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.