Donald looked sadly at the pile of bills on the table. It had been a hard couple of months-he hadn't had any job that had lasted more than a week, the houseboat had sprung a leak, Huey had come down with yet another case of strep throat-and Donald had just finished telling the boys that Christmas was going to be very small this year. It wasn't the first time he'd had to tell them this, so they were kind of used to it and took it pretty well, but somehow, that made it even worse.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie listlessly sat on the floor of their room, trying to hold in their sniffles and tears. They had no real right to be upset. They saw every day how hard Uncle Donald worked to try to keep their little family afloat. They saw the weight of the burden he carried, all of those bills and jobs and three extra mouths to feed. They were grateful for all that he had sacrificed for him-they'd be lying if they said they'd never thought about what Uncle Donald's life would have been like if he didn't have them to take care of. But it was hard to watch everybody around them get excited for Christmas when they...couldn't.
"What if we make our own Christmas this year?" Huey said.
"What's even the point?" said Louie. "There won't be any presents, or a tree, and since we don't even have a chimney, Santa probably won't even find us this year-"
"Santa never finds us on the years we need him most," Dewey grumbled.
"-and it probably won't even bother to snow," Louie said.
"That's exactly why we should make our own Christmas! We'll get the presents and the tree!" Huey said. "How much money do we have?"
The boys got their piggy banks and dumped them on the floor.
"That should be enough for something," Huey said.
"Louie's holding out on us!" Dewey said. "He's got more money hidden at the bottom of his pencil cup!"
"That's for emergencies only!" Louie said.
"This is an emergency! It's Christmas!" Dewey said.
"Christmas is not an emergency!" Louie said.
"We don't need Louie's emergency money," Huey said. "We'll make do with this. Now, we have to decide which is more important-a tree or presents?"
"Without a tree, we won't have anywhere to put the presents," Dewey said.
"Without presents, it'll be a really sad tree," Louie said. "I vote presents. They last longer, anyway."
"Dewey?" said Huey.
Dewey thought for a moment. "Yeah, ok. But who are we going to get presents for? Ourselves?"
"Uncle Donald!" Huey said. "He deserves Christmas presents more than anybody!"
"So what do we get him?" Dewey asked as they walked the aisles of DuckMart.
"We should get him something he needs," Huey said. "What's he broken recently?"
"No, we should get him something fun!" Louie said. "It's Christmas! Christmas is all about fun!"
"I think Uncle Donald will appreciate it better if it's something he needs," Huey said. "Like a new blender! Didn't he set the blender on fire a few weeks ago?"
"I don't know that we need a blender…" Dewey mused.
"How will we know which blenders won't be faulty like the last one?" Louie asked.
Huey took a look at the display of blenders, and his heart sank when he saw the prices. Even if they got Uncle Donald the cheapest one, they'd never have enough for a Christmas tree. And Louie did have a point.
"Ok, what else has he broken?" Huey said.
"He broke another plate on Tuesday," Dewey said.
"We're not getting Uncle Donald a plate for Christmas," Louie said. "Plates aren't fun or needed."
"You definitely need plates, Louie. What else are you going to eat off of?" Dewey said.
"Straight from the pan," Louie said.
"We probably shouldn't get any more breakable plates anyway, and I don't think a plastic plate is a good Christmas present," Huey said. "What else is there?"
"We could always get him socks," Dewey said.
"We don't wear socks," Louie said.
"Oh, yeah."
"Wait a minute!" Huey said. "I think Uncle Donald broke the last coffee mug!"
"When was that?" Louie asked.
"I don't know, but when was the last time you saw him drink his coffee out of a mug?" Huey said.
"I thought he'd just switched to iced coffee," Dewey said.
"Yeah, but I haven't seen the mug in the cabinet, either," Huey said.
"You do have a good point," Louie said. "But a mug for Christmas?"
"People get each other mugs for Christmas all the time," Huey said. "Let's at least see what they've got, ok?"
Louie shrugged and the trio went to find the mugs.
"Flowers...flowers...owls...apple mug?...Santa mug…" Dewey said, looking through them.
"This one says 'coffee' all over it in various fonts," Louie said.
"There's gotta be a good one for Uncle Donald," Huey said. "Hey, check this out. 'World's Best Mom,' 'World's Best Dad,' 'World's Best Grandma..'
"Do you really think they're gonna have 'World's Best Uncle?" Louie said. "Uncles aren't usually that special."
"Ours is," Huey said. "And there's no reason he shouldn't get his own mug."
"Here's a color-it-yourself mug," Dewey said. "We could do it ourselves?"
"I've got one!" Huey said, crawling back out of the shelf. "Check it out! 'World's Greatest Uncle!'"
"Awesome!" Dewey said.
"I don't know, guys," Louie said. "A mug still feels...not all that special. Especially one that only has 'World's Greatest Uncle' written in black letters and nothing else."
"We could also get the color-it-yourself markers and spruce it up a little," Dewey suggested.
"Do the markers come separately?" Huey asked.
"Oh. No, they don't."
"Then why don't we just get the color-it-yourself mug and do it ourselves?" Louie said.
"Because the mug companies have to know that there's a market for 'World's Greatest Uncle' stuff!" Huey said.
"We could color the color-it-yourself mug for our teacher," Dewey said.
"We do have a pretty good teacher this year," Louie said.
Huey looked at the prices for both mugs. Buying both seemed like a lot, especially when they didn't have a Christmas tree yet. Still, by buying both mugs, they'd be killing two birds with one stone, and one of those birds was one they didn't even plan to kill.
"Ok," said Huey. "It's settled, then. We'll get both."
"Can you show us your cheapest Christmas tree, please?" Huey asked the chicken at the Christmas tree farm.
"Sure! Right this way," he said, leading the way. "These are our low-end trees," he said, pointing to a patch of small, sparse, and crooked trees. "A lot of them we cut prematurely because they weren't healthy enough to grow into big trees like you see over that way." He pointed to the big, lush trees on the other side of the farm. "Let me know if you find one you like."
The triplets started looking at the trees. The first thing that Huey checked on each one was the price, but each price tag made him more and more despondent. There had to be one that fit their budget.
"The needles on these things come off if you so much as look at them!" Louie said, shaking one a little. Sure enough, a blizzard of needles feel to the ground.
"This one doesn't-oh," said Dewey as he accidentally broke off the branch he was holding onto.
"It doesn't matter, anyway," Huey said, sitting down. "They're all too expensive."
"Oh," said Louie, suddenly looking a bit apprehensive. He tapped his hand against his pocket, which was a bit more snug than usual.
"Hey, this one isn't so bad!" Dewey said from a few trees away. "The needles and branches aren't coming off so much. It's just kinda small and crooked."
Huey got up and walked over to his brother to check the price tag. "This is still too much money," he said. "I guess we won't have a Christmas tree this year."
Louie put his hand on his pocket again. "I suppose we could-"
"Have you found one you like?" the chicken said, coming back over to them.
"Yeah, but-"
"I guess not," Huey said, interrupting Dewey. "Thanks anyway."
The chicken check the price tag on the small, crooked Christmas tree. "Oh! That's a misprint!" he said, taking out a red marker. He crossed out the price and wrote in a new number. "There! Much better. Sorry about that, kids."
The three boys crowded around the tag. "We'll take it!" Huey said.
"Excellent!" said the chicken, and half an hour later, the boys were carrying the tiny, crooked Christmas tree home.
On Christmas morning, Huey, Dewey, and Louie crept out of bed and carefully took the tiny Christmas tree from its hiding place in the corner of their room out into the middle of the houseboat. They grabbed the box of ornaments and started hanging them on the tree as quietly as they could.
Meanwhile, Donald was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Today just felt wrong. His boys should be waking up to find presents piled high around a sparkling Christmas tree and then later sitting down to a big Christmas dinner. Instead, the only things that would differentiate today from the rest of the year would be the "Merry Christmas's" and maybe a holiday special or two on TV.
Wait a second. Donald listened. He could have sworn he heard something out-
"Shhh!"
"Dewey, knock it off!"
Donald got out of bed and went out to the houseboat's common area.
"What's going-"
"Merry Christmas, Uncle Donald!"
Donald looked at the tiny, sparkling Christmas tree, framed by his nephews' jubilant faces.
"You did this? All by yourselves?"
"Yeah! And look! We even got you a Christmas present!" Sure enough, there was an irregularly-shaped present wrapped in-was that notebook paper?-sitting underneath the tree.
Tears welled in Donald's eyes, and he wasn't sure if he was touched at his boys' thoughtfulness or heartbroken at his own inability to make Christmas when his boys managed to do all of this.
"I-I don't-"
"Open your present!" Huey said, pushing it into his hands.
Donald carefully unwrapped the paper to find a mug that said "World's Greatest Uncle" on one side and had all three of his nephews names (handwritten, he could tell) on the other, complete with a doodle of what Donald was pretty sure was the four of them in a group hug (he'd gotten pretty good at deciphering his nephews' pictures over the years).
Donald tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. His nephews looked at him expectantly.
"Merry Christmas, boys!" he finally said, opening his arms. Huey, Dewey, and Louie ran to him and hugged him tightly.
It looked like this year's Christmas was a good one after all.