Happy holidays!

Nico checked his obsidian watch, a gift from Hades. "I've got to go, guys," He stood. "This was a lot of fun, though."

Everyone protested but Nico insisted. "See you, man," Jason said, patting him on the back.

"I have to go, too," Thalia surprised everyone by getting up as well. "Artemis is expecting me back at midnight."

They all called out their goodbyes, and Percy and Leo exchanged looks. "Behave yourselves, kids," Leo said loudly. "No funny business," Percy added.

Thalia and Nico slapped each of them on the head before they left. "Morons," Thalia muttered before closing the door.

Hazel reached over to flip the page of the album. "Oh," She smiled. "More Christmas pictures!"

Piper touched the first picture, a smile on her face. She leaned over to kiss Jason on the cheek. It had been a wonderful, quiet Christmas Eve. The seven of them had camped out all night in Percy's cabin.

Piper was curled up next to Jason at the foot of Percy's bed, his arm around her shoulders. Hazel and Frank were sitting next to him, and Leo was lying on the floor before them. Percy and Annabeth were on the bed, much to the blushing of Hazel and amusement of Leo. Percy had offered it to Hazel and Frank, but they didn't even meet him in the eyes.

All of them were wrapped in blankets and clutching a mug of hot chocolate. Sitting close to Piper, Jason smelled like peppermint. "Merry Christmas," He told her, softly kissing her.

"This is an awesome Christmas," Leo said, sipping his hot chocolate.

"Probably the best," Percy tugged at one of Annabeth's curls before kissing her on the cheek.

Leo had put the camera on Percy's bookshelf (which was, unsurprisingly, dusty and empty) and it had snapped a picture at that moment. It was bathed in a warm glow of light, and everyone looked relaxed and happy.

Percy suddenly laughed. "Nice moustache, Leo."

Everyone peered closer to the photo and cracked up. Yep, Leo definitely had a moustache. A whipped cream moustache.

Frank grinned. "The funny thing is that you actually don't even have any facial hair."

Leo stroked his bare face. "It's coming, Zhang, wait for it!"

"Oh my gods," Annabeth pointed at the next picture, laughing. "This snowball fight turned into a full-blown war."

"This was so much fun!" Hazel said happily. "I'd never been in a snowball fight before."

It all started with one demigod and one snowball.

Percy, decked out in a winter jacket and a blue beanie with matching mitts, motioned to Piper not to move. He was standing a few metres behind Annabeth, who had her back turned.

Then the son of Poseidon sent a snowball flying straight into the back of Annabeth's head.

"What the-?" Piper and Jason laughed as Annabeth whirled around, eyes flashing. "Percy Jackson!" Percy ran off, laughing.

Annabeth seized a handful of snow and launched it towards her boyfriend. Percy ducked, and it hit the person standing behind him.

Travis Stoll whipped around and caught sight of Annabeth. "Oh, it's on."

Within minutes, alliances were formed between cabins. Chiron decided to cancel chores and war games that day…snowball fights were pretty good training, it turned out.

Chiron had snapped the picture atop the Big Hill while refereeing (yes, it was that big of a snowball fight). There were campers hiding behind cabins, standing on roofs, and building forts. And because it was Camp Half-Blood, well, obviously there were some weird things going on.

"Look at you, Leo!" Jason laughed. Leo had built a snowball machine within seconds and was launching them at top speed and precision. On top of that, he was melting every snowball that came his way with fistfuls of fire.

"Not bad, right?" Leo grinned. "Gotta say, though," He patted Frank. "Frank here was the best."

Piper held onto Jason as he soared about the snowball fight, helping him throw snowballs. She saw Leo burning up snowballs, the Apollo kids actually sticking snowballs to the end of their arrows and shooting them, and the Ares kids jumping into forts and wreaking havoc. She grinned as some Aphrodite kids screamed as their makeup was ruined by snowballs to the face.

She felt Jason laugh. "Look at Percy and Annabeth!"

A little ways off from the fight, Percy was lying in the snow, making snow angels. Annabeth was unsuccessfully trying to get him to move. "Come on, you idiot," Piper heard her say exasperatedly. "People are going to bury us in snow!"

"But I wanna make a snowman next!"

Piper laughed. "Classic." Then she pointed. "Hey, Hazel! Frank!"

Hazel waved, her face shining. She was riding a huge polar bear…Frank, of course. Hazel screamed with laughter as Frank rolled her gently off his back and she was buried with snow. Frank sprinted around, friendlily bumping campers with his big black nose and giving them a ride. Leo jumped on and rode him like a cavalry horse until Frank bucked him off.

The picture captured all those little moments; Piper felt like she could look at it forever and still find some crazy detail she'd missed, like Travis and Connor filling Clarisse's hat with snow and shoving it on her head (before running for their lives).

The fight wound down after sunset, and then everyone had gone to change into warm, dry clothes before dinner.

"Man, I hadn't had so much fun in ages," Percy said happily.

"Me neither," Jason agreed. "Although that snowball Leo hit me with in the face sucked." He punched Leo. "My glasses got all wet and I couldn't see anything."

Piper laughed. They'd crashed into a tree and fallen into a deep bank of snow. When she'd found herself lying on Jason's chest, his smiling face an inch from hers…she was pretty glad Leo had thrown that snowball, after all.