It was a snowy white Christmas Eve in Dutch Harbor at the house of Alioth the Fox. He'd invited all of his friends over for a Christmas party, and it was already in full swing as the snow began to pick up, and everyone had arrived except for one latecomer: Trev (-trev-). The ferret finally arrived and was met with excitement by the cubs as he came in through the door, out of breath, snow on his shoulders, and parcels under his arms. Rushing to give him a hug was Danny (nh63879). Crunch (poochyena) was, of course, happy to see him as well, but the mischievous pooch couldn't resist a snooping glance in the bag to see if there might perhaps be a toy for him or some such.

"Hey," Rick (ricktheotter) greeted from the kitchen where he was preparing some food for the hungry crowd - the otter's cooking skills were noteworthy, to say the least. "Looks like you've got your hands full there."

"I'll manage," Trev answered with a smile, then eyed the otter's attire, stifling a chuckle and adding, "Heh. Nice sweater." Rick just smiled cordially in response and went back to his cooking. In the living room, everyone else gathered. Flecky (mystery-flecky) sat in the corner by the entryway and sipped his cocoa, just watching everyone and enjoying the company.

The main event was, of course, the decorating of the tree. It wasn't quite done yet; Furlock (furlock) was still in the process of making a garland from popcorn and cranberries – which Torn (tornpup) was eyeing hungrily while licking his lips. Zelia (sorceressrose) was getting into mischief, too – eating the popcorn for the garland out of the bowl. Arix (draco-silverflame) eyed her while relaxing against the corner wall, arms crossed, but he said nothing and even smiled at her innocent bit of mischief. Next to him stood Damien (damienvulpes), but he was more interested in watching the trimming of the tree than the making of the garland.

On the couch sat Grim (thedamagedkey), with a baby EoK (sitharc) in her lap, reading him a story out of an old book. Sath (satheroth335) and Shin (shiniori319) made themselves comfortable on the floor nearby, listening intently to the story being read by Alioth’s gentle, loving mate.

But all of the adults took on the job of keeping an eye on the cubs, including Syrus (syruswolfos). He sat in the comfy chair near the couch with Zylo (scld15) and Nova (eelee) sitting in his lap. Of course, the warm fire and the cozy glow of the nearby lamp quickly had all three dozing off to sleep, even with all the busy goings on around them. Meanwhile, Jim (jimox1985), always one to get into mischief, chased Flame (deaththebabyhumancat) around the room trying to stick a pre-made bow, meant to adorn the packages under the tree, onto his quarry.
All of the excitement caused poor Sierra (babykitty-sierra) to lose her grip on the fragile ornament she held, and she dropped it on the floor, the soft carpet not quite enough to keep it from shattering. She was shocked and upset, but Arrc (arrc-kun), being the sweet jackal that he was, was certain to scoop her up and console her as soon as he was finished stirring the fire to keep it nice and warm.

Digitz (digitz) had a slightly better grip on his ornament, and he proceeded to the fir tree to hang it on a low branch, enjoying the cozy scent of the tree and the fire. And topping the tree, Alioth held up his pup, Kammie (kameronspottyfox). “Reach for it, pup! You can do it!” he said with a smile.

“I’ve almost got it, Dada!” the pup answered excitedly as he put the crowning star on the top of the tree.

Alioth knew he’d have to find space for everyone tonight – the weather was deteriorating rapidly, and it was looking like they’d be snowed in. But for now, he just smiled, happy that so many of his friends were gathered around him for the holiday and taking part in the joy with him.

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Whew! So I finally got this done, and just in time for the Christmas holiday. With the FA outage, and my tablet breaking, and my program crashing on me, and my LiveStream constantly dying on me - it seemed like I would never get this done! But I finally did it. My apologies to everyone who was hoping to see me stream the completion of this, but I got very busy over the last couple of days, and I was afraid that if I kept waiting for just the right opportunity, Christmas would come and go without me being able to finish it.

So here it is! I hope you like this drawing and the little story that goes along with it ^^

Merry Christmas to all!

(If the image compression just looks... bad, then try pressing F5 to refresh the page. If it doesn't load, the full resolution image can be found here. Also, sorry some of the links are broken, but it seems FA will only do so much parsing on a page before saying "nope". *grumble*)