Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

A/N This is the first in a two-part Hanukkah-Christmas arc. The second part will deal with Eliot's present for his parents. If this is a little sweet, please indulge me. We would all use some sweetness and kindness these days.

Mom and Dad have more ideas than anybody else I know. They had a really, really good one today.

Hanukkah begins tomorrow so we were going shopping this morning to get something for Hanukkah for Sarah our babysitter while she was taking care of Otis and Abby. That way we could surprise her when we came home.

I learned at school that Hanukkah has eight days so I thought that we should get Sarah eight presents, one for each day. Mom and Dad wanted to get her one big present, but I still thought we should give her eight. They could be seven little presents. That's what you get if you take away one from eight. Seven.

One night last week at dinner Mom said, "Dad and I have been thinking about what you said about eight presents for Sarah. We think that's really nice, so we have a plan. Want to hear?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, you know, Sarah really wants to go to Paris, but she can't afford it yet even though she has been saving up. So we bought her a plane ticket and a hotel room for a week. That's the big present."

"Little too?"

"Yes, little, too," Dad said. "We're going to get little things that are clues for the big present. Things that have to do with Paris or make people think of Paris."

"Sarah can open those first and she'll really be wondering, won't she?"

"Yeah! Clues!"

Isn't that smart? Mom and Dad are smart about clues. That's because Mom is a Captain with the police and has to find clues every day and Dad is a mystery writer so he has to make up clues in his stories.

When we left home this morning, Dad said, "We don't have a list, Eliot, so this is really going to be fun. We'll think of them as we go along, okay?"

"You have lots of ideas, sweet pea, and you spend a lot of time with Sarah, so if you think of something you tell us, okay?"

The minute I looked across the street I had an idea. "Pens!"

"Pens?" Dad said. "Pens are great, but I'm not sure how they can be clues."

"I show. Pens." I pointed to the store across the street. I love it because it is full of so much stuff and the guys who work there can find anything. My favorite is the giant basket by the door that has all different colors of balls for Scrapple. My next to favorite is the shelf that has about a million kinds of pens. As soon as we got in the store I pulled Mom's hand so I could show her what I wanted to get.

"Three, Mom."

"Okay, three pens? For a clue?"

"Yeah, clue. I show." So first I pointed to the blue ones and then the white ones that you have to use on dark-colored paper or they won't show up and then the red ones. "Flag!"

Mom got it right away. "The French flag! Blue, white and red. How did you know that, Eliot?"

"Ernie."

"Ernie is teaching you about flags?"

"Yeah. In game."

"You know a lot of them, I bet. Let's see, do you know what colors the flag of —"

"Afghanistan!" Dad hollered.

Mom looked at him like he was a little bit nutty. "Really, Castle? Not something a little easier?"

"I'm not asking him to spell it, Beckett. I chose it because it's first in the alphabet."

I know that flag! That's an easy one. So I pointed to black and then red and then green and Dad gave me a high five. "How about Zimbabwe, Eliot?"

Mom looked at him again. "Let me guess, last in the alphabet?"

"Yup."

"And you know what these flags look like?"

"Of course. I had to research them all when Derrick Storm went undercover at the U.N."

I pulled on Mom's hand again so they would stop talking and let me show them the Zimbabwe colors which are green, yellow, red, and black. "And birdie."

"Birdie?"

"Oh," Dad said and smiled at me. "There's a bird in the middle of the Zimbabwean flag, right Eliot?"

"Yeah."

Mom looked happy. "Whatever we're paying Ernie, Castle? Not enough. Not nearly enough."

"I love Ernie, Mom."

"Me, too," she said. So we bought the blue, white and red pens for Sarah's clue and the man wrapped them up and put a ribbon on them.

Dad thought the next clue should be something that you can eat in Paris so we went to the patisserie which is French for bakery and got chocolate eclairs because everyone loves those, especially Sarah. We also got her a box of bonbons which is a fancy French word for chocolates. Really bonbon means good good, which a bonbon is. So that made three presents. Then I had another idea.

"Book, Dad?"

"What kind of a book?"

"Funny. Sarah funny."

"Sarah is funny, you're right. Mom speaks French so maybe she knows a funny French book. Beckett?"

Mom thought for a while. You can always tell when she's thinking hard because she chews on her lip or gets a line between her two eyebrows. Sometimes if she's thinking extra hard it's both. She chewed on her lip and then stopped. "I know! Albertine. The French bookstore on the Upper East Side. They'll have something."

We took the subway to the bookstore only when we got there Mom and Dad remembered that Sarah doesn't really know French so she would be confused by a French book. We were wandering around in there and I saw one of my best books from Gram. It's about about an elephant named Babar who is married to another elephant named Celeste, but when I opened it I couldn't understand the words. They were French! I didn't know that Babar spoke French and then Mom said that Babar's first language, after elephant, is French and somebody translated the book into English, which means they turned it into English so kids like me can read it, too, not just kids in France.

Mom asked me, "Does Sarah like Babar?"

"She love Babar."

"Let's get her this book, then. Since you have the same one in English she'll be able to understand it right away."

When we were paying for Babar Dad saw a map of Paris, so we got that, too. It will help Sarah not get lost when she's there. The lady at the desk wrapped both of them in blue, white and red paper like the flag. That made five presents so we had to get two more. I didn't have any more ideas but Mom did. "Ready, gentlemen? One stop will do it."

"Where are we going?" Dad asked.

"Saks."

"Uh-oh."

I didn't know why Dad said that. "Uh-oh?"

"Mom loves that store. She could spend the whole day in here looking shoes and we'd be so bored we'd fall asleep."

"Dad is exaggerating, Eliot. Besides, we're not going to the shoe department." I saw her poke Dad in the ribs.

Saks is a big department store and it had stuff coming down from the ceiling that looked like snow and icicles but wasn't. It was just decoration. "We can get Sarah a beret here, and a little bottle of Chanel, because those are about as iconically French as you can get," Mom said.

I never heard of iconically, but I think it might mean very. Anyway, we picked out a black beret because Sarah likes black, and Chanel, which turns out to perfume. And that made seven clues!

"All done," Dad said. We were almost at the door when I saw something and it made me remember something really, really important, so I stopped. "Docky!" Mom and Dad must have thought that I saw him because they looked all around for him, but I didn't see him, I just thought of him. Docky is Jewish like Sarah so that means he has Hanukkah, too.

"Docky hahnock."

"Oh," Mom said. "Of course. Docky is Jewish. Did you want to get him a Hanukkah present while we're here, Eliot?"

"Yeah. Get eight!"

Mom laughed. "Well, we'll start with one. And you choose. Did you see a present for him?"

"Gubs."

"Gubs? Oh, gloves," Dad said. "That's something he'd like, that's good. I see men's gloves are right over there." We went and got him some that I found. They are blue like the coat we gave him after the twins were born and they are soft inside like the coat. I'm happy we bought those.

We took a taxi home and Sarah was surprised when we came in the door because she thought we wouldn't be there until later.

"The twins are still asleep," she said.

"We were kind of counting on that," Dad said. "Things are so crazy here in the morning and we just thought it would be nice for us all to sit down and have some coffee before you go."

"Thanks, Rick. That's a nice idea. We don't get to do that much."

Dad made coffee and poured some juice for me while Mom and I went to their room to hide Sarah's presents except for the first one.

"Would you like to carry it in?"

"Yeah!"

"Can you hold it behind your back so she doesn't see it right away?"

"Yeah, can."

"Okay, let's go then."

Mom and I walked to the living room and I was extra careful because I had the box. When I got to Sarah's chair I handed it to her. "PRIZE!"

"What's this, Eliot? May I open it?"

"Yeah. Hahnock."

"We know Hanukkah doesn't begin until tomorrow, but I might not see you," Mom said. "We thought we'd get a little jump on the holiday."

I guessed I should jump, so I did. And Sarah unwrapped her package and saw it was eclairs. "Yum! My favorite! We all have to have one right now."

"No, those are for you," Dad said. "You should take them home."

"I'd eat them all in one sitting and slip into a chocolate coma. No, let's all have some and spare my health. There's still plenty left over. Thank you so much. And they're from my favorite bakery, too."

"Eliot told us," Mom said.

"He would, wouldn't he?" Sarah said. "No secrets with you, buster."

"I keep." I can keep a secret, so there! I didn't say anything about the eclairs being a clue.

"Oh, Eliot is full of surprises," Dad said and he winked at me.

We had the eclairs and the hellions stayed asleep! Then we said goodnight and happy Hanukkah to Sarah.

When Mom was giving me a bath later she said, "We had a good time today. You love getting presents for people, don't you? You're Dad's boy all right."

"I Mom's boy too, Mom."

She kissed me on top of my head. "You are. You are."