This fic is done! It's finally done!

I have been bringing this out to work on it every Christmas since 2012, and it just seems that it never got done. After so many years, my old writing was really beginning to show its age, so this year I opted to just rewrite the damn thing entirely and add in some new ideas here and there to make it longer and flow better. I fear some of this might still show some of my old writing, but in the end, I like the final result better than the bits and pieces I salvaged from my many attempts to write it in the previous years anyway.

Anyway, please enjoy this silly little Christmas fic that I initially came up with four years ago while planning a Christmas party!

In space it was easy to lose track of the days. Even galactic standard time was a little hard to keep up with, let alone the days on one's home planet or colony. One could barely even tell if it was supposed to be day or night and most just figured the morning started whenever they happened to wake up. It was reasonable that Shepard was more than a little surprised when his emails contained a few more Christmas greetings than he was used to.

"EDI, what day is it on Earth?" he asked.

"Specify," she replied.

"Uh...Alberta. What day is it in Alberta, Canada?" he specified.

"It is December 3rd, Shepard," she answered.

"December? Already? I didn't even know Halloween had passed!"

He set a filter to have all Christmas greetings delivered to a particular folder so that they wouldn't interfere with any more important ones and watched as it almost halved his inbox. As he checked through the messages, he noticed one from one of the crew members.

Commander,

I wasn't sure if you had any plans for Christmas, but a few of us were wondering if maybe we could have a small party? It doesn't have to be anything major, just maybe one day where we can all take a break and relax.

Shepard barely noticed the noisy sound of his hamster chewing up the corner of a datapad on the desk next to him as he was too lost in thought to notice anything else around him. "EDI, put a memo out. Our party is from the 24th to the 25th."

"You need two days for a party, Commander?" EDI inquired.

"One for the party, one so everyone can play with their gifts."

"I will get the word out right away, Commander."

Shepard had always tried to accommodate all of the major holidays both human and alien that his crew members normally took part in. Liara had once requested a celebration for some asari harvest festival that Shepard had later found out was similar to Thanksgiving and he allowed Tali to put up a decoration honoring an important anniversary to the quarian people. The easiest holidays to sit through turned out to be Garrus' turian holidays, which mostly seemed to be celebrated by way of getting drunk and shooting things. He even suffered through Grunt's "Punch A Krantt In the Quad Day" celebration, which apparently was a real krogan holiday, as he found out through research conducted later that day from the medical ward. Since he hadn't quite ruled out the possibility of ever having kids in the future, he made sure to keep a list of all known krogan holidays in hopes of never being caught unaware again.

As Christmas grew nearer, all the human members of the crew that celebrated began to grow jittery and excited in anticipation of their time off while those that didn't celebrate were just as happy to get time off as their friends who did. Some of the non-human crew members began to grow curious about this holiday. Maybe some of them had heard about it, but they never actually saw it celebrated. Garrus and Tali were already quite familiar with the holiday, having served with Shepard before through the Earth month of December (and also because Garrus had seen the Citadel shopping rush before when he was still C-Sec), and Mordin had once studied it as a fascinating part of human culture in his youth, but many were thoroughly new to the concept.

"Does your home planet have any other winter traditions besides this Christmas?" Thane was overheard asking.

"Of course it does," a crew member replied. "Every time there's a slight chance for snow, it's ceremonial for everyone to go on a pilgrimage to the grocery stores to buy up all of the milk and bread so that when the first flurries come down, you can celebrate with the traditional feast of soggy, milk-soaked bread."

Grunt turned his head away from Thane and the crew member. "What is this 'Christmas' holiday everyone keep talking about?"

Both Kasumi and Miranda were both on the chatty side about this Christmas holiday, so he figured they were a good place to start asking questions about it. Both of them seemed to express surprise that he didn't already know about the holiday until it occurred to them that not only was Grunt not human, but he was also technically barely a few months old and had yet to learn some things.

"It's an Earth holiday," Kasumi started with the obvious. "It's often celebrated by overplaying the same ten songs that are covered over and over again by different artists, the regifting of the same stale fruit cake until it finally deteriorates about a hundred or so years after it was first baked, and relatives that you don't even like showing up at your house unannounced, expecting that you feed them and give them presents."

"And you decorate a tree with lights and ornaments," Miranda added.

"And give tacky sweaters to your friends and family as gifts!" Kasumi added. She held up a pair of knitting needles tangled up in some burgundy colored yarn. "I've been working on mine since March!"

Of all the things that they mentioned about Christmas, of course there would be only one thing that Grunt latched onto. "Gifts?" he asked. "Like what kind of gifts? Besides sweaters and this cake made of fruit of which you speak?"

"Like any kind you want," Kasumi replied. "Some people gift food or clothes or toys..."

Jack came out of nowhere and hopped up onto Grunt's back. The krogan didn't even flinch from the invasion of personal space. Jack must jump up on him all the time without warning. "I'm giving everybody a sock," she butted in.

"You're giving everybody socks?" Miranda asked.

"No, not socks as in plural. A sock, as in one. Then when everybody's birthday rolls around, they get another sock so they'll have a full pair." She patted Grunt's hump affectionately and climbed back down, grabbing several shopping bags that she had set on the floor and carrying them towards the elevator so she could head back to her isolated dwelling in the cargo hold. They noticed that the bags were full of mismatched socks from an Omega thrift shop. "I'll see you when you come back down, Turtle!" Jack said to Grunt, calling him by her affectionate nickname for him.

"Oh my god, I don't think she's kidding about the sock thing," Miranda stated.

"I hope she at least has enough socks for the entire crew to get one. It would be a shame if someone woke up disappointed on Christmas morning to find out that they were the only one who didn't get a sock," Kasumi joked. An idea suddenly occurred to her. Miranda noticed that something was up immediately when she noticed the sudden excitement on her face. "I know! Why don't we get everyone together and do a Secret Santa thing? That way everyone on the crew will get at least one gift on Christmas morning!"

"You want us to do a Secret Santa sock exchange?" Miranda asked.

"No, not socks!" Kasumi shook her head. "I mean...well..." She looked at Miranda. "Come on, let's go to your office and we'll iron out the details and tell everyone afterwards."

Samara noticed the huge line leading from Miranda's room. She'd told everyone they could stop by all day to draw a name from the "Secret Santa jar", not anticipating that they'd all show up at once to get there before all the "good names" got drawn. What they defined as a good name versus a bad one she had no idea and was sure was mildly offensive to someone who would be considered a "bad name".

"I take it that this 'Christmas' is a well beloved holiday on Earth," Samara observed. She hadn't signed up for the program since she didn't see any value in material possessions and thus considered the entire gesture pointless, but it was nice that the humans could get something meaningful out of it.

"Yeah, totally! I look forward to it every year!" Joker replied. "I've been secretly installing a reindeer-seeking laser cannon onto the Normandy's landing gear since last October so I can shoot Santa down from the sky and take all his loot this year!"

"Why do I get the frightening impression that you're not joking?" Shepard asked.

"Wanna see the blueprints? I drew them when I was like, nine!"

"You're next," Shepard pointed out as Garrus and Tali walked out side by side.

"So who did you get?" Tali asked.

Garrus glimpsed at the slip of paper in his hand. The name "Tali'Zorah" was written neatly in purple ink in her handwriting. He quickly crumpled it up before she could see the name he'd drawn. "Shepard," he replied, using the first name off the top of his head that he could think of.

"Lucky. I got Grunt. I have no idea what to get him," she replied. "He likes food. Maybe I'll just order him a crate of varren jerky in assorted flavors."

Joker chose a name and looked at it in disgust. "Zaeed? What the hell am I supposed to get him? The only thing that I know about him is that he's scary!"

Kenneth walked out of the room with a smile on his face after having drawn Gabby. "If she asks, I'm telling her I drew you," he whispered to Shepard on the way past.

If the excuse names people gave after drawing their friends was anything to go by, apparently Shepard's name was in the jar at least 27 times. At least it made it more confusing to figure out who really had drawn Shepard's name.

Once everyone else got their scrap, Miranda had the last name in the jar. She groaned when she read who it was. Of all the names in the jar, this one had to be the leftover, and she suddenly realized what defined a "bad name". "I got Jack," she informed Kasumi. "I didn't even know that she entered until I saw her picking a name."

"Oh yeah," Kasumi nodded. "Tali didn't want her to feel left out, so she went down into the cargo area and asked her if she wanted to be entered. Apparently she was pretty enthusiastic about the idea." Of course. Jack apparently liked Tali for some odd reason that no one could fathom, so of course Tali would be nice to her in return.

Miranda imagined that Jack wouldn't be enthusiastic for long when she inevitably learned who was getting her a present. What was she supposed to get her? The two couldn't even stand each other! "Well if she's in the the exchange, I shudder to think what she's getting for whoever she drew. They're probably getting a really big sock," Miranda said sarcastically. She doubted that Jack would really put much worthwhile thought into her gift. "Maybe I should get her a decent shirt and some therapy?"

Kasumi looked at Miranda with concern. An idea popped in her head. "Oh, I know! I'm going Christmas shopping! Why don't you come with me and I'll help you find something!" she suggested.

"Well, that can't hurt I guess," Miranda shrugged. Kasumi spied on everyone in the crew anyway. If anyone knew the kinds of things that Jack was secretly into, it would be Kasumi. She just hoped that she wanted to know what kind of things Jack was secretly into.

"You know what, screw it. I'll just get him a framed holo of a sloth," Joker said as he walked away.

I hope you guys like this fic because I'm certainly iffy about it. :P