It's Christmas time once again!!!

The gang has been very busy rushing around decorating the house, planning what they wanted for their Christmas dinner, and writing their letters to Santa.  At their visit to the mall last week they all stood nervously in line to get their chance to see him and give him each letter.  Jeffy was particularly excited, and maybe a little scared and confused ... this would be his very first Christmas ever!

On Christmas Eve Luigi went out to the store for some last minute ingredients, then once he got back home it was time to start baking.  He and Ned had done some consulting with each other and had mutually decided to go with a pumpkin theme.  Luigi made a marbled pumpkin cheesecake and for his Santa treat Ned made his super-dee-duper chocolate chip pumpkin cookies.

Ned had been working all week on a special project and was finally ready to reveal it.  The chocolate chips he put in the special cookies for Santa were actually his new creation: EverMelts!  These new chocolate chips stay gooey and soft even once the cookies are cooled ... for days!!!

As he took the first batch out of the oven and was placing the cookies on racks to cool, he was suddenly aware of some activity behind him.  The rest of the gang were lining up with a glass of milk in hand to offer themselves as quality control taste testers.  Of course he had made plenty of cookies so they each got one, all giving a thumbs up approval.  As they ate their milk and cookies they watched their favorite Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" before going to bed.  Ed and Ted insisted they weren't tired enough to sleep yet, but their milk had been warmed a little with some cinnamon in it to help them along.

Before he headed for bed Ned set out a plate of pumpkin cookies with a glass of milk for Santa.  When they got up in the morning, Ned went straight to the table to see if the snack had been eaten. The cookies were gone except for a few crumbs and the milk had been drank ... and beside the plate was a note:

The gang all gathered together to see what Santa had brought them.  They hadn't talked among themselves about their letters so nobody knew what each other had asked for.  Emilio handed out each gift and they said "One, two, three, OPEN!" and all opened their present at the same time.   It turned out they had almost all asked for the same thing -- Christmas sweaters!!!
Emilio's sweater was blue with a big yellow smiley face on it, because he's such a friendly guy.
Alphonso's sweater, of course, was white with a hood.  Pierre's was the same but with pockets for his lab notes and keys.

Ed & Ted aren't really the sweater types, so instead they had asked for a Batman suit for each of them.  They put them on and ran around the house all day saying in growly voices "I'm Batman!" until their froats got sore.  Then they went to Ned saying "Our froats are sore!", to which Ned replied, "If you stop talking in growly voices, your froats won't get sore!".  But they kept doing it anyhow because it was too much fun to stop.

Fred's sweater was green and blue with a blue rink logo on the front... he also got matching earmuffs.

Jed still loves to wear his denim overalls and the best sweater to go with them was a red and blue plaid one

Ned got a grey cardigan with lots of pockets for his notebooks and pencils

Lola put her sweater on quickly and twirled around the room to show everyone ... bright pink and light pink and neon pink with sparkles and spangley things all over!
Freddy's sweater was specially designed in Santa's workshop to blend in with whatever color he happened to be at the time, since he is a chameleon after all!

Chico and Jorge like to be appropriately festive for every holiday, so Chico's was green with a reindeer on the front with a bright red nose.  Jorge's was red with a Christmas tree on it, complete with sparkly tinsel and balls.

Raoul isn't fond of clothes period, and very much anti-sweater, but he does like hats so instead he got a knit hat complete with sleeves for his ears to stay warm in.
Being a cat, Guerrero loves to be snug and warm, so his sweater was a full body deal with feet and a hood and buttons up the front of his belly (a zipper would get caught in the fluff - me-owch!).  His fluffy orange cheeks, paws and tail puffed out around the edges and looked a little silly, but he was very happy with it and nobody dared say a word.

Gustave already had a shell cozy that he'd gotten a couple of years ago, and it was still in great shape, so he didn't really need anything this year.  Santa instead brought him a basket of teas to try out ... he quite liked the licorice one.

Jeffy got a blue and green striped sweater to wear to canucks games so people don't think he's a boston bee.  Ricky is already very fluffy and warm and has a phobia of crawling into tight spaces (fear of The Change) so instead he got 400 pairs of teeny tiny socks with grippies on the bottoms.

Up-yours had been admiring Gustave's shell cozy so he had asked for one for himself this year ... green of course, and waterproof.

Owls don't do sweaters so that was out of the question for Al, so Santa brought him some night vision goggles.

Luigi wanted a sweater-vest so he wouldn't have to push up his sleeves while cooking.  Julio just wanted something red to match his ballcap, so his is just red.  Very red.

They all wore their sweaters all day until it was time for the Christmas feast.  Then they took them off so they wouldn't get dirty on their first day.  For the feast Luigi had prepared a turkeybird, roasted taters & zucchini, smashed yams, coleslaw, rice, gravy, yorkshire puddings, and cranberry sauce shaped exactly like a can.  They ate until they couldn't eat anymore, then all laid around with full bellies and watched Christmas shows on tv until they fell asleep after another busy and happy Christmas.

to bee or not to bee ......

The other day the gang was out for a walk.  It had been raining for days and finally the sun had come out so they were happy to finally be outside again.  They walked all through the neighborhood, visited all their favorite spots, then made their way home.  They were almost to the door when Ed and Ted saw something on the sidewalk.  They ran up to it and called everyone over to see.  They all gathered around in a circle and looked down at a fat little black and yellow bumblebee lying there on the ground.  The bee gazed up at all the faces around him and started to shake, he was very scared.  He wanted to fly away but couldn't, his wings wouldn't carry him.  

Ed and Ted couldn't just leave him there, so they got a big leaf and gently laid him on it, then carried it between them into the house.  Once they got inside Ned took a look at the little bee to see what was going on that his wings wouldn't work.  He stroked the bee's fuzzy little head to calm him down and told him not to worry, they would take care of him.  Ned got a bit of sugar from the kitchen and fed it to the bee, then the little guy fell asleep.  

Ed and Ted were very worried that their new friend was sick and desperately wanted him to feel better.  Ned told them that for now he just needed rest.  The twins found a little box and put some cotton in it, then they put the little bee there to sleep, nice and comfy.  The bee slept for 2 days.  Ned checked on him regularly and saw that one of the bee's wings was very swollen.  He ran some tests on him and found that the wing was sprained.  He assured the others that the little bee was just plain tired out and needed to sleep in order to heal.  Just to make it clear to everyone, Ed and Ted got a black marker and wrote on the side of the box : Bed, not dead. 

While he was sleeping Ed and Ted had decided to call him Jeffy, since they didn't know his name and they thought he looked like a Jeffy.  They watched him closely the whole time he slept, just in case he woke up and got scared.  Finally, he rolled over.  One of his wings wiggled a bit and made a tiny bzzzzz sound, but the other wing stayed still.  He hopped out of his bed and walked around a bit, but with his sore wing dragging on the floor he just walked around in circles.  Ed and Ted ran for the others yelling, "He's awake!  He's walking around!  He's awake!"

Everyone was very excited  to see the little bee up and walking, even if it was just in circles.  They all wanted him to come see each of them, but when they called him "Jeffy" he had no idea who they were talking to.  Finally Ned came out of his lab to see what the big commotion was.  First he shooed the others away to give him some time and space to check things out, so they all went to have their breakfast.  

He was very pleased to see the little bee up and around.  He pulled a string out of his lab coat and ran it under the bee's belly, up over his wings and tied it there.  He sat down in front of the little bee and told him that his wing was hurt and he needed to let it heal, so he'd have to not try to fly for a few days.  The bee looked up at Ned, this serious looking hedgehog with his little round glasses who had taken such good care of him, and said in a high squeaky voice, "okay!  And who's Jeffy?"

 

When Ed and Ted heard that Jeffy could talk they rushed over to him.  They told him, "We didn't know your name, and we couldn't just call you "bee", and you look like a Jeffy.  What's your real name?"

The little bee thought about that for a minute, then told them "My name was Buzzy, but I like Jeffy better, please you can call me Jeffy!  Buzzy makes things so confusing!  My daddy's name is Buzzy, my mommy's name is Buzzy, my sister's name is Buzzy, my brother's name is Buzzy, my grandma's name is Buzzy, my grandpa's name is Buzzy, my other brother's name is Buzzy, my cousin's name is Buzzy, my auntie's name is Buzzy ....."  He went on and on and on with his list of Buzzy relatives for a long time.  "But please you can call me Jeffy!  A name all my own!"

Emilio, being the friendly guy that he is, knows a lot of guys in a lot of places and thought he'd see if maybe he could track down Jeffy's family.  But it turned out that Jeffy was very, very far from home.  He had ridden on the windshield of a bus for many, many streets in many, many directions before he finally fell off on TOMH&R's sidewalk.  Jeffy was very sad as he explained it to him, so Emilio told him that he was part of their family now and forever.  That cheered Jeffy up some.

Jeffy walked around a while longer until he got tired again and went back to his little bed.  He hadn't had anything to eat except the bit of sugar Ned had given him so he was starting to feel a little hungry.  The others were just finishing their breakfast so Ricky brought him a mini-wheat from the kitchen.  Jeffy licked the frosting off of it, then went back to sleep.  He napped off and on all day, nibbling on the mini-wheat every time he woke up.  By the next day he was feeling considerably better.  He woke up with the rest of the gang and gobbled another whole miniwheat right away.  At the end of the day Ned took the string off that was holding his wings down and told him he could give it a little try if he felt like it.  Jeffy did a little hop ...walked a bit ... another little hop ... walked a bit ... another little hop, fluttered his wings - bzzzzz - and wobbly flew halfway across the room!  Everyone clapped and cheered.  Ed and Ted were ready with another mini-wheat when he landed, they figured he'd be hungry after all that work and he sure was.  He gobbled it up faster than the first! 

So there we have it ... another friend for TOMH&R.  Ricky is getting quite close to Jeffy, he likes not being the smallest anymore.  Jeffy is still taking it easy and not flying too much but he will get stronger every day.  Jed and Luigi worked on a cake all day to celebrate -- chocolate cake with chocolate frosting!