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Zane looked over his list carefully, making sure he had completed everything. It was Christmas Eve, and he needed to make sure everything was in order. Once he was sure, he laid down to go to sleep. He was on the verge of sweet darkness when he was awoken by a huge crash from the living room.
He rushed to the living room, followed closely by Lloyd. The sight that greeted them made Lloyd stare in shock and Zane drop his head into his hands in despair.
Kai stood in the center of the chaos, surrounded by downed Christmas decorations. Even the tree was on the floor, surrounded by the shattered remains of many ornaments. He looked up at Lloyd and Zane and grinned sheepishly. “Oops?”
“Oops?” Zane rushed forward to see the extent of the chaos, then turned to Kai. “Kai- how- what happened?”
Lloyd just stared in amazement. “Even the tree- yeah, what did you do?”
“Yes, Kai. What did you do?” The three ninja turned to see Sensei Wu standing in the entryway, surveying the damage.
“I might have…knocked over the decorations. And the tree. And…everything else.” He shifted nervously. “Sorry.”
“How?” Lloyd laughed in disbelief as he kicked a broken piece of ornament. “You are such an idiot.”
“I was hungry, so I came in here to get food, and I tripped on a cord, and everything fell down,” Kai explained, shooting a glare at Lloyd. “I’m sorry, Zane, I know you worked really hard to decorate.”
“It’s alright,” Zane sighed. “We can clean the living room. Kai, are you okay?”
He held up his arms and inspected them, looking for any injuries. He looked at his legs, too, and once he was satisfied that he had emerged from the incident unscathed, he nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. I’ll help you clean up.”
Once Wu was satisfied that none of his pupils were in immediate danger, he left the room silently, leaving the ninja to clean up the mess. Kai escaped from the center of the chaos, being careful to step lightly so he wouldn’t step on any pieces of glass. Once he reached the kitchen, he grabbed a broom and dustpan and began gathering the shards into one pile. Lloyd and Zane helped, Lloyd taking turns with the broom and Zane just grabbing the glass with his hands.
Once all the glass was cleaned up, Kai and Zane focused on getting the tree back up, while Lloyd tackled the other decorations. Stockings, lights, and garlands littered the floor, as well as more ornaments that had miraculously survived the fall.
“Good going, Kai,” Lloyd grumbled teasingly, picking up yet another ornament. Kai punched him in the arm in response, eliciting a shove from his baby brother. It almost turned into a full-blown scuffle until Zane stepped in between them, returning them to the task at hand.
With Zane and Kai working together, they returned the tree to its upright position, and began putting the remaining decorations back on it. Their only hiccup came in the form of Cole, who came to the kitchen for a midnight snack and just stood in the entryway for a moment, dumbfounded at the sight before him. Eventually, he just went to the kitchen and started eating, although Lloyd was pretty sure he caught him muttering something about not asking.
“Kai knocked over all the decorations,” Lloyd said, shooting a pointed look at his brother. “Somehow.”
“Lloyd, I swear to the First Spinjitzu Master, if you don’t shut up I’m going to murder you in your sleep.”
“Well, I-”
“Guys!” Zane burst out, dropping the garland he was holding. “I am aware that you are physically incapable of not bickering with each other, but can you please focus so we can go to bed?”
“Yeah,” the brothers muttered, grudgingly going back to their cleanup. Finally, after around fifteen more minutes, the living room was restored, if not back to its former glory, at least to be presentable.
“Finally,” Kai groaned, stretching hugely. “I’m going to bed. Merry Christmas, see you in the morning.”
“Try not to destroy any of the other rooms,” Lloyd teased, following Kai down the hallway. The red ninja elbowed him in the ribs in response.
“Goodnight,” Kai called as he went into his room.
“Goodnight. Merry Christmas,” Zane replied.
“Goodnight!” Lloyd said cheerfully. “Maybe the decorations will still be intact in the morning.”
--
“Hey, Jay, wake up! You’re the only one still asleep, and we wanna actually do stuff!”
Jay blinked the sleep from his eyes, squinting at his best friend’s blurry face above him. “Wha- what time is it?”
“That doesn’t matter, doofus! It’s Christmas!” Cole exclaimed, grabbing Jay’s arm and trying to pull him out of bed. “Come on!”
“Dude, chill! We told you to wake him up, not yank his arm off!” Kai said from the doorway, having come to check on Jay. Lloyd was behind him, trying to stifle his laughter.
“Sorry,” Cole muttered before poking Jay in the head. “Jay!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” The lightning ninja slid out of bed, following the others to the living room. He was welcomed in by a cheerful Zane, mixing a bowl of cookie dough.
“Merry Christmas, Jay,” the nindroid greeted. “I am glad to see you are finally awake so we can begin the festivities.”
“Finally? How late did I sleep?” Jay asked incredulously.
“It is 9:07 A.M.”
“See, I think you guys are just all insane and wake up so early to annoy me-”
Nya put a hand on Jay’s shoulder to stop him before he got started on one of his infamous rants. The lightning ninja was famous for being able to talk for hours, and the others did not want to be his captive audience, especially when there was Christmas to be celebrated.
“Can I help with cookies?” Cole asked hopefully, once he was sure Jay wasn’t going to explode into one of his rants.
Zane hesitated, knowing full well Cole’s track record with cooking. Kai was making a cut it gesture at him and Lloyd was shaking his head, neither of them wanting to be subjected to Cole’s cooking. The earth ninja looked at Zane with his famous puppy-dog eyes, and the nindroid relented. “Fine.”
“Yes!” he cheered, nearly running into the kitchen. “What do I do?”
“Crack an egg into the bowl. Carefully,” Zane instructed. “You cannot just crush it in your fist.”
“Aw, why?” Cole whined, holding the egg over the bowl. “It’s so much easier.”
“You’ll get eggshell in the batter.”
“I like my cookies crunchy!”
“Gross!” Kai remarked from the couch. Lloyd chuckled as Cole shot him a glare.
“Anyway,” Cole turned his attention back to the cookie dough. “What next?”
“Add one teaspoon of vanilla extract.” Zane handed the earth ninja the measuring spoon. “With the measuring spoon.”
“Aw, I can just eyeball it.” Cole tipped the bottle, preparing to pour the vanilla into the bowl, when Zane thrust the spoon into his hand. “C’mon!”
“Measuring spoon. Now. Or else you’re banned from the kitchen.”
“You should’ve done that ages ago!” This time it was Jay calling from the living room to critique his best friend’s cooking. The other ninja cracked up, and even Zane had to stifle his laughter.
“Sorry, Cole, but he’s right,” Nya chuckled. “Your food is…inedible most of the time.”
Cole scoffed, but surprisingly, he managed to finish mixing the dough without any major mishaps, although he did accidentally drop an egg on the floor. Once he finished, Zane got out a cookie sheet and gave Cole a spoon to put the dough onto it.
“Can you handle this by yourself?” Zane asked, hesitant to leave the earth ninja by himself with the food.
“Of course!” he replied confidently. At least semi-confident that Cole couldn’t mess the cookies up too badly, Zane joined the other ninja in the living room to begin opening presents. He passed out his gifts to all the others and set Cole’s aside. The distribution of gifts continued until all of them were passed out and Kai was nearly vibrating with excitement, and then they began to open them.
They opened gifts and exchanged thank yous and hugs until Nya smelled something strange, something suspiciously like smoke. “Hey, does anyone else smell that?”
Cole was the likely culprit, and so Zane rushed to the kitchen to check on him. He stood in front of the oven, pulling the tray of cookies out and coughing as he waved the smoke away. The “cookies” resembled charred hockey pucks, and their acrid smoke permeated every inch of the room.
“I left you alone for fifteen minutes! How did this happen? Why did you turn the oven up so high?” Zane knew he was speaking faster and faster, but he couldn’t fathom how Cole had managed to ruin his beautiful batch of cookies so fast.
“I thought they would cook faster!” Cole tried to defend himself as the other ninja laughed. “I didn’t know they would burn so fast!”
Zane massaged his temples. He could make another batch of cookies easily, but this time he wouldn’t be letting Cole anywhere near them. “You are banned from the kitchen.”
“What?”
“You almost set the Bounty on fire!” Lloyd chimed in.
“Not on purpose!”