Christmas in Hazzard County has never been nothin' short of a rush, or so I'm told. I'm bettin' that this year won't be no different.

There was something in the air. And not just cold and carbon monoxide. Though he wished it was. A displeased noise was already escaping his lips as he set eyes on the ring of greenery that hung on the door.

"What in the ever-livin' hell is that?" Clayton asked.

"It's a Christmas wreath. Ain't you ever seen one before?" Bo asked.

General's trunk was being unloaded of groceries, big, brown bags filled with food. Turkey and ham and potatoes and various other goods. Lots of them.

Clayton scoffed. "Of course I know what a wreath is," he replied snidely. "I just didn't expect to see one on the front door. It clashes with the rest of the house if you ask me."

"Well, it's Christmastime, so we have a wreath up. And a tree," Luke explained.

"Oh, right," Clayton said, rather dejectedly. "Christmas."

"Well, bah humbug to you too then." Daisy emerged from behind the General Lee, carrying a grocery bag and wearing a Christmas sweater. "Speakin' of Christmas decorations, I should get Enos to kiss me under the mistletoe."

Seeing her sweater, Clayton made a face. "Daisy, darlin', I'm sayin' this 'cause I care about you, green ain't your color, cherie."

Daisy gave him a look and jabbed a finger at him. "Every color is my color."

"Clayton, you wear the same thing everyday, you can't talk," Luke butt in.

Clayton raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and you don't?"

Luke shook his head. "Alright, what do you do for Christmas, since you don't like wreaths, and you don't like sweaters."

Clayton thought for a moment. "Well, it's very rare that I ever get called upon during the holidays, but the times that I do, I can't say that it's very family-friendly."

"And I'm gonna stop you right there."

"One of your better ideas, mon ami."

"Alright, so you haven't done normal Christmas, but since you're still livin' in our house and we celebrate Christmas…."

"You… want me to make myself scarce?"

"What? No, I- celebrate it with us!"

"Yeah, our Christmases are a lotta fun!" Bo said.

"Is there drinkin' involved?" Clayton asked.

"Well, yeah, sometimes. Mostly later in the night, if Uncle Jesse's okay with it, of course."

"Conditions applied due to that one year there was a Christmas party at the Boar's Nest and Luke threw up on Boss Hogg," Daisy explained.

"What? No I didn't. I don't remember doin' that, ever," Luke argued.

"Of course you don't remember, you were blacked out."

Luke folded his arms. "I don't believe you."

"Well you should, I should know, I was there."

"No, 'cause if that actually happened I'd be dead right now."

"You really want to spend your Christmas with me?" Clayton asked.

"Why not? Nobody should be alone on Christmas, and besides you'll have fun," Daisy argued.

"Don't you think we're all a little too old for Christmas anyways?"

Bo scoffed. "Yeah right. Y'know how long I believe in Santa for? Even after I caught Uncle Jesse puttin' presents under the tree in the middle of the night."

"I mean, c'mon, a big man with a white beard and a red hat? It wasn't exactly obvious," Luke said.

"Can't be as bad as the time Boss Hogg stole all the Christmas trees in Hazzard," Daisy added.

"Don't jinx it."

"So, what d'you say, Clayton? Will you please do Christmas with us this year?"

The little man looked between the three pleading gazes directed toward him. Finally he scowled. "Fine, I'll indulge in your childish holiday traditions, but I won't promise that I'll enjoy it."

"Oh, I'm just so excited! It'll be fun, you'll see. You should come help us get the rest of the decorations up!"

The three of them disappeared inside the house, Clayton lagging behind. "Right, help."

Even the word 'help' seemed foreign. He didn't 'help' others. Neither did he normally celebrate Christmas, yet here he was.

The inside of the farmhouse was warmer than usual and the ceilings where he usually prowled were now overrun with lights and bristly green ropes of pine needles. Red and green ribbons decorated nearly everything. And in the living room, there occupied a big, green fir tree. The most common Christmas tradition. And per Jesse's handiwork.

"Ah yes, the traditional Christmas tree, stolen from the Pagan celebration of Yule, if I'm not mistaken," Clayton remarked in hopes of dampening the spirit.

"Will you quit bein' so negative, hoss? Christmas is about bein' happy and full of cheer. Y'know, jolly."

Clayton's gaze turned to where the voice had come from, finding that the orange Charger that had been outside moments earlier now stood human in the doorway.

General smirked as he walked into the kitchen, hands on his hips. "You gonna be a Scrooge all Christmas or are you actually gonna be fun? Y'know, I don't expect much from the likes of you."

Clayton turned to him. "Is that a challenge?"

"Oh, I dunno," General said, leaning against the kitchen counter. He rubbed his fingernails against the front of his jacket. "Don't think you could take a Duke challenge."

Clayton sneered. "Well, in that case, challenge accepted." He turned back around, announcing to the house. "I'm gonna Christmas the hell out this bitch!"

This caught the three cousins' attention. Immediately, Luke's gaze landed on General.

"What'd you do?" he asked.

"Power of suggestion?" General said with a shrug.

"Alright, Clayton," Daisy said, grabbing a box and dumping it into the little man's arms, "since you're so eager to help, you're on light duty."

Clayton laughed cynically as he turned to leave. "Prepare to have your electricity bill demolished."

With that, he disappeared back outside, leaving the Dukes where they were in the living room.

"That was a threat, right? It sounded like a threat," Bo said.

Luke nodded. "It was a threat."

Outside, Clayton stood before the humble farmhouse, studying the tin roof. "Hmmm," he hummed. He set the box of lights down on the picnic table, taking a step back with his hands on his hips. There was a hole in the roof where two segments of tin had come apart. "Oh, that just won't do. With winter comes cold," he said matter-of-factly. With a snap of his fingers, the hole was repaired, the whole roof in fact was replaced with a good, wooden roof, enough to trap heat but not get too hot in the summer. "Wouldn't want the ceiling to grow cold on my feet. I can't stand cold feet."

With a snap of his fingers and a wave of his hand, the lights leaped from the box and strung themselves across the edge of the roof. As they swayed in the air, Clayton noticed that they didn't turn on.

"No sense in wastin' time lookin' for the faulty bulb," he said, snapping his fingers again.

The lights filickered to life, glowing and beautiful. Almost instantly the house seemed transformed. He then turned to the barn. And the barn looked quite drab, in his opinion.

"No sense in decoratin' the house and not the barn," he said with yet another wave of his hand.

In an instant, there were lights on the barn and a nice, big wreath on its doors. From there, he stood in the yard to admire his work.

"Much better," he said to himself. "And much more in the Christmas spirit if I do say so myself."

He took a trip up to the hayloft, knowing that it sometimes served as extra storage. He climbed the ladder, moving to look around at the hayloft's contents. That is, until his foot suddenly broke through the floor.

Cursing loudly, he pulled himself back up, surveying the dingy hayloft. He noticed the pits where the straw-covered floor caved in and the places that shone through to the lower level.

"This just won't do either," he grumbled. And again, with a snap of his fingers, yet another thing was fixed to his liking.

Wiping his hands theatrically, he stepped back out into the yard after exiting the barn. At the same time, the Dukes were emerging from the house, staring at the lights in awe.

"Gee, Clayton, you did all this?" Bo asked. "And in no time flat too."

"Hey," Luke called to them, ushering them over to look, "that hole in the roof's fixed. The whole thing actually."

"Ugh, and that horrible, rottin' structure you called a hayloft is fixed too. Nothin' but a safety hazard if you ask me," Clayton complained, smoothing out a wrinkle in his coat.

Daisy beamed, covering her mouth with a hand excitedly. "My God, Clayton, you did all of this for us?"

Clayton looked up at her, confused. "What? No, I never said-"

He didn't have time to finish as Daisy rushed to hug him. Immediately he let out a hiss and pushed away, tensing up.

"One rule," he growled, smoothing out more wrinkles, more as an obsessive reflex than the fact that there were any wrinkles that needed smoothing out.

"Right, sorry, no touchin'. I forgot," Daisy said, clasping her hands.

Clayton sighed, hands finally coming to a rest, eyes turning back to the cousins. "Well, I don't know about y'all, but I fancy a drink."

"We'll wait till later," said Luke.

"Yeah, you should play Sing or Drink with us," Bo added.

"I ain't familiar," Clayton argued.

"It's in the name. One person starts a song and can stop whenever. Y'all keep goin' until someone gets the lyrics wrong, then they gotta take a drink."

"Thanks, but I don't sing."

"What? You won't at least try it?"

"I just said I don't sing."

"Doesn't matter whether or not you can sing," Daisy argued, "that's half the fun of it. You just gotta try to remember how the words go."

"It gets more interestin' the more you drink," Luke explained.

"I think I'll pass," Clayton said, folding his arms.

Just then, there was a familiar honk of a horn and the four of them looked up to see two familiar vehicles bumping down the driveway. As the pick-up and Ranchero each came to a stop, a tall figure stepped out of the truck, fixing the white cowboy hat on her head.

"Happy Holidays, y'all," Marie greeted.

"Hey, you're early," Daisy said with a smile.

Marie coughed as big billows of exhaust drifted around her, Thunder groaning and cracking his back, then proceeding to scratch ferociously at his shoulder. His reformed silhouette bent in the smoke.

"What'd we talk about? You smoke out at least twenty feet away!" Marie scolded.

"I had an itch!" he complained.

Diablo emerged from his own smoke cloud, holding a stack of vibrantly wrapped boxes. "Speak for yourself, Tormentoso, I don't got the horsepower for all this."

Thunder sighed, taking some of the boxes from him. His hair was starting to grow back and had finally made it past the tops of his ears.

"What're y'all doin' here so early? We didn't expect y'all for another two hours," Luke said.

"I came to help Daisy cook and the boys here wanted to help with the lights, but it looks like y'all already got that part covered," Marie explained.

"Don't touch my lights," Clayton growled.

"Well, y'all can all go ahead and join me in the kitchen, I could do with some extra help," Daisy said.

Marie nodded and gestured for the Defects to follow. Inside the kitchen, Daisy immediately set to work and Marie rolled up her sleeves. Bo and Luke took the wrapped gifts from the Defects to be set underneath the fir in their living room.

Luke found General standing on the sofa, pinning a mistletoe string to the ceiling. He also found that the Defect had procured a red Santa hat.

"General? Why are you hangin' that in the middle of the room?" he asked.

"Me and Grant are gonna pull a prank on Tank," the Defect explained.

"What? Why?"

"He's got an allergy to public displays of affection, if you catch my drift."

"It's gonna be funny as shit!" Diablo called from the kitchen.

He was elbowed and told to watch his mouth not a moment later.

"And I'm gonna record the whole thing," Thunder added.

"Wait, so you're all in on it?" Luke asked.

The Defects nodded.

"All of us except for Tank… and Caleb," Thunder said.

"Wait, why Caleb?" Luke asked.

Diablo began to count on his fingers. "He can't lie, he's got a big mouth, and he can't keep a secret to save his life."

"Now that I think about it, we didn't tell Maiden either," General said.

"Why not her?" Bo asked.

"She'd snitch," Diablo explained.

In the kitchen, another conversation started.

"So, Clayton, I see you're in the Christmas spirit," Marie said, half-sarcastically.

Clayton scoffed. "Please, I barely find the urge to associate myself with the holiday."

Marie raised an eyebrow and looked to Daisy, who shrugged. "He's a bit of a Scrooge."

"Could be worse, y'know," Marie said. "We could be forcin' you to wear an ugly sweater or get your nice suit all messy makin' cookies."

Clayton scowled. "You couldn't force me to do any one of those things."

Marie smirked. "My point is that you should be grateful. Just like I'm sure they're thankful to you for fixin' the roof on their house and puttin' up the rest of the lights."

"It's winter, the ceilin' will get cold. I can't stand cold feet. I didn't do it for the sake of their well-bein'."

"But you did somethin' nice for us. That should be enough to get you into the Christmas spirit, right?" Daisy asked.

"Mais, not in the slightest."

Daisy laughed, sifting through their groceries from that morning and reading over her recipes. After a moment, she frowned.

"Oh no," she said, "I forgot the condensed milk for the fudge." She quickly turned to Clayton. "Will you go get some?"

"What? Me?" the little man asked.

"Yes. Please, Clayton, it's important."

Clayton grumbled and sighed. "Oh, very well."

He snapped his fingers, immediately finding himself in the Hazzard town square. The town was lively, voices rippling up, some talking, some shouting, some singing. On the sidewalk stood a man in a red Santa suit, ringing a bell and holding out a bucket. On the face of the bucket, in white paint, was written 'orphanage fund.' Then, the most wonderful idea dawned on him. Maybe this whole Christmas thing wouldn't be so bad after all if he could have some fun with it.

A wily smile crept up Clayton's lips as he saw this and he muttered to himself. "Maybe one little detour wouldn't be so bad," he said, beginning to cross the street.

As he approached the man in red, he ducked into a crowd of passersby, following behind them until they passed the Santa, to which he calmly kicked the back of his knee, causing the man to stumble out into the street, his bucket of bills and loose change spilling out into the pavement.

Clayton laughed as he made his getaway, disappearing into another crowd. As he made his way down the street toward the store, he passed by the bank, where Boss Hogg was standing. And he wasn't alone. Clayton paused, listening to him give instruction to three other men dressed as Santa. Their instructions were simple. Guilt trip people into donating money for the 'orphanage fund' to which the money would go to Boss Hogg, with a little cut to them, but mostly Boss Hogg.

And he'd be damned if he'd let an opportunity to ruin Boss Hogg's Christmas pass. So, he stuck around, waiting until the Santas dispersed with their buckets and took note of where they stationed themselves. Then, he continued on to the store.

Roughly ten minutes later, he came back and, fast as a snake, snatched the buckets and disappeared, laughing all the way… to the orphanage that is.

"That's one Christmas ruined," Clayton said, sifting through the money in the buckets, "and a couple dozen, snivellin' brats get to watch the orphanage take in more money while they don't have a prayer of gettin' adopted themselves."

He gathered up the 'donated' money, only pocketing a little, and made his way to the town orphans' home. As he rapped on the door, listening to the excited squeals of children inside, he began to have second thoughts and contemplated on just keeping the money for himself. But he didn't want to pass up the opportunity to see sad, orphaned children. Especially on Christmas.

A mustachioed man opened the door, his soft, kind eyes staring down to meet Clayton's sharp, evil ones. The little man laughed, handing up the buckets of money.

"Here, consider it a little Christmas present to spend on whatever your dark little heart desires," he said with a wink and a devilish grin.

The man in the door, wide-eyed, picked up a handful of bills, letting them fall back into the bucket, seemingly in shock. He looked as though he might faint. "Sir, you… you just bought Christmas presents for all the children!"

Clayton was taken aback. "What? No! Use the money for you own personal gratification! Be selfish you stupid man!"

But the man was ecstatic. "Children! Children, come look! Look what this kind stranger has done!"

Clayton rolled his eyes. "Oh, Lord," he grumbled. "What's wrong with the people in this town? Not a soul to be tempted for miles." He snapped his fingers, aiming to just go back to the Duke farm.

As a crowd of smiling children came rushing to the door, led by the mustachioed man, all of their faces collectively fell as they saw that their holiday hero was now missing from the doorstep.

By afternoon, Clayton was sulking about the house, dissatisfied by his previous efforts to supposedly ruin Christmas. He'd done nothing but try to ruin Christmas. And yet everything he did only ended up making it for the better! And that royally pissed him off.

Not to mention that the house was beginning to get crowded. Enos and Caleb had arrived, and after them was Cooter. Then Rosco, the Black Maiden, and his dogs, then Autumn and Gravedigger. Next came Grant and Tank, Tank helping Grant to the living room sofa, completely oblivious to the mistletoe hanging above the two of them. Last to show up was Cletus, fashionably late.

As the house grew warm and the guests grew lively, Clayton tried to isolate himself in a corner, not looking forward to socializing with anyone. He poured himself a glass of wine and located his fedora, only to find that someone had stuck holly into the band. Dejected, he put it on his head, perhaps to hide himself. He would have preferred to permanently hide himself, however, the presence of the sheriff caught his attention. And he couldn't help but make a snide remark.

"Surprise seein' you here, sheriff," he said.

He was the man he'd first associated with in this county. And as far as he knew, they still had a deal of sorts.

Rosco made a nervous noise and Clayton guessed that he might have startled him. He was standing ominously in the corner, after all.

"Oh, uh," the sheriff's voice trailed off and he looked around, seemingly anxious. As if he wasn't supposed to be there. "Well, you see uh, Flash loves the Dukes and they get her Christmas presents every year. It'd be rude not to come, y'know."

"Oh, it just surprises me," Clayton continued, swirling the glass of wine, "seein' how y'all are enemies and all."

And Clayton could've killed himself a second time for the rambling tangeant he received from that comment.

"Well, I wouldn't say enemies, I mean, we ain't friends but I wouldn't say enemies 'cause I ain't tried to arrest 'em for quite some time now. So I don't really know what you'd call it but I wouldn't say that I hate 'em. Not anymore at least."

Clayton grumbled and took a long drink from his wine. "Get out of my face, sheriff."

"Y-you spoke to me first."

"Do I need to repeat myself?"

Rosco was gone in the blink of an eye.

All the while, he tried to tune out the sound of singing with the occasional mismatched lyric which was usually followed by laughter and chants of, "Chug! Chug! Chug!"

That is until, a few feet away, there was a commotion. And this piqued his interest. He looked over to see that Tank had been bent over the couch, Grants arms wrapped around his neck. A sudden flash of light led to a gasp which was followed by hysterical laughter and they all heard Tank growl.

"Delete that right now!" he yelled.

Thunder laughed, shaking dry a polaroid. "Not on your life, hoss."

From the sofa, Grant was laughing, shaking his fists victoriously.

Tank growled again and lunged at Thunder, trying to take the picture from him. Thunder struggled against the bigger man, trying to hold the polaroid out of his reach. It was then that the Duke boys had to intervene, the two of them wedging themselves between the two big Defects, forcing them apart.

"Hey, hey, if you're gonna fight, do it outside!" Luke ordered.

"It's just a prank, calm down!" Bo said to Tank.

Tank sighed and straightened himself. "Fine."

Thunder did the same, still grinning.

"Hand it over," Tank said, holding out a hand to Thunder.

"Oh, I'm keepin' the picture."

"Thunder."

"What?"

Tank glared at him, however, Thunder was unfazed.

"Leave it alone. I told you this was going to be a Christmas you wouldn't forget, didn't I?" Grant said.

Tank flushed and hid his face with a hand but said nothing more.

"I ain't gonna forget it either," Thunder said, looking at the polaroid in amusement.

The other Defects gathered around to look as well, snickering amongst themselves.

And the rest of the night's entails were all in good fun. The food, the gifts, the singing. One would think it wonderful. Except for Clayton, who'd tried to thwart the holiday's cheer, but ended up failing miserably. And this was not something that he could take lightly. So he sulked. And he sulked on the porch swing.

And Daisy of all people found him sulking.

"Clayton?" she ventured. "What's wrong? Ain't you havin' a good time?"

Clayton looked up at her. "What? Nothin's wrong, everythin's fine. I dunno why you even ask."

"Well, you're sittin' over here all alone. And you're sulkin'."

"I ain't sulkin'. Who's sulkin'?"

Daisy gave him a soft smile and moved to sit down next to him. "You wanna tell me what's botherin' you?"

Clayton averted his gaze. "You wouldn't get it."

"Try me."

He sighed. "Why are you Dukes so persistent? Alright, fine, I'm upset."

"Why are ya upset?"

Clayton rolled his eyes. "Oh, you'll think it childish of me. I made it my mission to ruin this Christmas, but somehow I did the opposite. Even the orphans weren't sad. Orphans are always sad! I love seein' orphans sad. Why weren't they sad?"

"What orphans?"

"I stole some money from Boss Hogg and tried to convince the man down at the orphanage to use it for his own self-gratification."

Daisy smiled. "You gave money to the orphanage?"

"What? No, I didn't give money to the orphanage, just the man who was there."

"Oh, Clayton, I knew you couldn't be all bad! That was very sweet of you."

"I didn't do it to be sweet! I did it to be evil!" He stood, beginning to pace. "This's what's been happenin' all day, I try to do somethin' evil or selfish, and it all goes backwards!"

He paused, standing at the edge of the porch and looking out into the yard. After a moment, a mischievous grin spread across Daisy's face.

"Y'know what would be real evil?" she asked.

Clayton turned to acknowledge her, his interest piqued.

"If it snowed. No one likes to be cold, y'know. I'm sure everyone would just hate it. The roads get all slick and water freezes."

Clayton smiled his wide, devilish grin. "Right you are," he laughed. "Right you are!"

He quickly turned back around, waving a hand to the sky. Within a moment, white puffs of snow began to fall. The temperature dropped and his breath began to hang in the air in a cloud.

Daisy smiled, watching the snowflakes fall from the night sky. Quickly, she ran back into the house, yelling for everyone to come and see what Clayton had done.

And as the ground filled with snow and the air grew chilled, the Christmas guests all rushed outside into the flurry. And within moments, they were catching snowflakes on their tongues and throwing snowballs at each other.

And Clayton watched their joy from the porch; he felt his eye begin to twitch. He could have screamed his frustration for all he was worth, and then some just from the fact that Daisy had tricked him and succeeded. But it was then that he finally understood. He couldn't ruin something that couldn't possibly be ruined. And that was just it. Christmas was impossible to ruin, or so he believed. Even so, no matter any circumstance, these people seemed to make the best of it. He couldn't help that.

That, of course, wouldn't stop him from making the best/worst Christmases in the future. After all, maybe he did enjoy some semblance of holiday cheer… every once in a while, that is.

Before he could continue his thoughts further, he found himself suddenly pelted in the face with a dense snowball.

There was a collective gasp and a couple of eyes turned on the blonde Duke boy. To which, Bo offered a sheepish grin.

"Whoops," he said.

Clayton wiped melting snow from his face with a grimace, turning a fiery gaze to him and the boy seemed to shrink.

Daisy cleared her throat. "Today, we celebrate the life of Bo Duke, may he rest in peace."

Then, to the surprise of many, there was return fire. And Bo found himself with a face full of snow from a snowball twice the size of the one he'd thrown. He shook his head, looking up to see Clayton wiping snow from his hands and wearing a wide grin.

Bo smiled and laughed, gathering up more snow. "Oh, it's on, old man!"

He threw another snowball, which Clayton dodged and took cover behind the picnic table, buying himself time to make more.

So, the battle of the snowballs raged on into the winter evening. And the county of Hazzard saw a very heavy and very unexpected snowfall.

And that's the story of the very merry and Hazzardous Christmas. Kinda nice to see 'em all gettin' along for once, ain't it?

Fin