, Roon formed her weapon and fired at the sleigh, only to see it easily dodge the attack.

"So you're not going to make it easy are you?" mused Roon and fired a few rounds at the sleigh, which dodged them all with no problem.

"How is it flying about so nimbly?" wondered Warspite.

"Now I'm getting excited too," said Queen Elizabeth, forming her battleship cannons and firing at the sleigh. Both she and Warspite watched as it dipped down to avoid her shots then flew back up.

"I get the feeling that thing's making fun of us," said Queen Elizabeth, her left eye twitching.

"Altogether now," she declared, "if we combine our attacks, we can stop it."

Nodding along, the girls all formed their weapons and started firing at the sleigh. Yet, try as they might though, none of their attacks came close. Even with Enterprise's accurate shots and Warspite's raw cannon power, everyone kept missing the target.

"Dang… dang it," shouted Akagi, shaking her fist at the sleigh "who are you and why are you taunting us?"

Her response came in the form of the sleigh suddenly flying past them and disappearing into the back of the island.

"What do…. What do we do now?" asked Belfast.

"I doubt that thing will come back tonight, now that it knows we're here," said Enterprise "let's all head back to our rooms and get a good night's sleep. We'll reconvene tomorrow morning and discuss our plans."

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Cleveland awoke to the sound of knocking on her door. Groaning, she slowly emerged from underneath the warm cover of her blankets and crawled to the floor. Realizing her mistake, she quickly leapt back to her bed in order to avoid the cold ground.

"Sis come on wake up," cried Denver from outside "we have a lot to do today."

"Oh that's right," said Cleveland, "we were going to bake cakes for everyone."

Slowly, she took off her blankets and slid her feet into the pair of slippers next to the bed. Then she shuffled towards the door, where she was greeted by her three sisters.

"Wow sis," said Columbia "you've seen better days."

"Do I really look that bad?" she asked, tilting her head a little.

"Yeah," said Monteplier "I thought you went to sleep pretty early last night."

"Well that aside," declared Columbia "you need to get ready quickly because I imagine we're going to be up to our ears in cake by the end of the day."

'Oh crap,' thought Cleveland 'I totally forgot about making plans with them. Dang it, now I'll have to cancel.'

"Sorry girls, but I don't think I can make it today?" she said, lowering her head.

"Why?" asked Monteplier, sounding disappointed.

"Turns out we've got a lot of work to do in the office, so I'll be there the whole day," was the lie she went with.

"Aw that's a shame," said Denver "we were looking forward to spending the day together, just us sisters."

"I know and I swear I'll make it up to you, just not today," said the elder sister "now I have to start getting ready for the day. Please excuse me."

With that, she closed the door. Strangely enough, once the door closed, the girls exchanged knowing looks with each other, as if this was not a surprise to them.

"Now I really want to know what they were up to," said Columbia.

"Yeah," added Monteplier "last night they were out in the courtyard making such a racket. What were they trying to do?"

"The only way to find out," said Denver with a sneaky smile "is to tail them and see for ourselves."

Meanwhile, back in the meeting room, the girls entered one by one, with the last being Roon. She was holding a thumb drive, which she placed into a USB slot and started playing the video.

"Why are we watching your video of the Commander's room?" asked Saint Louis, asking what everyone was thinking.

"Hold on, hold on, we're getting to the important part," said Roon, hitting the fast forward button.

For the most part, aside from Friedrich turning from one side to the next or Akagi nearly falling off the chair, nothing of importance happened. That was until they saw the door open and the Commander hurrying into bed.

"It's strange because I really don't remember seeing him come in," said Roon.

"Odd," said Friedrich, "I would have remembered if he returned."

"OH you did," said Roon, stopping the fast forward and letting the video play normally. The gang all saw Friedrich suddenly swing her arm around, knocking the Commander in the chest. However, because he didn't want to wake anyone up, he resisted the urge to cry in pain.

"He goes to sleep for like two hours," continued Roon "but after that, he's gone, vanished. I still have no clue on how he did that."

"To summarize, we're no closer to finding the Commander and we're no closer to finding out anything about that flying sleigh," said Queen Elizabeth "we really are in a bind."

"Any ideas?" she asked.

"Aside from doing what we did last night, I can't think of anything else," said Tirpitz.

"And we need to figure something out quickly," added Cleveland "I had to make up an excuse to get out of doing some baking with my sisters. It won't be long before they figure out something's up."

As the group pondered over what to do, the door to the meeting room suddenly swung open. Through it came Hipper, holding Glowworm for a battering ram.

"You guys, have to come quickly," she said to everyone in the room "something weird is going on."

The girls all thought the same thing, yet none of them wanted to say it out loud. Rather than jinx it, they all followed Hipper to the courtyard, where they saw nearly half the fleet assembled, all looking in the same direction.

"That is so weird," said Javelin, looking at the sleigh "it's like it appeared out of nowhere."

"I've never seen anything like it in real life," said Z23.

"This was totally the thing Cleveland and the others were chasing around last night," said Columbia.

"What?" shouted Cleveland, you knew what I was doing?"

"Of course we knew," replied Monteplier "sis you're not very good at keeping a poker face."

Cleveland could only nervously chuckle at the comment sent her way.

"What do you think it is?" asked Phoenix to Brooklyn.

"Maybe it's some special event," suggested Saratoga.

"Oh I know," shouted Hiryuu "its an event the Commander made up for Christmas. There's probably a really neat prize inside and the only way we can get it is if we shoot it down."

"Now hold on a second," said Queen Elizabeth in an effort to sound like the reasonable one "let's not jump to…."

"YEAAAHHHHH," roared the crowd, letting mob mentality take over, ensuring no reason could prevail.

Wasting little time, the girls all formed their weapons and started firing at the sleigh. Many watched as the vehicle ducked, dived and dodged its way through the barrage, like an airplane flying through enemy territory. Despite the number of attacks aimed at it, the sleigh, was able to dodge many of them.

But that changed when Javelin flung her namesake at the sleigh. She saw the weapon hit the back of the vehicle, resulting in the sleigh spinning wildly out of control. Seeing this, the girls all stopped firing and watched the sleigh careen into the beach shore.

The group then headed to the location of the crash, where they saw the sleigh stuck halfway in the sand, with a plume of smoke and fire coming out the back. That was when they saw the door fly open and from it emerged a red-dressed figure.

The figure was an overweight type, wearing on a red coat with white at the end of the sleeves and at the center. They also had on a pair of red pants with white at the end, a pair of black boots, a red and white cap and sported a long, bushy, white beard.

The figure immediately screamed in horror at the realization that part of his clothes were on fire and quickly started rolling on the ground in an effort to douse the flames.

"Wait a second," said Friedrich "I know that scream."

The girls watched as the figure quickly took off his shirt, revealing his big stomach was actually a pillow wrapped around his waist.

It was only after he took off his cap and beard did the girls get a good look at the stranger.

"COMMANDER?" they asked.

"Girls," he said, patting out some of the fire on his back "why were you trying to shoot me down?"

"Because we thought you were a Siren?" replied Akagi.

"Actually, we thought it was a surprise event you had for us," said Hiryuu.

"I'm not a Siren ship," he said "don't you girls know about Santa?"

"Of course we do," replied Yorktown "we also know that he's a fictional character parents tell their children so that they can leave presents under the tree."

"Yeah so when we saw you flying around in a sleigh of all things, we thought something weird was going on," said Warspite.

"By the way," said Queen Elizabeth "how'd you get your hands on a flying sleigh?"

"Purin and Buri were bored with nothing to do so they leaped at the opportunity to design and test something," he replied.

"It was supposed to be a surprise," he said "I planned on flying around today and dropping presents for everyone. I've been practicing at night on how to get a handle of the thing and I thought I was doing pretty well to be honest. When I heard no one exchanges presents over here, it sounded like a good idea to try something like this."

"Commander," said Z23, "the only reason we don't exchange presents is because if we want to show our appreciation to someone, we just do it right then and there. We don't need a holiday to do that."

"Hmm, you make a point there," said the Commander "you know, when you put it like that, it really does seem stupid to only give presents on one day of the year."

"Oh well then," he said, turning around and pulling out a comically large bag from the sleigh "I should figure out what to do with these things now."

"Um," said Cleveland, "what are those?"

"Presents," he replied casually "for everyone in the fleet. I'm not good at painting and crafts so I tried my hand at sewing and knitting. Took me about a month but I made plenty of sweaters, scarves, caps and mittens for everyone in the fleet."

"And for the girls like Akagi, Kaga, Kisaragi, Mutsuki and the rest I also made special tail warmers so you won't feel the cold."

"You made presents… for everyone?" asked Akagi, as she and the others were still trying to figure out how he had the time to make enough presents for three islands.

"Yep, I started working on this a while back and let me tell you, knitting is no easy job. I'll never figure out how some people do it like it's as natural as breathing."

As the Commander explained how he hid his work from everyone for a whole month, Javelin and Z23 noticed his right hand and the many bandages on his fingers. Slowly and subtly, they alerted the others in the group.

"… but since you pointed out how bad the idea was; I'll just scrap this stuff," he said, about to take the bag away.

"W-W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-wait," shouted Belfast, Enterprise, Akagi, Roon and a few others.

"You did say that you put a lot of effort into it," said Enterprise, trying to sound nonchalant.

"And that looks like a pretty heavy bag to carry," added Akagi.

"It'd be a real shame to throw it all in the bin," said Roon.

"And well," said Eugen "it only adds more value to our Christmas event."

"So why not give us the presents instead of throwing them away," said Belfast.

"But didn't you say…."

"Shhhh," said Z23, interrupting him "let's not dwell on that."

"Alright everyone," declared Enterprise "let's take this thing back to the courtyard. It'll be perfect thing to put under the tree."

Now that they had the gift bag, the girls proceeded to head back to the courtyard, no doubt eager to know who got what.

The Commander was about to join them when he suddenly noticed a piece of paper fluttering on the ground. Curious, he bent down and picked it up, revealing that it was a picture of him in the sleigh flying away from the girls who were trying to shoot him down.

As manic and crazy as the picture looked, he couldn't help but smile. Then, he looked to the back of the picture which had a single message written in red.

'Season's greetings – S'.

AN- Yeah, a pretty corny ending. What I actually wanted to say is that in case you liked this story or maybe even got a good laugh out of it, then please consider sharing it with anyone else who's a fan of Azur Lane and maybe they too might get a chuckle out of it. That's all and thanks for reading this FF.