A/N: Question: What's more cheerful than Christmas music?
Answer: Almost nothing!
So what's a grumpy old coot of a Ranger (Halt: I heard that!) going to do about his apprentice's Christmas cheer?

Disclaimer: Let's see...*flips through cards, discarding onto the floor as she goes* Wasn't born yet...wasn't born yet...wasn't born yet...don't think I was born yet...and...nope, pretty sure I wasn't born yet. So for all the songs mentioned and/or referenced here, I'm pretty sure I wasn't even born when they were written, so how can I possibly lay claim to them? As for the Ranger's Apprentice series, well...I think I was born when the first book came out (cause it can't be that old...O.o), but I don't own the series. Kaykay? 8D

Halt awoke one morning startled to find two wide brown eyes staring down at him above a disturbingly large grin.

"Will!" he snapped, his disconcertedness making him sharper than usual. "What are you doing?"

The grin – for it did indeed belong to his young apprentice – widened, if that was possible. "Guess what day it is?" Will said in a sing-song tone of voice.

Halt scowled. "The day you die a slow and painful death?" he half-snarled. "And get out of my face!"

The boy moved back approximately two inches. "It's the winter solstice!" he all but squealed. "You know what that means!"

Halt stared at Will, blank-faced. "I do?"

Will's eyes, already large, widened further. "Of course you do," he said. "It's three days before Christmas! It's Decorating Day!"

Halt blinked. "It is?" he said, a horrible suspicion beginning to dawn. Surely it couldn't be that time already...no, surely not...

Will drew back in horror – whether real or mock Halt couldn't tell – and gasped. "You don't know Decorating Day?" he exclaimed.

"Of course I do," Halt soothed gruffly, ignoring the oxymoron that made his mother-may-she-rest-in-peace roll over in her grave – loudly. "It's early, featherbrain. No one functions this early."

Will frowned, but seemed slightly mollified. "True..." he said. Then his eyes lit with a thought. "Except you!" he crowed. "You're always up at this time of morning!"

Blast it, Halt thought. The boy was good. "Are you going to let me get dressed?" he grumped to distract Will. "A man can't very well get a tree in his nightclothes."

Will squealed – again – and darted out of the room, singing something about partridges and pear trees at high volume.

Halt suppressed a groan. This was going to be a fun day...not.

After a quick breakfast – Halt insisted on it, Will inhaled it – the Rangers began making their way into the forest, the younger skipping merrily and humming, the older...well, let's just say he was a little less exuberant, and leave it at that.

"Would you stop that infernal noise?" Halt groused. This was the third verse of "Winter Wonderland" he'd had to endure. If Will didn't cease soon, there was the distinct possibility for blood.

To Halt's annoyance, all Will did was say "Sure!" in the same overly chipper tone he had been using all morning – and then begin to all-out sing.

"That's not any better," the older man said darkly.

Will caught the tone and sighed, defeated. He didn't stay down for long, though – his eyes soon lit up and he rushed to a seemingly random tree. "This is perfect!" he exclaimed, jubilant. "This is the perfect Christmas tree!"

Halt raised an eyebrow as he slowly followed his apprentice. "Really?" he drawled. "And what makes this particular tree so perfect, hmm?"

Will frowned, then shrugged carelessly. "I dunno," he said. "But I know it's perfect!" He grinned and stepped back to look at the towering pine.

Halt followed his gaze – the tree was a good twenty meters tall, at least. "And how do you propose we fit it in the cabin?" he said mildly.

Will stopped dead in the process of what appeared to be rubbing his face on the trunk. "Uuh..." he said, drawing the sound out for a good thirty seconds. "I dunno."

"Exactly," Halt said, quashing the not inconsiderable amount of satisfaction and relief he felt. He cast his gaze around and spotted a small sapling, barely two years old, if that. "How about that tree?" he said, pointing.

Will followed his mentor's finger and frowned. "But it's scrawny and scraggly," he said.

"So are you," Halt retorted.

Will stuck his tongue out, but couldn't conceal his grin. "But Christmas trees should be fluffy," he said in a last-ditch effort to denounce Halt's choice of tree. "My tree is nice and fluffy!"

"And a behemoth."

"What's a-"

"Look it up later. Look, you want a tree?"

Will sighed and stepped closer to the sapling, examining it from every angle. He lifted a branch here, pinched a clump of needles there, muttering to himself the whole time. Halt waited, his patience growing ever thinner. Finally, Will looked up at Halt. "It's the perfect tree!" he exclaimed happily.

Halt let out a breath. "Good thing we've got that cleared up," he said with no small amount of sarcasm. "Now-"

"I'll go get the decorations!" Will interrupted, dashing through the snow back to the cabin.

Halt harrumphed. He debated making Will come get the tree, then decided it wasn't worth the effort, given his apprentice's sudden mood. He started toward the tree, then paused, Will's final words sinking in.

What decorations?

Will hummed his way around the cabin, moving various objects around seemingly at random. Halt's chair was scooted an inch to the left – he wouldn't notice, or so Will had convinced himself – the writing desk was moved to the opposite wall, and the seldom-used tea set was tossed unceremoniously in the corner.

He glanced around, hands on hips, and smiled. Perfect. Now for the decorations.

Will dashed into his room and dragged a large box out from under his bed. He had been meticulously gathering the appropriate materials and making these decorations for months now, and his work was about to pay off.

He grinned. Halt was going to be so surprised when he got back with the tree.

Halt, busy dragging the tree through the back door (and cursing it halfway to the Underworld and back), didn't notice a difference at first. Once he got the tree in the cabin, though, he straightened and took a breath. "All right, Will," he said, turning around, "where do you want-" He trailed off as he beheld the transformation his formerly near-spartan abode had undergone.

There was garland everywhere. Red, gold, silver, green, shiny, not-so-shiny – it was everywhere. There were little colored balls of unidentifiable substance, covering the rest of the spectrum. There were green wreaths of what looked like holly and something like pine branches hung regularly on the walls, and the smell...it smelled like a pine forest had crawled in his cabin and died. It was a nice smell, but slightly overpowering in such quantity. Almost nothing was where it should have been – the boy had even moved his chair – and often in their places were boxes with ribbons and bows.

"This..."

At that moment, Will emerged from his bedroom carrying another holly wreath. His face lit up when he saw the tree. "Great, Halt!" he exclaimed. "Um...put it over there-" he pointed to the left front corner of the living room- "would you?"

Halt was still speechless.

It took Will a few seconds to notice this, but once he did he frowned. "What's wrong, Halt?" he said, taking the wreath in his hands down from where he was about to hang it on the wall by means unknown. "Don't you like it?"

Halt blinked. "It's..." He really wasn't sure what it was. "It's certainly colorful," he said at last.

Will seemed satisfied with that. "Yes it is," he said happily. Then, with a glance down at the wreath he was holding, he grinned. And started singing.

"Deck the Halt with boughs of holly..."

"Oh no!" Halt said, holding up his hands to ward off his advancing apprentice. "Oh no you don't! There will be no decking the Halt with anything!"

Falalalalala lala la la!

"'Tis the season to be jolly!" He tried to toss the wreath around Halt's neck, with no success.

"I am jolly! I'm as jolly as Saint Nick himself!"

Falalalalala lala la la!

Will tried again. "Don we now our gay apparel!"

"That's neither gay nor apparel!"

Falala lalala la la la!

"Troll the ancient Yuletide carols!" This time he nearly succeeded.

"No!"

Falalalalala lala la la!

Will grinned. "But I have to deck the Halt with boughs of holly! It's in the song!" He finally succeeded in getting the wreath around Halt's head.

"I'll deck the Will with a bough of holly if he's not careful," Halt growled, grabbing the wreath and brandishing it threateningly.

Will frowned and cocked his head to the side. "Nah," he said, "doesn't have the same ring to it."

Halt snarled and swiped at Will with his wreath, resisting the urge to smile in spite of himself.

Some time later, Halt looked up from tying a bow and asked Will, "Out of curiosity, did you hear people singing the falalalalas of 'Deck the Halls' earlier?"

Will frowned. "No, I don't think so," he said. "Did you?"

"Course not," Halt said gruffly. "That would be silly."

"Very," Will agreed as he returned to making his eggnog.

A/N: Yar...it be short. But it's just a little Christmas fluff piece, you know? Meant more for heartwarming than for length :)

You know, a review would make a nice Christmas present...*hint hint* ;) Even if it's July when you read this, it would make a nice...um...JULYMAS PRESENT! XD

Merry Christmas, everyone! 8D