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The next day, Zane came home from classes to an absolute disaster. The Bounty was an absolute wreck, decorations and Christmas tree needles strewn all over the floor, as well as covering the furniture.
Zane barely set their school bag down before being summoned into the living room by Kai.
“Did you need my help?”
“You’re the only person that can reach the banister… and Sensei wants it wrapped in garland.”
Kai sulked and held out a stream of red and white striped garland. Zane nodded and completed the task for their bored teammate. But as they finished, they noticed everyone else looking bored as well. Jay sorted through ornaments with a disinterested look on his face, Nya opened up various boxes while looking pissed off, and Cole even lacked his usual enthusiasm for the holiday season.
“It’s too quiet.” Lloyd whined.
“Is that the problem?”
Lloyd nodded and flopped onto his back while groaning. Zane sighed and took this cue as a problem to solve. They leafed through various piles of vinyl records and CDs, hoping to find something to fill the silence in the air. After a minute or two, they found something… interesting.
“Vintage Christmas mix? Sensei? What is this?”
“That?”
Wu took the CD from Zane’s hands and looked at the tracks on the back, written with smudged ink on a faded index card.
“Oh, I burned this a long time ago. Back when computers and online music services were just starting to become a thing.”
Zane chuckled.
“You used Limewire?”
“I don’t see how piracy hurts anyone.”
“It could be detrimental to smaller music artists. But streaming services don’t pay enough, either…”
Tossing aside the ethical dilemma, Zane took the CD back and set it in the designated music player.
“Bells will be ringin' the sad, sad news. Oh, what a Christmas to have the blues
My baby's gone, I have no friends, to wish me greetings once again ~”
As the song started up, the mood seemed to pick up. Despite the sad nature of the lyrics, Nya finally stood up from the couch and unboxed the family’s prized Christmas tree. In one fell swoop, she set the tree upright in a corner of the living room. Lloyd looked on in amazement, accidentally retangling the lights he had worked so hard to untangle.
“Woah… How did you do that?”
Nya shrugged.
“This is why you don’t skip out on training.”
Zane swept up the loose pine needles, and Lloyd dumped out the rest of the lights. The ice ninja sat down next to Lloyd and helped him untangle the rest of the lights, which he greatly appreciated.
“These are a nightmare…”
“I know.”
Once the lights were untangled, Lloyd handed a strand to Nya and moved to help her string them up.
“Here.”
The bottom lights were hung up with no issue. But as they got closer to the top of the tree, Nya got an idea. She hoisted Lloyd onto her shoulders, and he strung the top lights up all by himself. With that finally taken care of, the CD played the next song in the cue.
“Hang all the mistletoe. I'm gonna get to know you better, yeah, this Christmas! And as we trim the tree, how much fun it's gonna be together, yeah, this Christmas ~”
“Ah, here they are!”
Wu unearthed a box of curated ornaments: 3 tubes of color coordinated, barely decorated bulbs. The first tube was green and white, the second was red and black, and the last was blue and gold.
“Lloyd! Nya! Here, let’s get these on!”
Wu walked towards the tree with all of the tubes. As he helped Lloyd and Nya get the ornaments on the tree, Zane took this as their opportunity to sneak outside. There, they found the oldest 3 of the team working on outside decorations: Jay plugged in the inflatables, Cole strung lights along the roof, and Kai hung a piece of mistletoe on the front doorframe.
“Are we ever going to get new ones?” Jay griped.
There were only 2 inflatables: A penguin in a winter scarf and hat, and a Santa portrayal in a bright red pick up truck.
“If I find new ones.”
“Oh, can you find that axolotl one?”
“Maybe.”
Zane shook their head and rifled through the rest of the outdoor decorations. Inside, they found a manila envelope filled with metallic letters.
“Ah. Here they are.”
Zane dumped out the envelope to find magnetic letters, enough to spell the phrase “Merry Christmas”. They took the letters and made their way to the side of the ship, right where the signage for “SS Destiny’s Bounty” laid. Above this signage, Zane stuck the magnetic letters.
“...perfect.”
With this task out of the way, Zane made their way back inside. There, some selections from The Nutcracker played, and they spotted Nya dancing with Lloyd right next to the decorated tree.
“Having fun?”
Lloyd laughed, and Nya gave a thumbs-up. With this security, Zane headed into the kitchen to cook dinner for the team. They didn’t want to do anything too difficult, as their energy hadn’t been the most reliable. So with this fact in mind, they found a bag dinner from the freezer and decided to make Texas Roadhouse rolls as a side.
“Garlic chicken pasta with rolls. Perfect.”
The rolls baked, and Zane cooked the bag dinner in one of the larger skillets from the bottom cupboard. Once everything was ready, Zane set the skillet and tray of rolls on the counter before sticking their head out of the doorway.
“Dinner’s ready! Come make a plate before it gets cold!”
Lloyd was the first to rush in, picking all of the vegetables out of his scoop of pasta and loading the rest of the bowl with rolls. Nya took the leftover vegetables, but absolutely drenched her roll in cinnamon honey butter.
“These rolls are the best. Ugh, I’d marry them if I could.”
“People have married inanimate objects before.”
“I know. But it’s not legal here.”
“I see.”
Wu’s bowl was more balanced, equal amounts of vegetables and pasta, and only 1 roll with a small drizzle of butter. As he poured himself a glass of ice water, the older 3 Ninja rushed in, all giggling like idiots. They fixed their bowls and grabbed a can of soda each from the fridge, but Jay was too busy texting Nya something.
“She’s going to love this.”
Sure enough, as they sat down, Nya’s phone pinged. She laughed at the image, and Wu peeked over in curiosity.
“It’s supposed to say “SS Destiny’s Bounty”, not SS… SHITS? CREAMY SHITS?”
Kai, Cole, and Jay stopped eating mid-bite to laugh their asses off at their successful prank. But Zane noticed how irate Wu was becoming, so they snuck back outside to fix it. It didn’t take long to fix, thankfully. And Zane was able to get a clear photo to send to Wu of the corrected error.
“Fixed.”
“Thank you, Zane. Now come inside and make some tea, it’s fairly cold.”
Zane sighed, but agreed. They headed back inside, but not before taking a minute longer to look at the finished decorations.
“It’s beautiful.”