Author note: This story is part of the Magical Flashpoint Side Story series. This story comes before "At the Intersection of Magic and Technology". It also comes after "What the Wise Man Saw", my first pre-series Side-Story, as well as "Happy Halloween", "Happy Birthday, Jesus", "Trick Or Treat", "Angels From the Realms of Glory", and "Remembering the Fallen".

Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own Flashpoint, Harry Potter, Narnia, or Merlin. I also do not own Steven Curtis Chapman's song, 'This Baby'.


"How's it looking?" Kevin 'Wordy' Wordsworth asked his wife.

She looked up from the family laptop with a sigh. Before responding, she stood up, knuckled her back to work out the kinks, then flopped back down in her chair and turned the laptop towards him. "Well, we're not in the red, but Christmas's looking a little iffy this year."

Leaning closer, Kevin winced at the neat spreadsheet outlining all the Wordsworth family income and expenditures. "I could try and pick up a few extra shifts at work."

Shelley shook her head. "You're already picking up a lot of overtime with that rash of serial bombings. I'd rather live through a slim Christmas than have to go visit you in the hospital, Kevin."

He sighed, but nodded acceptance. "So what's the plan?"

"Do it like we did when I was growing up," Shelley replied. "I'll take the girls to a craft store, pick out tons of paper, glue, and glitter, and we make our own Christmas."

"Scissors."

Shelley canted a Look up at him, tilting her head to the side.

He grinned back at her. "You'll need heavy-duty scissors to cut all those snowflakes and Christmas trees outta the paper."

His beautiful wife beamed at him. "Copy that," she teased, smiling even wider at his rueful chuckle.

Well He cried when He was hungry
Did all the things that babies do
He rocked and He napped on His mother's lap
And He wiggled and giggled and cooed
There were the cheers when He took His first step
And the tears when He got His first teeth
Almost everything about this little baby
Seemed as natural as it could be

Kevin fought back a laugh as Claire and Lilly surveyed the heavy white paper and glitter doubtfully. Looking up at him, Claire asked, "Daddy, why can't we just get snowflake ornaments at the store?"

Shelley, coming in from the kitchen, opened her mouth, but stopped at her husband's raised hand. Kneeling down, Kevin met first Claire's eyes and then Lilly's eyes. "Well, sweetie," he began, "All that stuff at the store is really nice. But it means a whole lot more when you make something yourself, even if it's not as good as what the store has."

Reaching down, he picked up a piece of white paper and folded it in half. "Now, I'm going to show you how to make a snowflake that's not like anything else in the world, 'cause it's going to be your snowflake."

He folded the paper in half again, then folded it once more on a diagonal line. His daughters crowded in and Shelley extended a scissors over their heads, handle first.

Taking the scissors, Kevin tapped the folded paper. "Just looks like a folded paper, huh? Nothin' special." His daughters nodded. "But…"

He held up the paper and cut into the folded side, curving his scissors as he worked. Several scraps of paper fell away from the first cut and he moved up the folded paper, making small cuts and a few more larger cuts. Flipping it over, he worked his way down the opposite side as well.

"Okay, done! Who wants to unfold this and see what it looks like?"

"I do!"

"Let me unfold it, Daddy!"

"I think the artist should unfold it," Shelley put in slyly, grinning at her husband.

He grinned back. "You do, do you, Mom?" Glancing down, he asked, "What do you think, girls?"

"Me! Me!" Lilly cried, bouncing.

"No, me," Claire wailed. "I'm the oldest, Daddy!"

With a laugh, Wordy reached in his pocket and pulled out a quarter. "Okay, Claire. Since you're the oldest, you call it."

He flipped the quarter in the air and she shouted, "Heads!"

Catching the quarter, Kevin slapped it down on his forearm and revealed it to a groan from one daughter and a shriek of delight from the other.

Lilly snatched up the folded paper and unfolded it, oohing at the simple, but shapely design that was revealed. No longer was it a plain, unadorned paper, but a proud, symmetrical snowflake. Perfectly sized to be sprinkled with glitter and hung up on the wall.

"And that," Kevin told his family, "is how you make a paper snowflake." With a flourish, he offered the scissors to Claire.

But this baby made the angels sing
And this baby made a new star shine in the sky
And this baby had come to change the world
This baby was God's own Son
This baby was like no other one
This baby was God with us,
This baby was Jesus

"Daddy, Daddy, look what I made!"

Just inside the door from another long day, Kevin went down on one knee to look at what his daughter was holding up to him. The Christmas tree, cut out of thick dark green paper, was a bit lopsided and the glitter that liberally coated it had a chubby handprint in the middle, but he smiled proudly nonetheless.

"That looks great, Lilly," he praised. "Did Ally help you make it?"

Lilly nodded, pointing to the chubby handprint. "She wanted to sign it, Daddy."

"I hope you signed it, too," Kevin said. "Can't have a tree that great without the artist's name on it."

Shyly, Lilly pointed to a corner of the tree with her name in large, misshapen crayon letters.

"You want me to put it up for you, sweetie?"

"Please, Daddy, can I do it?"

He laughed and swung her up, hoisting her on his shoulders. She squealed and grabbed around his neck with one hand while the other clutched her Christmas tree. Kevin made sure to bounce her up and down, drawing more delighted squeals as he walked through the house to their living room. In the corner of the room, their large artificial Christmas tree sparkled with ornaments and strings of lights.

Kevin lifted Lilly up over his head and held her out, beaming as she carefully positioned her creation in the top boughs of the tree. "Good work, sweetie," he praised, letting her down. "Now go play with Claire."

"Okay, Daddy," she called, already scrambling out of the room towards the girls' bedrooms.

And this baby grew into a young boy
Who learned to read and write and wrestle with dad
There was the climbin' of trees and scrapin' of knees
And all the fun that a boy's born to have
He grew taller and some things started changing
Like His complexion and the sound of His voice
There was work to be done as a carpenter's son
And all the neighbors said He's such a fine boy

Kevin swallowed nervously at the gleam in his wife's eyes. Even so, he strolled into the kitchen and snagged a Christmas cookie out of an open tin on the counter. Oooh, still warm. Bonus points.

"How was work?" Shelley asked.

"Slow. Hopin' it stays slow till after Christmas." Biting into the cookie, he arched a brow and leaned against the counter.

Shelley smiled at his impatience and shifted to scan for any young eavesdroppers. "Your mother called this afternoon. This year's family for the Nativity at their church just fell through."

Kevin groaned, one hand rising to his face and eyes closing in mental pain. "So?"

"So… Ally's the right age and the church has a thirty year tradition riding on this. Since we're not regular attendees, they're offering a fifty dollar gift card if we say yes."

He eyed Shelley skeptically. "Ally's a little young for child labor, don't'cha think?"

His wife giggled. "Kevin, it wouldn't just be Ally if we say yes."

The hand dropped away, eyes widening in unfeigned horror. "They want us to play Mary and Joseph?!"

But this boy made the angels sing
And this boy made a new star shine in the sky
This boy had come to change the world
This boy was God's own Son
This boy was like no other one
This boy was God with us
This boy became a man

How did he let himself get talked into these things? One squeal from Claire and a delighted handclap from Lilly and he'd folded. But he was a cop, not an actor! Hardly even remembered the whole Christmas story – his folks hadn't been into religion much when he'd been growing up.

The church's Nativity director hustled him and Shelley into rough, uncomfortable robes and cloth headdress things. At least they came with a headband to keep the cloth sheets in place, but Kevin could've done without the scratchy fabric or the shepherd's crook that kept swingin' around.

At least they didn't have to memorize too many lines – it was mostly smiling and nodding in all the right places as the children's choir sang at the audience. The church had offered to send personalized invitations to his friends and coworkers – he declined. Loudly. And vigorously. He did not need his teammates knowing about this. No. Just no.

He might've suggested just letting the original Mary and Joseph 'borrow' Ally for the short manger scene, but apparently they'd accepted a last minute invite to spend Christmas down in the States. How very convenient for them – he smelled his mother at work in that one.

Unfortunately, if he backed out now, Claire and Lilly would be crushed. He might even loose Cool Dad status. So, gritting his teeth, Kevin read through his lines again and prayed he wouldn't trip over any pint-sized shepherds – or their sheep – on the way to Bethlehem.

At least they didn't expect him to walk around with a real donkey.

And love made Him laugh
And death made Him cry
With the life that He lived
And the death that He died
He showed us heaven with His hands and His heart
'Cause this man was God's own Son
This man was like no other one
Holy and human right from the start

"What is that?" Kevin hissed between his teeth, careful to keep smiling for the scattered crowd at the Nativity dress rehearsal.

The bored man holding a gray donkey's lead rope didn't even have the decency to look abashed. "It's a live Nativity," he said, with the tone of one explaining the obvious.

Kevin's eyes narrowed above the fixed smile, but before he could retort, the man turned to Shelley and boosted her into the donkey's saddle. "He's a good 'un. Won't give you any trouble at all." With that, he pressed the lead rope into Kevin's hands and strolled back into the darkness of the backstage.

Grinding his teeth, Kevin looked down at the lead rope and made a mental note to find out if there were any other surprises…

A whoop and a catcall yanked his head sideways. He took an unconscious step back, eyes widening. No, no, no, not them… Not them… He'd never live this down!

Lou yanked their newest teammate Spike back down in his seat, both of them grinning like loons at him. On Lou's other side, Jules leaned over to whisper something to Rollie, though she flashed him a smile of her own. In front of the four, Ed and Sophie were settling into their seats and Ed – blast him – had a full bag of popcorn. Only Sarge was missing, not surprising since he'd taken the week off for some personal issue neither he nor Ed would talk about.

Staring at his teammates, Kevin wondered if it was too late to back out of this whole live Nativity thing…

This baby made the angels sing
And this baby made a new star shine in the sky
This baby had come to change the world
This baby was God's own Son
This baby was like no other one
This baby was God with us
This baby
This baby was Jesus
Yeah
This baby was Jesus
Yeah
This baby was Jesus

Ally giggled and burbled, reaching up towards her parents as a stage light shone down on the manger she was in. Shelley beamed at their daughter, reaching down to lightly shake Ally's chubby fist. On the opposite side, Kevin stood straight and tall, doing his best to project a regal confidence.

" 'ada!" Ally squealed. " 'ada!"

Was that? He looked down, right into Ally's shining eyes.

She gurgled happily, thrusting chubby fists at him. " 'ada!"

It definitely wasn't in the script, but Kevin reached down, swept his daughter up, and balanced her in one arm. With the other, he kept Joseph's shepherd staff upright, grinning when Ally pointed at it.

On the opposite side of the manger, Shelley started to say, "Kevin," only to cut herself off with a fond headshake.

A sly, self-satisfied grin crept across his face and he leaned over the manger to kiss her. And if he heard a few loud, pointed catcalls from the audience? Well, he'd get them later. Remind them who the real pranking king on the team was.

In the meantime, he smirked wickedly at Ed fumbling his popcorn while the children's choir led the audience in a rousing rendition of 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'.

~ Fin


Author Note: Merry Christmas from 2023, everyone! I pray that this day brings you many blessings of friends and family. Presents are nice, too, but the real reason for the season isn't Santa Claus or reindeer or even getting presents. It's celebrating the birth of God's Own Son and the incredible gift God gave to the world over two thousand years ago!

In the End, no matter how dark the Night gets, no matter how much Evil takes over our world - God is in Control and the Best is Yet to Come!

So Merry Christmas and God Bless Us, Everyone!