Hi guys, LB here. So here's part four of Christmas in Burbank. The good news is, we're done with this piece, so it's just a matter of posting them! :) As usual, Beth is mine, AJ is AC's, and the rest of Chuck is sadly, not ours'.

Enjoy!

After a scrumptious dessert of coconut crème pie, the group moved to the living room to open presents. Taking a seat on the floor, Chuck and Morgan were in charge of passing the presents out. Devon sat in the armchair closest to the tree with Ellie in his lap, while Sarah, AJ, and Beth took up the couch. Casey sat in the other armchair closest to Beth.

"Okay, so let's see. Who's this yellow one from and who's it for?" Chuck asked, holding up a present.

"Mine for Beth," Casey answered.

Beth shot a surprised look towards him. She hadn't expected any presents from him. Morgan passed it over to Beth, and she grinned. The yellow wrapping paper practically matched the walls of her room, and she had a feeling that had been done on purpose. She stared at it, and tried to rattle it, but it didn't make a noise.

John scoffed. "Gonna open it or just play detective?"

Sticking her tongue out at him, she went about unwrapping the present. It was…a box. How lovely. After finally getting into the box (did the man use a whole roll of tape for that thing?), she let out a gasp of surprise.

"It's gorgeous!"

"What'd you get?" Ellie asked.

AJ nodded. "Yeah, hold it up, let us see!"

She held up a dress; it was white with pink polka dots and a blue underskirt and bows.

Devon let out a low whistle. "Good choice bro."

"It'll look great on you, Beth."

"Thanks Sarah. I love the coloring." She turned towards John. "Thank you so much—I love it! I didn't expect any presents really; this is, it's…thank you."

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "There's another part of the gift—look under the tissue paper."

"Oh! Really? Oh-okay." She started to dig through the paper, coming up with an assortment of ribbon. "New ribbon! You're officially amazing and my favorite man ever!"

Ellie smiled knowingly and if she didn't know any better, she could have sworn Casey looked pleased at that outburst. Beth didn't notice—she was too busy gushing over her present. The next gift held up was a messily wrapped and oddly shaped package covered in Frosty the snowmen wrapping paper.

Looking at the gift Morgan was holding, Chuck said, "Oh that's mine for you, Devon."

"Awesome," he said, accepting the gift. He pulled away the wrapping with a surgeon's hands, taking his time with each piece of tape so as not to tear it. When he finally opened it, he revealed a small cardboard box sitting on top of a DVD. Looking at the DVD first, Devon read aloud, "Original and Uncommon Workout Routines from Around the World. Thanks, bro!"

"Cool," AJ said as Devon passed the video around. "I bet the Tibetan Turnover's in there; does wonders for your back."

"Just as long as he stops hanging upside down from the ceiling," Ellie said.

When the video had finished circling, Devon opened the second part of his present and pulled out a personalized cobalt blue mug that read in a white script 'Most Awesome Brother-in-law'.

"Aw, this deserves a hug," Devon said, causing Ellie to jump up from his lap so that he could go over to the tree and pull Chuck into a hug.

"Glad you liked it," Chuck said, massaging his bruised ribs. "So, who next? How about this one?" He held a small green gift bag topped with a perfectly centered red bow.

"That's mine bro, goes to my lady love."

Ellie, settled back in Devon's lap, took the bag gently. She took the tissue paper out first, and held up a small envelope.

Devon's hands inched toward the powder blue envelope. "Open it up, El. You're gonna love it!"

Smacking his hands away, she carefully opened the envelope to reveal a day pass to one of the better spas in the Burbank area. "Oh honey, I've wanted to go here for awhile! How'd you know?"

"Saw one of their brochures lying around the house. Now—"

"—I'm getting there Devon. Patience is a virtue." She took out the remaining item in the bag: a large bottle of her favorite perfume. She turned in her place to give him a kiss. "I've been running out—your gift is awesomely wonderful."

"Thanks babe, I'm glad you like it."

They shared another kiss, and Morgan grabbed the closest present to him, in order to stop the gushy scene. The package was a sturdy box wrapped in silver paper except for a spot on the top of the package, which had what looked to be newspaper taped over a part of the package.

"This is from me to Casey," he said, passing he package down the room. The aforementioned Colonel raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised, but didn't comment. He pulled the wrapping off without fuss, exposing a bottle of car polish sitting on top of a flat box. Opening the box without preamble, Casey pulled out a boomerang.

"What's this supposed to be for?" he said holding it up.

"Don't you get it, man? It's for you to use on shoplifters!"

"Buddy, that's actually pretty ingenious," Chuck said. The others signaled their agreement.

"That was really thoughtful of you, Morgan," Beth said. "Wasn't it, John?"

Casey nodded slowly. "Thanks…Grimes."

Looking quite pleased with himself, Morgan picked out the next present, a medium-sized package neatly wrapped in purple paper with sparkly red candy canes and green Christmas trees.

Ellie waved her hand at the package. "That's mine, Morgan. For AJ."

It didn't escape the others' notice that instead of just passing the package to the next person like a crazy game of telephone, like Morgan did with the others, he walked over to AJ and gave it to her, their hands accidently brushing during the exchange. Watching it, Beth smirked—she saw the way AJ had jumped slightly at the touch; the girl was head over heels. She just didn't realize it yet.

AJ took the bow off gently, and stuck it on top of her head. Then she tore into the package.

"Merci beaucoup!" she remarked as she held up the books Ellie had gotten her. "1001 Ways to Spice up your Pasta. I'll be using this quite a bit. And what's this one…100 Unusual Places around LA: A Book for the Brave and the Daring. Intéressant…thanks Ellie!"

"You're welcome. I thought you'd like to travel some around California, since most of your traveling has been out-of-country."

"It's great! Very useful." She stated skimming the pages while Chuck picked up the next gift—a small rectangular gift wrapped in a quilt-like pattern of Santas with a polka dot bow.

"Alright, so whose is this?"

No one answered.

"Um, guys, it has to be somebody's."

Looking up from her books, AJ said, "Oh sorry, that's mine for Morgan."

Morgan accepted the gift from Chuck and wasted no time in tearing away the paper. "Oh wow, no way." He looked from the Wii game in his hand to AJ and then back again. "This can't be the new Call of Duty game; it hasn't even officially been announced yet."

AJ shrugged, her smile mysterious and satisfied. "I met Josh Olin at a convention in Japan; we hit it off and I offered him a couple of suggestions for modifying the franchise. I convinced him to send me an advanced copy as a thank you; it wasn't big deal."

"This is the best present I've ever gotten," Morgan said sincerely, hugging the game to his chest.

AJ hid herself behind her new books to keep the others from noticing the steady reddening of her cheeks.

Clearing his throat, Chuck pulled out another present, a bright silver gift bag adorned with snowflakes, with the top rolled and taped to keep it from coming open.

Grinning, Beth practically leapt in her seat. "That's mine! Sarah, it's for you, and good luck opening it—I used heavy duty tape."

Sarah examined the package for a few seconds, shrugged, then flipped it over and started taking the bag apart from the bottom.

"Hey! That's cheating!"

"You didn't say how I was supposed to unwrap it." The bag fell open to show a pair of elegant silver hoops and a manila envelope. Looking at it curiously, she opened the envelope and a comic book slid out.

"Detective Comic 27!"

Beth smirked at Sarah's uncharacteristic squeal. Chuck practically leapt over the presents to get to Sarah.

"You're joking right? You have to be joking. The original was made in 1939—there's no way you can have an original…hey-o! That's an original!"

"Where did you find it?"

Grinning, Beth shrugged. "A great gift-giver never reveals her secrets."

"But it must have cost—"

"—Morgan, isn't it time for the next gift?"

Morgan nodded, and grabbed a heavy box wrapped in scarlet paper with gold ribbon.

"That's for you, Chuck," Sarah said.

"It is? Hmm, wonder what it could be?" He grabbed the box from Morgan, weighing it with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Could it be…actually, I have no idea. So I'm just going to open it now." He unwrapped the box and pulled the lid off, then took out a photo album, the cover picture being one of him and Sarah on Halloween.

"Sarah, these are all—"

"Pictures of us. Of all of us. I couldn't think of what to get you, so—"

"This is amazing; thank you." Chuck jumped, giving his girlfriend a kiss before looking through the rest of the album, holding it up at certain points for everyone to see one picture or another.

There we go! Like it? Hate it? What'd you guys think about the gifts? Feeback is always welcome!

(AC here. Just wanted to let you know, the Tibetan Turnover is completely fictional so far as I know, & Josh Olin really is associated with COD...but we don't own him. Pity too, he's kinda cute.)