I updated :) again, lack of time prevents me from saying anything other than I love you all and hope your Christmas preperations are going better than Darren's!

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me." Mika/Scrooge recited boredly.

"Damn right I am! How dare you question me?" Seba screeched furiously.

"Cut!" Darren moaned. "Seba, your line is 'I am' and you're supposed to say it softly and gently.

"I am." Seba repeated. But his attempt at sounding soft and gentle made him sound more like he was on crack.

"Who, and what are you?" Mika continued, still sounding like he was half-asleep. He had already memorized his lines, although it didn't make him any more willing to say them.

"What am I?" Seba snarled, taking Mika/Scrooge's question personally. "What are you? What gives you the right to speak to me in such a demeaning matter?"

"Script, Seba." Darren reminded. "This isn't improv."

Seba looked reluctantly back at his script. "I am the Ghost of- But Darren, I do not want to be the Ghost of Christmas Past!"

"Deal with it and say the damn line! I want to get out of here." Mika snapped.

"IAMTHEGHOSTOFCHRISTMASPAST!" Seba yelled. "May I leave now?"

"NO!" Darren yelled back.

But he was too late. Seba was long gone. Most likely to indulge in some eggnog.

"Okay, go to Act 3, with the Ghost of Christmas Present.

"That's me!" Kurda squealed in such a high pitch that he could probably communicate with bats. "K, so, what page are we on? Which words? Those ones? K." Then he took a deep breath, and recited,

"Come in, come in. And know me better, man!" then he looked around, as though expecting a reward. His eyes lit up when Harkat produced a cookie.

"And what spirit might you be?" Mika said as he listened to his iPod.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Presents! Look upon me!" Kurda yelled happily as he began to rip off his clothes.

Mass panic ensued.

***

When Darren had gotten everything back under control, he decided to skip ahead to the next scene. It was Larten's turn to shine in the role of Christmas Future. But there was a problem. He didn't have any lines. All he had to do was point. Larten was appalled.

"I am the best speaker in this entire Mountain! Yet I have been cast as the one character with absolutely zero lines."

There was a pause.

"Darren, how could you do this to me?" he wailed with much less composure.

For once, Darren was at a loss for words. He'd never imagined Larten would complain about something so Christmasy!

"But your part is still the most important! If it wasn't for you, Scrooge wouldn't have changed his ways in time for Christmas." Darren argued desperately. He could not have a member of his cast drop out.

Larten glared peevishly at Darren for an uncomfortably long time, until he muttered.

"I shall give it a try. But I demand to be assistant director."

"Um..."

"If you are uncertain, I suppose I shall withdraw myself entirely from these ridiculous festivities."

Darren sighed, put on a smile, and gave Larten a good ol' mentorly hug.

"How could I refuse an offer like that? Gimme five, assistant director!"

"This will be an excellent opportunity to showcase my exquisite professionalism in an artistic way!" the orangeheaded Vampire enthused. Damn, Darren had no idea they guy was capable of sounding so pumped. No one would ever have guessed that Larten Crepsley was a theater nerd.

Then again, Vampire Mountain was not exactly a theater.

**

It took 5 hours, over 30 cups of hot chocolate, and even more candy canes of various flavours, but eventually the Vampire Mountain Theater Group made it through the entire play without stopping. To celebrate, Darren promised that they would have tomorrow off, with absolutely no rehearsing.

"No building or decorating either, right?" Mika called.

"You wish!" Darren snorted. "We only have 2 weeks to get ready for Christmas! Now we can fit another hour of construction in before dinner, so let's move!"

Nobody moved.

"If we can finish the stage today, you can all have as many marshmallows as you want in your hot chocolate!"

That got them going.

Half an hour later, Darren was feeling pretty confident that the stage was going to be a work of art. Hopefully there would be a production to be performed on it. Smiling merrily to himself, he checked his Christmas task list:

Christmas Tree (check)

Build Stage (check)
Build Set
Memorize Lines
Select Music
Choreograph Dance Numbers
Decorate Mountain
Make Christmas Cookies
Secret Santa Draw

His smile faded. The set wasn't even half-done, only Mika, Paris and Harkat had memorized their lines, he hadn't had time to select music or choreograph anything, the decorating of the Mountain had barely started, and he didn't think the gang would take well to making festive cookies. The only thing that would take little effort (on Darren's part) was Secret Santa. He would put that plan into effect tomorrow when he had a bit more energy, as well as the making of the cookies.

Speaking of energy, he'd almost forgotten the cooler of energy drinks he'd placed in the Hall so that everyone could work harder! If anyone deserved some extra energy, surely it was Darren. He bolted towards the cooler, grabbed a Red Bull, ripped the top open and...gulp...gulp...gulp...

"Omg theres so much to do I have to find the lights I hid from Seba because he licked them and they made his tongue tingle and I have to make pieces of paper with everyone's names on them for Secret Santa should I make red letters and green trim or green letters and red trim or gold letters with red and green trim or should I just do classic black and white and did I forget to order rainbow chocolate chips I don't know I have to go check but first I have to make sure we have enough sugar or maybe we should just use artificial sweetener cuz apparently sugar is bad for you OH I almost forgot I have to make paper snowflakes that'll be fun I hope I can find my favourite scissors with the red grips cuz I like them because they're sorta soft but not too soft cuz if if they were too soft then I wouldn't be able to cut straight because they're too soft but if they were too hard they'd hurt then I wouldn't want to cut and then the snowflakes wouldn't get made an then it wouldn't be Christmas because Christmas isn't Christmas unless it's a white Christmas that's right WHOA hi Harkat how are you what's new how's the construction going is it going good and if it's not going good you should get a Red Bull cuz it gives you wings and it gives me wings and scissors hey have you seen my scissors with the red grips but NOT green grips because they're not the ones I like no I like the ones with the red grips and not the green grips and we should sing Christmas carols sometime and can you help me make snowflakes and help me find the stuff we need to make cookies tomorrow and then help me paint the set and find my scissors oh here they are and then Elf is on TV so we have to watch it because it's on TV and we don't want to go to the movie rental place cuz it's pretty far away and going there would take a lot of time out of our schedule so we have to watch it on TV hey where did you go I wasn't finished talking oh well I'll just make the snowflakes on my own I'm almost done we need about 50 and I made 25 so I think that's more than half no wait I'll use my calculator and find out for sure WHOA 25 is exactly half of 50 i didn't even know what but now I know so that's ok and now I'm gonna make 25 more cuz 25 plus 25 is 50 so I need to make 25 more to make 50 and I think I have to go to the bathroom now cuz I drank a lot of stuff I don't remember what it was but I drank a lot of it so don't interrupt and I'll be out soon I hope it won't take long cuz we still have a lot to do so nobody go away cuz I'll be out soon then we have more to do!"

After Darren was safely locked in the bathroom, Harkat grabbed the cooler of energy drinks and shoved it out of sight behind the stage and threw a large fuzzy blanket over it, then set a pile of wreaths on top so that no one would suspect a thing.

"And I thought...it was bad...when Seba got...drunk on eggnog!"

You know the drill :) reviews lead to a good mood which leads to better chapters and faster updates!

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*Roxxy,
How do you stay so fresh?
I think cool thoughts.
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