This was an oddly soothing activity, enjoyable even. Emily did not expect that. Especially considering that this particular activity apparently required a mess. A rather large mess. She eyed the surrounding area and shrugged, getting back to her own creation. It wasn't her kitchen therefore it wasn't her problem.

She had originally scoffed at the idea of all of the team doing gingerbread houses alongside the kids but no one on this earth could resist the combined pleading forces of Penelope Garcia and Spencer Reid. It was just impossible. That, she snagged a gum drop, and she got free candy.

"That's for the roof, Aunt Emily," Jack complained, carefully setting down the icing bag he had been entrusted to use.

He had carefully iced several only slightly wobbly lines across his roof. Henry, on the other hand, had not been permitted control of an icing bag yet was completely coated in the stuff. JJ's kid was definitely an odd one.

"There's plenty," she told him, grabbing another one, much to the boy's displeasure.

"Not if you keep on eating them!"

She popped one into his mouth in response and he chewed on it thoughtfully.

"Okay, maybe one or two are okay," he decided.

Emily nodded her agreement - a gummy sweet stuck in her back teeth preventing her from answering properly.

Jack proceeded to take the whole bag of sweets over to where his gingerbread house was to decorate and probably unobtrusively pilfer a few more for himself. That's the spirit.

It also forced her to stop eating said candy (as she no longer had it) and focus on getting her house iced. This wasn't going to be over until it was decorated after all and you couldn't do that without a liberal, Reid amount of icing on it.

Speaking of Reid, Emily glanced across the table at him, he really was using an unholy amount of icing. All neat and shaped, obviously (she didn't expect anything less of him), but definitely a tooth-rotting amount. But that was sort of the point of gingerbread houses, wasn't it? So, she better get cracking on hers. As much as she disliked getting sticky, Emily also didn't want to be the only one with an undecorated house

Laying claim to one of the many, many icing bags on the table, Emily eyed her house critically. Now, how could she make this somewhat interesting and not like it came straight out of some sappy Christmas catalogue?

She stuck her tongue out in concentration. She had to get this just right and it was an awkward shape.

"Emily, is that a haunted house?"

Her arm jerked in surprise at being address. Her, what she was sure was going to be an extremely straight, line of icing sugar veered wildly off course. Instead of lining the top edge of the wall, it now zig-zagged diagonally across - covering the imprint of the window. She gave it a critical look. She could make it work.

"It's got snow on it!" she replied defensively, shielding her creation from view. "That makes it Christmas-y!"

You just had to ignore the wobbly spider webs she'd iced in the corners. They could pass as icicles! Sort of. Maybe.

"Emily."

Emily just shot her blonde co-worker an attempt at an innocent smile.

"It's not Hallowe'en, Aunt Emily," Jack informed her seriously, looking up from his careful lining up of chocolate drops along the roof of his house.

"Christmas isn't spooky," Henry chimed in, nodding his head vigorously, his face covered in icing.

"Henry, do you have any of the icing on your house?" JJ asked in exasperation.

He shot his mother an innocent look through an icing-smeared face. "...Yes."

JJ tutted at her errant eldest and placed her cookie-cutter gingerbread house on the counter. It looked like the one on the box. Hmpf. Emily cheered up as she watched her blonde best friend try and wrangle her squawking son with a wet wipe. Both blondes ended up with far more icing on their clothes than they had at the beginning. JJ shot her a dirty look and Emily hurriedly brought her attention back to her own 'masterpiece'. Would icing a bat on the roof just look like Batman's calling card? She tilted her head to the side in thought and decisively disregarded the idea. She couldn't ice for shit anyway, just look at her cobwebs. They looked more like wobbly, gothy roses than cobwebs. Her internal pondering was interrupted by a tugging at her elbow. She looked down to be met with the serious eyes of Jack.

"Do you want some people for your gingerbread house?" he asked, gesturing at the paper-covered table that was now liberally sprinkled with sticky confections. "Aunt Penelope got us some."

People? What? She looked at where Jack was pointing and, sure enough, there was a spread of small gingerbread people with shallow impressions where to ice facial features. Eyes lighting up, she grabbed two.

"These are perfect," she assured the boy who was basically a nephew.

He beamed at her; his teeth suspiciously stained with red icing sugar.

"You can't have an empty house," he informed her quite seriously.

"I definitely can't," she agreed, picking two of them. "Is there any red icing sugar left?"

"I think Henry ate it all," Jack said with a sigh.

JJ overheard that comment and immediately looked over at her son.

"Oh, Henry."

"It was really tasty, mama!" He chirped happily.

Yep, Henry was definitely not going to go to sleep tonight.

"I have some," Reid said quietly, passing her over a small, red icing tube. "It's not a lot."

"That's I need," Emily assured him as she promptly got busy with it.

She needed an even steadier hand for this and maybe some black icing as well. Thankfully there was some left. More than some actually as people didn't tend to use it for Christmas decorating.

"Prentiss, is that a dead body?" Morgan asked in amazement a d he peered over her shoulder.

"Yes," Emily said proudly, inking the last bit of blood over the gingerbread - it splattered up the house. "The vampire got him."

She indicated to the gingerbread man that had sleek black hair and tiny fangs. Morgan just shook his head in disbelief.

"Of course, you did," JJ said with a sigh as she scrubbed at Henry.

"Look what I have!" Garcia interrupted excitedly, waving a small bag around. "Glitter sprinkles!"

"Yay!" Jack and Henry cheered.

Oh no.