A/N: I bused this out in like two days! I wanted to get it out before Christmas because it would be weird if I hadn't... Well in my opinion it would have been. But I just had this idea of little Maddie trying to teach James how to hang up ornaments on the Christmas tree.

-Carly

"Dean, please stop hovering over me while I am cooking." Castiel said as he, once again, dodged Dean as he moved around in their kitchen. "It is distracting and makes it hard for me to actually finish what I have started."

"Oh, come on Cas, you love it when I'm in the kitchen with you." Dean teased.

"I really do not, Dean." Castiel told him plainly. Dean pouted to Castiel's back.

"Please go and check on Maddie and James. They have been awfully quiet"

"Yeah, yeah." Dean said giving one last smile to Castiel before leaving the kitchen and heading towards their living room, where he had last seen their kids.

As he got closer to the living room he could hear Maddie speaking, in her little authoritative tone, and James clapping his hands. Dean stood quietly outside of the living room watching as Maddie picked up one ornament at a time to hang on their tree. She was talking and seemed to be trying to explain to James what they had to do. James was sitting by their couch in between a couple of cardboard boxes that Dean and Cas used to hold all their Christmas decorations. He was smiling gleefully up at his older sister as she proceeded to hang an ornament up on the tree. She sighed dramatically when she turned around and found that James hadn't seemed to be paying attention.

"James, watch." She knelt down in front of her brother and held both of his hands in her. "You're not going to know what to do if you don't watch me." James just giggled, trying to clap his hands. Maddie let out another dramatic sigh. "I'll do it again." She reached inside the closest cardboard box and brought out an ornament. She held it up to her brothers face as she talked. "This goes on tree." She stated as firmly as a seven year old could. James took a second to look at the ornament in wonderment before he tried to grasp it. "No." Maddie told him sharply. James looked at her in confusion. "You put this." She shook the ornament, and James smiled again. "On the tree." She pointed to the tree. James let out some baby garble and clapped his hands again. "Like this." Maddie said turning back to the tree and hanging the ornament up on the tree.

It looked like she had been at it for a while, a lot of the ornaments were hung lower on the tree because Maddie couldn't reach much higher. As soon as Maddie had turned her back, the cardboard box next to James suddenly interested him. He was able to lean his tiny body far enough to grip the top of the cardboard box and effectively tipped it over. Maddie instantly turned around to find her little brother sitting in a pile of ornaments.

"James." She scolded. "That's not how you do it." James looked at her with big wide eyes, as if he couldn't decide what he wanted to do about tipping the box over. He went with leaning forward and smacking his hands on the ground and laughing. He looked proud of himself as Maddie looked exasperated. Dean couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him and made his presence known. "Daddy!" Maddie started in surprise.

"What ya two doin'?" Dean asked walking further into the room and kneeling down by both of his kids. James instantly tried to get to his father and seemed close to crying when he couldn't. Dean sensing his distress picked him up and put him in his lap and then wrapped an arm around Maddie.

"Nutin'" Maddie replied quietly not looking at Dean.

"Doesn't look like nothing to me." Dean said. Maddie didn't answer and looked like she was in trouble. "You're not in trouble." Maddie nodded and kneeled down next to Dean. James looked between father and sister before turning around best he could and slapping a hand on Dean's face, as if he was asking if everything was okay. Dean laughed and Maddie shyly smiled. "I hoped you didn't hang up all the ornaments." Maddie shook her head vigorously .

"I was just trying to teach him how to hang them up for when he got older." Dean couldn't help but feel proud of his daughter. She had taken to being a big sister wonderfully. There were kids that pitched a fit when they had to share their parents attention, but Maddie took to watching her brother like it was her only goal in life. Which slightly worried Dean because that's how he had grown up, but Cas assured him again and again that Maddie and James weren't going to have the life that Dean had, had.

"I don't think he's going to understand just yet." Dean told her. She let out a little sigh. "But thank you for making the bottom of our tree look great." She looked at him with big eyes as if she couldn't believe what Dean had told her. "How about this." He stage-whispered to her. "When your papa is done cooking dinner, you can put the angel on top of the tree." Her eyes widened even further.

"What is papa doing?" The three of them turned to look at Cas as he entered the room. James instantly started bouncing in Dean's lap as he tried to reach for his other father. Castiel crossed the room to take James from Dean.

"Look what Mads did." Dean motioned to their tree.

Cas looked at their tree and then down at his daughter.

"You did that?" Maddie nodded. "It is very beautiful."

"Thank you." She said quietly looking down at the ground. Dean pulled her closer to him and started to tickle her. "Stop it daddy!" She shrieked, but laughing all the same. James started laughing and kicking his feet trying to join in with his sister.

"Okay, okay." Dean laughed laying on the ground with Maddie on his chest. "I surrender." Maddie smiled down at her father.

"Now that you two have come to a truce, I think it's time to eat and then we can finish up the tree?"

"Yay!" Maddie said getting off of Dean and running to the dinning room.

Dean got up off of the floor and put an arm around his husband and made a face at James.

"I told her she could put the angel on top of the tree." He told Cas as they two left the living room.