How Disquieting Norse Troll Lad Saved Christmas

                 It was the night before Christmas, a warm Christmas Eve, some might call it. Throughout the house there was a tremoring excitement, barely kept in check by the willpower and decorum of its inhabitants, in anticipation of what the next day might bring. All of the crockery in the kitchen had been laid out on the table, or been utilised in storing precooked food, or been appropriated for evening snacks, now lying hidden behind computer monitors or under bedsheets. A windowsill by the front door held Mummy's favourite type of mince pie, Daddy's favourite drink, and a carrot which had seen no interference; an offering to Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man. By appeasing him with sustenance, it was hoped that he would leave lovely gifts and wish goodwill on the house, rather than splitting all the bin bags and spitting on the dog like last year.
                With the unseasonal warmth they were experiencing, starting a fire had been deemed totally unnecessary. The lack of a fire guard had led to it being deemed totally irresponsible. The presence of several paper-wrapped gifts, under a dry-needled Christmas tree, with brandy-soaked tinsel climbing up to an oil lamp and a festive vial of kerosene, had led to it being deemed totally reckless. It was for these reasons and more than neither Mummy nor Daddy had chosen to get a blaze going in the living room, nor had Little Miss or Littler Embryo held any designs on a festive conflagration, even for the preparation of chestnuts, marshmallows or gratuitously overdone toast. Still, it was cosy in the home, and the smell of cinnamon, cloves, clementines and crème de menthe hung in the air, relics from a day of mulling anything  and everything that wasn't nailed down or too large to fit in the big pan. Decorations hung from every surface above shoulder height, and sat gaudily upon every surface below it. It was, in short, a household thoroughly prepared for the next day's festive celebrations and gorging.
                As twilight took hold of the house, with all of its human occupants tucked up safely in bed, a tiny pair of wooden arms reached upwards. With fingers that had been painted on rather than carved out, it was tricky to unhook the string on its head from the needle-laden branch on which it had been suspended, but practice and persistence had paid dividends in capability. With a gentle rustling through the lower limbs, and a mild jostling of the other decorations, the wooden soldier in her pristine red coat plopped down onto the stack of presents underneath the Christmas tree. Cotton Snowman was already waiting for her there.
                "Good evening, Cotton Snowman, sir."
                "Hello there, Wooden Soldier. Tonight's the night! Are you as excited as I am?"
                "Excitement at peak levels, mirth fully loaded and festive cheer checked, armed and stowed, sir. When the big day arrives at no earlier than 0600 hours tomorrow, as per Mummy's official orders to Little Miss, our merriment deployment will be completely operational and working at one hundred percent effectiveness, sir."
                "Jolly good." said Cotton Snowman, stifling a sigh. Wooden Soldier was a dear friend of his, and they had shared a storage box for many years, and hung together on a tree for many more, but sometimes her attitude to communication, and to the world, was a bit much.
                Proceeding together, Wooden Soldier and Cotton Snowman bounced and slid their way down the stack of brightly wrapped presents, avoiding the tags and ribbons lest they be turned into impromptu festive nooses by careless descent strategies. At the bottom, among the plush pile of the living room carpet and the crumbs of mince pie lurking within, they met their good friend and confidant, Stuffed Robin.
                "Hi guys!" tweeted the robin, bouncing on her rigid legs and trying to flap her non-articulated wings. "Only a few hours to go! What do you think they'll get these year?"
                "All that they wished for." speculated Anthropomorphic Snowflake, a nightmare-scape of symmetrical ice structures and human features which still, nonetheless, embodied the spirt of the freezing season. It had climbed down from the mantelpiece to join its compatriots of Christmas cheer.
                "It's a wonderful thought," said Cotton Snowman, "but I think that Little Miss wished for her bottom to be able to sing Christmas songs, so that she always had the spirit of the season chasing her when she ran around, and no-one could take it away because, and I quote, 'nobody can take your bottom off you and put it back in the toy box'."
                The other decorations looked at one another, weighing up the practicalities and probabilities of that being her Christmas gift, and indeed of why she would wish for such a thing in the first place.
                "It was a fraught evening leading up to that point, if I recall." he qualified, seeing and participating in the uncertainty.
                "Well, we don't have to understand it for it to be a Christmas wish, and we don't have to know how it would happen for it to come true." persisted Anthropomorphic Snowflake. "It would have to be a-"
                "A Christmas miracle!" sang the warbling, soprano tones of Paper Cup Angel, as she drifted down from the top of the tree. Her tracing paper wings and pipe cleaner halo wafted gently as she descended, beaming her biro smile at all of her festive friends on the carpet.
                Cotton  Snowman, not for the first time, wished that he had fingers with which to pinch at the bridge of his crate paper nose, or hands of sufficient size for the burying of his face.
                "Yes, naturally." he mumbled, in a distinctly non-committal way.
                "Anything is possible with the magic of Christmas in our hearts." she persisted.
                "Point of anatomical precision, ma'am. Not a single one of us assembled here, vis. the carpeted surface of the living room zone, is equipped with, in possession of, or trained in the use of a heart of any description or level of functionality, ma'am. There are, to the best of our available intelligence, no hearts among our battalion capable of holding anything, let alone the notion of a whole season, ma'am." reported Wooden Soldier, having made a thorough assessment of her team.
                "Anyone can house the joy of the season in any organ or manufacturing materials they have at their disposal." Paper Cup Angel clarified, with a wiggle of her wings.
                "Permission to hold the magic of Christmas in the core of my wooden hat, despite it not being in any way hollow, ma'am?"
                "Granted, just like a wish!" giggled Paper Cup Angel.
                "A wish granted already! What a wonderful start to the night." beamed Anthropomorphic Snowflake with its nebulously connected mouth.
                "Indeed." chirped Stuffed Robin.
                "Shall we get on with checking the fireplace and the chimney?" suggested Cotton Snowman, whose highly absorbent body nevertheless struggled to soak up the sickly sweet nonsense that Paper Cup Angel was wont to spout. "After all, we need to make sure that Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man can get in and deliver the gifts, or singing behinds or what have you."
                "A splendid idea!" Paper Cup Angel cried, with decidedly unnecessary pitch and vibrato. “Now that the Friends of Christmas have assembled, we’ll get our tradition underway immediately!”
                "That is our most critical Christmas Eve mission. We shall proceed at double time to secure the Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man landing zone and ensure a clear point of egress from the fireplace. From there we shall establish a perimeter to safeguard the open terrain running from hearth to tree. No tripping, foot impaling or sack rending hazards will be permitted to remain within the festive exclusion zone." barked the only one of the decorations who would ever utter, or even think, those words.
                "Righto." said Cotton Snowman, starting to move towards the hearth so that events would move along with him.
                Various descriptions of tiny decorative feet pattered and bounced their way across the carpet in a loose formation, until they reached the slate surround of the fireplace. A bucket of ashen tools sat to one side of the hearth, and a pile of logs to the other. In the centre was a brushed-clean fire-resistant slab, stained with years of warming fires, which served as the gateway to the chimney, and the passage of the much-anticipated midnight guest.
                "This year, Anthropomorphic Snowflake," declared Paper Cup Angel, "I think that you should have the honour of conducting the light and breeze check!"
                There was an excited squeal from the snowflake, and general cheers of happy approval from the others. The light and breeze check was a great privilege for the decorations; a ceremonial confirmation that Christmas twilight could be seen from the hearth, and that a gentle winter breeze could be felt coming down the flue. If both of those two were true, then Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man would surely be able to mete out festive justice on all members of the household.
                "I would be delighted to! Thank you, everyone, I've been practicing how to do it and I won't let you down on my first ever attempt!"
                Cotton Snowman, who until this point had harboured no doubts about Anthropomorphic Snowflake's ability to look up a chimney, now felt some questions beginning to form. He disregarded them. Robin, too, was curious as to why the process needed any practice, but decided that voicing such a query would not be in the spirit of the evening. Wooden Soldier had few thoughts on the matter; it wasn't just that she was made of wood, which traditionally reduces the capacity for cogitation on matters of the abstract, but because she was mentally laying out a cordon that would best protect the operational area.
                Ignorant of anyone's doubt by design, the snowflake strode into the hearth, turned to face their companions one more time for a horrifying thumbs-up, and then looked directly downwards.
                There was an understandable quantity of awkward shuffling from the assembled decorations, particularly those who apparently hadn't made the cut for the light and breeze check.
                "I don't see anything but... this feels wrong. I can't put my finger on why, but I don't think this is the right way to check the chimney." it said. The others maintained a respectful silence, willing Anthropomorphic Snowflake not to need assistance in this insultingly simple matter. "I have my eyes open, I'm feeling out for a breeze, I'm bending my neck..." it muttered to itself. Paper Cup Angel pursed her poorly drawn mouth as best she could, which was none at all, and wished as hard as she could that the snowflake could do this. "I need to look up!" it roared triumphantly, inverting its inspection position by one hundred and eighty degrees. "And I still see nothing!" it cried, with horror befitting an abomination such as itself.
                There were confused gasps from the other decorations.
                "Nothing?! Are you completely sure?" asked Cotton Snowman.
                "Yes, it's perfectly dark and... wait... I think I can see feathers, maybe?"
                "That doesn't sound right at all." said Stuffed Robin, their resident expert on matters of the feather. "They belong on birds and not in chimneys, especially on Christmas Eve!"
                "Permission to instigate a squad-wide light and breeze check, unprecedented as the practice may be, ma'am?"
                "Granted. In fact, let's all take a look." said Paper Cup Angel with deep concern.
 Even Cotton Snowman, who normally avoided the fireplace on the basis of his own flammability and ease of staining, bounced his way forwards to inspect the scene above.
                It was just as Anthropomorphic Snowflake had described; the chimney was clogged with feather-edged dark masses, there was a lot of cooing and rattling going on, and there was absolutely no way that any Intruder Man would get down there, especially one who bore a sack.
                "Oh dear. Oh no!" flapped Stuffed Robin. "Christmas will be cancelled for sure!"
                "I don't like to jump to such pessimistic conclusions so quickly, but it's hard to disagree." said Cotton Snowman.
                Paper Cup Angel rocked this way and that. They'd conducted the light and breeze check every year, and it had always been fine. That’s what was meant to happen. It was more like a ritual than anything else, a ceremonial activity that helped them all to feel ready for Christmas. Now that they’d actually found a problem she had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
                "Does anyone have any ideas?" asked Anthropomorphic Snowflake, still looking upwards in the hope that all the problems would magically go away.
                "We need... we need..." Paper Cup Angel said, clawing for any thoughts at all. "We need a Christmas miracle!" she finally cried. "They always happen at this time of year to make sure that no-one needs to be sad, and one will surely come along to save us now."
                Stuffed Robin and Anthropomorphic Snowflake rallied around the angel excitedly, while Cotton Snowman and Wooden Soldier stared into the three faces of shock-induced delusion, which was quite a large concept for Christmas decorations to wrestle.
                "How do we go about making one of those happen?" asked the Snowman, as delicately as he could, given the circumstances. The celebrating masses became muted again.
                "Um... we wait?" suggested Stuffed Robin.
                "Or we wish really hard?" offered the snowflake.
                There were no takers for backing those plans, and the progenitor of the Christmas Miracle party was gravely silent.
                "I've got it, sir!" Wooden Soldier said, suddenly. "We should ask Disquieting Norse Troll Lad! He always knows what to do!"
                "Yes, of course!" agreed Stuffed Robin, who just liked going along with things. "If anyone can think of plan, it's him."
                “Then it’s settled. We shall petition Disquieting Norse Troll Lad for help to resolve this calamity, and hope that he has the magic we need for our Christmas miracle.”
 
                “By my scraggly beard, this is a pickle!” said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, stroking his straw-and-sticks beard. He removed his head from the chimney and patted both hands on the tummy of his hessian tunic. “It’s completely clogged! There’s no way that Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Invader Man can fit through a clogged chimney.”
                “That’s what we were worried about.” confessed Stuffed Robin. “It might… it might…”
                “Mean Christmas is cancelled!” wailed Anthropomorphic Snowflake.
                A low, anxious muttering morphed itself into a worried hubbub at this verbalisation of their worst fears.
                 "What are going to do?" asked Cotton Snowman, quietly.
                “We're going to save Christmas, of course!" declared Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, his bulbous felt nose wobbling as he spoke.
                “Of course! That’s genius!” cried the snowflake, who didn’t even know the meaning of the term delusional. “Why didn’t we think of that?!”
                “Boy, do we feel foolish.” agreed Stuffed Robin.
                “I’m sure we were just in shock about the chimney problem.” offered Cotton Snowman. “But how do we save Christmas exactly?”
                “By unclogging the chimney ourselves. It might seem like an insurmountable challenge for a group of six Christmas decorations with a combined height of around sixty centimetres, but I believe in us. We can make it happen with the power of friendship and bold planning.”
                Wooden Soldier’s ears pricked up at the mention of planning, one of her favourite aspects of a mission.
                “With respect for the chain of command, sir, permission to propose a primary objective for our Christmas rescue?”
                “Granted, Wooden Soldier.”
                “We do not, as yet, have positive confirmation of the nature of the obstruction. There are reports of feathers which have been corroborated by secondary reconnaissance, but that does not give us a full account of the blockage to be removed. If these feathered obstacles are living then it might be enough to encourage them to leave. If they have been rendered inoperable by circumstances or hostile action, then a more direct approach will be necessary, sir.”
                “That’s a very good point, Wooden Soldier.” said Paper Cup Angel. “We could make a loud noise down here to scare the chimney squatters away!”
                “I don’t think they’d hear us, I’m afraid.” said the troll, solemnly.
                “And why is that?” Cotton Snowman asked.
                “Because there are other noises which would drown us out, can’t you hear them?”
                The other decorations shared a puzzled look, then leaned back into the chimney together. Straining their ears to hear anything coming down the flue, they held their breath, closed their eyes, and tried to focus. Just as Disquieting Norse Troll Lad had said, there were sounds coming from the blockage; the sound of coins, light mechanical parts, playing cards, and cooing.
                “It sounds like… like…” Paper Cup Angel started.
                “An illicit pigeon casino.”  Stuffed Robin finished. It wasn’t quite what the angel had been planning to say, but now that it had been mentioned even the papery avatar of heavenly grace had to admit that it was a perfect description of the soundscape. A consensus was quickly reached among the decorations that the robin was correct.
                “Somehow, and for reasons as yet unclear, it seems that the pigeons of the roof and telegraph wires, friends to us for years, have set up an extrajudicial gambling haven in the chimney on Christmas Eve.” Disquieting Norse Troll Lad said quietly, shaking his head in disappointment.
                “I can’t believe it.” Cotton Snowman said. “The chimney is only one pigeon wide! The higher birds would see the cards of the lower ones; poker would never work.”
                “It’s possible, indeed, but these gambling birds participate in accordance with a well-respected trust system.” explained the troll. “I’ve known it to happen before and it actually goes far better than anyone could reasonably expect. But they also have roulette and a one-armed bandit; you can hear them if you really concentrate.”
                “I had no idea that such a strong gambling culture existed among urban birds.” said Cotton Snowman, whose world view had suffered a blow from which it would never recover.
                “It’s a surprise to all of us, I’d imagine.” said Paper Cup Angel. The other decorations nodded. “But it means for us, here and now, that shouting probably won’t work. Or if it did, it would be… would be a… a Christmas miracle! Quick, everyone, if we shout together then, with the magic of Christmas, maybe they’ll hear us and clear out!”
                On a surging tide of festive optimism and faith in otherworldly powers, the decorations rushed into the fireplace and bellowed as one, bringing to bear all of their vocal might.
                “Gambling pigeon friends! Would you please vacate the chimney to make way for Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man!” they chorused, half a dozen small, decorative voices harmonising into something far greater than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, it was also far less than what was needed in order to shift the birds.
                “Oh, bother. They’re still up there, and I’ll bet they just dealt another hand.” said Cotton Snowman, who had very little reason to understand the rules, premise, or even existence of poker, other than his association with Wooden Soldier, who had played a lot of cards at the hypothetical barracks in which she would have served had she not been, as her name suggested, made of wood.
                "What if we tried to climb up and push the pigeons out of the top?" suggested Anthropomorphic Snowflake, whose gangly and unsettling limbs would make short work of any climb.
                "It's a good thought, snowflake, but I'm afraid it wouldn't work out as you're hoping." said the troll. "First of all, the pigeons and their gambling equipment are really heavy. So I don't think that the six of us would be able to lift them.
                Secondly, it's not really a very nice thing to do to forcibly throw somebody out of a chimney, even if they would be obstructing Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man.
                Thirdly, a casino run as tightly as pigeons might be expected to will have very good security staff. Were we to go in and try to heft the pigeons out onto the roof, their security would likely do the same to us, highlighting that we should not do things to others that we wouldn't like done to ourselves.
                Finally," continued the troll, really labouring the point and stamping snowflake’s suggestion into the cold, unyielding slate, “the pigeons are our friends first and foremost. We can’t be cruel to them just because there’s been an innocent misunderstanding.”
                "Ah." said Wooden Soldier at this revelation. “Then I suppose my own plan of starting a tactical conflagration in the fireplace vicinity, with the operational objective to smoke and heat the pigeons out of the chimney, would be another negative on the same basis?"
                "Astutely and accurately surmised, Wooden Soldier." said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, always focusing on the positives.
                "Then what would you suggest?" asked Cotton Snowman, cutting to the chase as ever.
                "We'll have to go in through the front door, as it were, through the top of the chimney, just like all the pigeons do. It's the only respectful way of conducting ourselves towards our friends. Just because we're at odds regarding the use of the chimney doesn't mean we're at odds with one another."
                "With respect, sir, the only way through the top of the chimney is to reach the roof, and the roof, sir, is renowned for being outside. It is in fact one of a roof’s very defining features that separates inside from outside. Getting outside would require passing through the kitchen-diner zone and finding a point of egress around the back door, but even then we'd only be in the garden.”
                "But the kitchen diner... that's where the... the..." stammered Stuffed Robin. Anthropomorphic Snowflake placed a distended hand on the bird’s shoulder to calm her, a gesture which was only effective because she couldn’t see the horrifying body part in question.
                “From the intelligence we've gathered to date,” continued Wooden Soldier, “which is based on cursory reconnaissance over many winters, the path from the back door to the roof would require use of a vertical ascension mechanism, vis. the drainpipe, which runs from roof to ground in a generally upward and downward fashion, sir. The drainpipe in question, however, is on the far side of gnome territory.”
                There were gasps from the less composed members of the Friends of Christmas. The mere thought of dicing with the fiery-tempered, anarchic and cutthroat gnomes sent a jolt of festive fear deep into the jolly recesses of their hearts.
                “It would take a whole battalion to fell them, and it would require a squad to be either exceptionally brave or exceptionally foolish to risk an incursion into gnome territory without adequate cover or a diplomatic treatise, sir."
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad gave a reproachful look at the idea of starting an armed conflict with the garden gnomes so lightly, but said nothing. Technically, the soldier hadn’t suggested actually doing it.
                “If we make it through and up the drain pipe, then it’s a steep ascent across the tile desert to reach the chimney pot, and another climb to secure the point of ingress to the pigeon casino. In short, sir, it’s a risky mission through occupied territory and across rough terrain, even before we consider the reality of parlay with the pigeons.”
                "Your field reports never ceased to amaze me, Wooden Soldier, in both their clarity and the alacrity with which they are delivered." said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, with this characteristically optimistic twang. “And you are quite right: the kitchen-diner, the garden, gnome territory, the roof; they all have their share of perils, and by my scraggly beard I will not ask any one of you to come along with me against your will. It is a poor friend and a poor Norse Troll Lad who would invite others into danger." he reassured the Friends of Christmas. "If I have to make this journey on my own, then so be it; I shall not think any less of any of you. The only important matter here is to save Christmas."
                He hopped down from the slate surround and looked towards the door to the kitchen diner, many metres away. Daddy had left it open so that less condensation would build up on the light fittings, an unfortunate side effect of hiring an under-qualified electrician and fitting too many humidifiers.
                “We’re coming with you, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad!” said Paper Cup Angel, shocked at the notion that they might let him face the peril alone. “We’re all Friends of Christmas, and we have sworn a solemn vow to ourselves to protect the festive period, isn’t that right, everyone?” A chorus of agreement rang out from the other decorations, some of whom were looking up at the chimney again in case the situation had casually resolved itself. Alas, it had not. “Besides, for a plan this risky to succeed, well… it would need a Christmas miracle!”
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, Paper Cup Angel and Anthropomorphic Snowflake all laughed as wholesomely as they could manage at the happy thought of a miracle. Cotton Snowman rolled his button eyes.
                “Then we have no time to lose. To the kitchen-diner!” said the troll, striding away as fast as his almost non-existent legs would carry him. The snowflake raised and then lowered an arm, having mistaken the troll’s final words for a toast, and then proceeded with the rest of the decorations.
                Spirits high with a burgeoning sense of adventure, the Friends of Christmas made expedient and easy progress across the living room carpet. They passed back by the Christmas tree, home to Cotton Snowman, Wooden Soldier and Paper Cup Angel, and around the angled armchair which allegedly 'brought the room together'. Older decorations often warned their juniors of the time before the armchair, when the room was a chaotic melange of disunited pieces, and thereby enshrined the chair's status as a cornerstone of the room's integrity. A few deferential nods and pats were given as the team of Christmas saviours passed by, so that their own work might not be rendered redundant by a calamitous armchair absence.
                As they rounded the reading lamp and passed the bookshelf, both of them the guardians and sworn protectors of the armchairs venerable placement, the pile underfoot confessed to them it's terrible secret of age. The otherwise youthful thickness and springy demeanour gave way to more obvious wear, a flattening and thinning that could tell only of the thousands of footfalls which it had seen, day after day, year after year. It meant they had stumbled into the heavily trafficked kitchen-diner channel, the primary thoroughfare from living to dining areas, and the doorway looming overhead was their portal to the next phase.
                “Once we’re through this door, we all know what awaits us.” said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad solemnly. “This is everyone’s opportunity to reconsider their participation in our Christmas quest; there will be no repercussions for desertion at this stage, and any celebratory gingerbread hot chocolates will be shared regardless.”
                There were no takers of the troll’s offer. Resolutely, the Friends of Christmas stood together, ready to face the perils of open-plan cooking and eating as a cohesive unit.
                “Reporting our squad to remain at full strength regardless of the early evacuation option presented by yourself, sir.” confirmed Wooden Solider, who seemed desperate to precipitate a tonal shift in their festive adventure.
                “Thank you, soldier, and everyone for your commitment. Whirring Metal Suction Construct will be on us long before we reach the back door, so everyone be ready to run and readier to hide.” said the troll, receiving a set of determined and affirmative grunts and nods in return.
                “And readier still to help those in need of assistance.” said Stuffed Robin, one of the slowest of the Friends of Christmas, with no explicitly stated ulterior motive. There were a few more positive noises to celebrate the noble attitude.
                “And even readier than that for a Christmas miracle!” added Paper Cup Angel. Anthropomorphic Snowflake cheered along with her, but everyone else seemed a little preoccupied.
                At the end of the kitchen-diner channel, the Friends of Christmas reached the cold-tiled threshold of Whirring Metal Suction Construct’s domain. Stretching away from them for half the length of a house, and the full length of a permitted extension under planning permission from the local council, was a canyon. It had not been carved over millennia by the persistence of a trickling stream through ancient rock, nor had it been ground and crushed into existence by the unstoppable force of a highly motivated glacier. It was instead a canyon of wood-effect panels below marble expanses, and had been installed a couple of years prior by Bill the Kitchen Fitter. Identical doors, with decorative inlays and small round handles, flanked a grid of white and grey porcelain that kept subsurface structures safe from the tyranny of spilled water and dropped courgette.
                High above the cupboards, set into the ceiling, were neat rows of circular downlights; during waking hours of darkness they formed the starry sky that guided travellers through the kitchen-diner, but now, in the sleepy twilight, they were dormant discs of glass and high-efficiency LEDs. Their companions, the under-unit lighting strips, were similarly dozing. The only light that dared to fall upon the stony work-surfaces came from the glowing digital display on the oven, which had been showing the wrong time ever since the clocks had changed, and from the broad window overlooking the garden, whence the moon kept a rocky eye on events.
                It was by this light that the Friends of Christmas looked not for what they could see there in the kitchen-diner, but what they couldn’t. In shadowed breaks among the cupboards lay the washing machine and tumble dryer, innocent appliances whose conformance to the door-line was unnecessary and undesirable, but also the dread automaton known only as Whirring Metal Suction Construct.
                True to its name, the construct which safeguarded the kitchen-diner against the threats of dust, lint, grit, grot, and debris, performed its terrible suction with an almighty whirring, which was a lot like a droning, homogenised roar for the quieter hours of the day. Thanks to its network of all-seeing eyes, which worked as long as all there was to see was visible in infra-red, anything that touched the ground in its active vigilance hours would be charged down and consumed by its insatiably greedy maw. The immaculate tiling of the kitchen-diner’s floor was a testament to its ruthless efficacy, as well as Mummy and Daddy’s excellent discipline in keeping the construct well-charged at all times.
                Despite all they knew of the construct, the Friends of Christmas had no idea which of those impenetrable shadows harboured it and its terrible hunger. They peered over the threshold, standing on the carpet bar, as if it was the starting block at an athletics tournament with unnecessarily high stakes, and tried to scan every shaded hovel for evidence of the danger. There was nothing to see.
                “Has anyone noticed anything?” asked Cotton Snowman, uncomfortably aware of his light, compressible, and vacuum-friendly body.
                “Negative, sir. I do not have eyes on the threat, repeat, no eyes on the threat.”
                “It’s not something we’ve ever been able to spot before.” said Stuffed Robin. “It strikes from the shadows and disappears again before anyone can compose themselves.”
                “We’ve also never had cause to come this close and observe, nor have we had to stake our own safety on it.” argued Disquieting Norse Troll Lad. “Committing some effort to trying to learn its secrets could be what saves us and, by extension, Christmas.”
                “So I suppose that we’re saying, really, is that spotting the construct from here would be… a Christmas miracle!” cried Paper Cup Angel excitedly, with the robin and the snowflake bouncing enthusiastically in her peripheral vision.
                “Arguably so.” conceded the troll. “So… anyone see any evidence of either Whirring Metal Suction Construct or a Christmas miracle?”
                Eyes strained in the darkness, and their mighty appetite for seeing hide, hair or any other aspect of the beast remained utterly starving.
                “Then all we can do is try to sneak through, and hope that we don’t attract its vacuous ire.”
                Four pairs of tiny legs, one cotton snowball and the rim of a paper cup picked their very softest and daintiest steps out of the living room and onto the cold, perilous tiles of the construct’s domain. Much like the festive geese they'd all seen on cards throughout the years, pictured in their migration away from the chilly northern air towards a Christmas with less frost and less relevance, the decorations arranged themselves into a 'V' formation without thinking much about it. At the fore was Wooden Soldier, with wings tipped by Cotton Snowman and Anthropomorphic Snowflake, perhaps as a subconscious acknowledgement that there might be peripheral ice build-up during high-altitude flights.
                Carefully they crept in the silence of the night, trying to summon up the same stealth as the mice that had left Mummy and Daddy so agitated a few years prior. Their 'V' stuck close to one side of the vast floor of the chasm, doing its best to avoid stepping into the open ground which might earn them the attention of Whirring Metal Suction Construct. Overhead the doors passed one by one. Stuffed Robin wondered to herself what was concealed behind each of them, tucked away out of sight of the toaster and kettle, who must have been incorrigible invaders of privacy to warrant such extreme obscuration measures.
                “Maybe that one’s the spices.” she whispered to herself. “And this one? I think that’ll be for pots and pans. The next? Oh that’s got to be cereal. It just has to be. Look at all the spilled bran flakes on the floor!”
                Had she said this any louder, it would have likely alerted the construct, as well as startling her companions. With the vindictive hand of fate conspiring against Christmas, however, her quiet observation was unable to serve as a warning to the hard, flat feet of Wooden Soldier, which were the unwitting pestle to the rest of the world’s mortar. Unaware of the booby-trapped terrain beneath her feet, which was quite the failing for a military operative like herself, she crushed the bran flakes with a crunching that echoed along the wooden canyon like thunder through a trumpet. In short, Stuffed Robin had been caught in the merciless trap of seeing a problem but being powerless to stop it. In much the same way, all six of them were powerless to stop the unseen beams of infrared scanning the floor, while they stood frozen by the shock of the crunching. They waited. They tremored. They would have held their breath too, if they had been of the breathing persuasion. Around them the silence hung heavy, pulling on their shoulders and trying to crush them. It came as no relief when it was broken.
                The whirring could only mean one thing.
                “Time to run!” shouted Stuffed Robin, who was now perfectly empowered to warn her colleagues of the looming danger. As a pair of white LED headlights burst into life from behind them, emerging from a darkened cubby by the door to the living room, the ‘V was cast into disarray, transformed into a chaotic morass of Christmas iconography. A terrible roar, promising to remove anything which might find itself on the floor of the construct’s territory, came whirring and sucking itself into life, as the machine rolled forwards on tiny rubber wheels.
                Wooden Soldier, thanks to her presumed training and conditioning, was still at the head of the fleeing group. Keeping pace respectfully with her were the troll and the angel, and behind them was the frantic hopping of Stuffed Robin. It was all Cotton Snowman could do to watch them grow farther away as he bounced awkwardly on his single, broad, cotton foot, until the gangling and uneven limbs of Anthropomorphic Snowflake scooped him up and bore him forwards.
                Whirring Metal Suction Construct’s wheels bounced across a grout line with a clunk. Its small, efficient motors span up to full speed while it clunked across another gap between tiles, and another, more and more frequently as it gathered momentum. In no time at all, or, more accurately, some time but not very much of it, the construct was outpacing them.
                “It’s catching up to us!” Cotton Snowman cried, from his position of oversight, slung across the snowflake’s shoulder-like protrusions. “I’m slowing you down too much.”
                Long, over-articulated legs bounded onwards, one step after the other, bowing heavily under the inconsiderable, but still additional, mass of the snowman.
                “You’re right.” said Anthropomorphic Snowflake, exertion tainting its voice. “If this doesn’t work, then please know that I’m sorry and that I tried.”
                Deeply confused by what that statement could possibly mean, Cotton Snowman didn’t have a response to offer. This was just as well, because it would have been interrupted by the shocking sensation of being hurled forwards as best the snowflake could manage. When the snowman hit the floor, face first, and rolled over onto his back, he was treated to the yet more confusing sight of the snowflake climbing the chasm wall to freedom. Struggling back to his own foot, with a newfound sense of betrayal soaking into his absorbent cotton body, he bounced a futile and ineffectual retreat from the unstoppable automatic vacuum.
                “Why snowflake?! Why!” cried the snowman, its notional sibling in composition. Each cottony bounce took it a little further forwards, but left it a lot closer to the construct’s unending breath. Hearing his plight, the sprinting group ahead could do little but turn their heads to see the construct looming, with snowman directly in its beams. It was nearly on top of him in mere moments, passing within cupboard length, a tile’s width, a mere few centimetres. In his mind, such as one could exist within a ball of cotton, he saw the manifold ways his body would be squashed, crushed, soiled and torn by the jaws of the vacuum; it would be his last Christmas in the home, and his first of many as a broken shell in a local landfill.
                In the weak light of the moon and the oven clock, the kitchen turned to white. It wasn’t the pure and piercing white of sudden sunlight, but a grainy, rushing flurry of white like a snowstorm, like a blizzard. The white fell on Cotton Snowman’s head and arms, and settled on the floor all around him. Abruptly, Whirring Metal Suction Construct skidded to a halt, and began to pick a serpentine path across the newly soiled tiling.
                “It’s… snowing?!” he mumbled.
                “It is! It’s snowing in the kitchen!” laughed Stuffed Robin.
                “It’s a Christmas miracle!” cried Paper Cup Angel.
                “It’s neither.” said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, a little sad that he couldn’t find a more tactful way to phrase it in the heat of the moment. “It’s sugar, and it’s Anthropomorphic Snowflake!”
                The Friends of Christmas who had remained on the floor of the chasm, and therefore in the path of Whirring Metal Suction Construct, looked up to see their aberration friend hurling armful after distended armful of caster sugar out of a logically marked jar. It smiled down at them, but didn’t slow its frantic sprinkling.
                “I’ll keep it distracted; you all get going and save Christmas!”
                “Thank you, snowflake.” said Cotton Snowman, who had been through a complicated emotional journey in a very short space of the preceding time, and was therefore feeling rather out of sorts.
                Arms both angelic and wooden heaved the snowman forwards, and as a smaller cluster of decorative friends than before, they rushed for the cat flap in the back door. Using his mighty troll’s strength, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad heaved the flap open, ceased questioning its existence despite Mummy and Daddy having never owned a cat, and waved his companions through. He spared one final deferential glance towards Anthropomorphic Snowflake, who was going over and above in their efforts to ruin the kitchen and waste the sugar, and followed the rest of his friends through.
                Although the night was unusually warm, with the thermostat happily telling the heating it could have the evening off, stepping into the outside air was still a shock for the coddled decorations. It was less of a shock than the drop onto the hard standing outside the back door, which seemed to be a lot lower than the floor of the kitchen had been, but even so it gave them pause to shiver.
                “Status report, Cotton Snowman? Mission fitness, emotional readiness, injuries sustained?” asked Wooden Soldier, in the most caring way that she could manage.
                “I’m fine, thank you. It was just a bit of a scare, and then a lot of hope, and then deep betrayal and confusion, then just confusion, then relief, then cold air and a hard fall.” he summarised, not really helping anyone to understand anything. “But there’s no harm done to me, and we’re safely outside. We can keep going.”
                “Affirmative, sir. Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, sir? Permission to speak?”
                “You don’t need my permission, Wooden Soldier. That’s why you were able to ask for it so easily.”
                “Noted, sir. On a bearing of oh-nine-oh from the orientation of our egress point from the house, we have eyes upon the objective drainpipe for scaling to the roof, sir.”
                Stuffed Robin looked at Paper Cup Angel for help, but found none available. Neither did the troll have the clarity that she sought. It was only when Cotton Snowman caught their eye and pointed to his right, up at the long, black pipe which ran the height of the house, that they grasped where the soldier was trying to direct them.
                “And between us and the pipe,” said the troll, “is gnome territory.”
                The collection of decorations shuddered, each pretending it was from the cold and none of the others buying it. By the pale moonlight and a slight, yellow glow where Daddy had left the bathroom light on again, they could see the furrowed patch of vegetable-planting soil outside of the conservatory. Peppering it, like hooligans loitering in a disused car park, were a dozen or more porcelain garden gnomes. Each of them had a beard stained with dirt, toil and pettiness, each of them had a colourful hat to contain the multitudes of feral cruelty for which they were famed, and they all wore a rictus grin of malign intentions often realised. At a gargantuan height of thirty centimetres when standing, they could practically kiss the sky itself when compared to the tiny, indoor decorations. Stuffed Robin gulped, to sum up her feelings on the sight of them.
                “Do we have a plan to get through them?” she asked, hoping to hear an emphatic and confident yes, which left no room for peril of any sort, or, alternatively, a commanding no that let them return indoors and avoid the situation entirely.
                "A full assault on the gnome forces would render our team inoperable almost immediately, on account of their superior stature, materials and ferocity. Any incursion into their territory must be completely clandestine, sir."
                "Sneaking through would certainly be more appealing than trying to injure the gnomes. They might be feral, but they've done nothing to wrong us, and we would be trespassing on their land." said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, with his frustrating penchant for empathy.
                “We could appeal to their sense of festive joy.” suggested Paper Cup Angel.
                "There's no way they'd hear us out. And even if they did, there's no way they'd agree to let us pass. And even if they did that, there's no way they'd honour their word." said Cotton Snowman. "These are the same gnomes who tore apart an innocent trowel for the crime of leaning on their fence."
                "I heard they buried one of their own last winter. Never gave a reason for it." added Stuffed Robin, whose sources for such information were unclear.
                "It's unequivocally true that their combat record outstrips our own by one hundred percent, which is to say that we have never launched a military campaign and they once battered a whole wheelbarrow into a pile of loose metal scraps, according to contemporary reports, sir." said Wooden Soldier. "Hence my pessimistic view of any hostile entanglement with them."
                "So what you're saying, then," said Paper Cup Angel, with a glint in her eye, "is that if they listened to our requests for safe passage then it would surely be... a Christmas miracle!"
                Despite having voiced her own fears mere seconds before, Stuffed Robin chirped and giggled with excitement.
                "Yes, much as it would have been miraculous for Whirring Metal Suction Construct to simply choose not to chase us, what you are saying would, hypothetically, be classed as miraculous." Cotton Snowman said, very delicately choosing his words to avoid encouraging or injuring the angel.
                "And despite our unshakeable faith in the magic of Christmas," the troll added, diplomatically, "it would be remiss of us to rely on a miracle when the power to affect change is in our own hands. Perhaps the real miracle will be the friendship and ingenuity that lets us solve our own problems together, as a team." he suggested, taking the angel by the metaphorical shoulder and leading her along a more practical figurative path.
                "Maybe so, maybe so. But it does make me worry that I'm surrounded by festive cynics!" sang the angel. Cotton Snowman crouched by the small, plastic fence around gnome territory to avoid having to engage with the statement.
                "With miraculous changes in gnome behaviour held safely in our pocket as a backup plan," said the troll, "I suggest that we follow along with the most subtle and silent of our number. They can show the rest of us the safest, quietest route through the perilous grounds of our misunderstood garden friends."
                There was some consternation and conferring. Before their journey through the kitchen-diner, none of the decorations had ever really had a reason to move with stealth or deception. In fact, they were all designed to draw the eye and be gazed upon as pieces of aesthetic beauty, so passing by unseen ran rather contrary to their nature.
                "I don't think any of us fit the description there, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad." Cotton Snowman said. "But I can lead the way if you want; I'm light so I won't crunch or squelch on anything, and I can signal if the coast is clear to move on?"
                "A wonderful suggestion, Cotton Snowman, thank you." accepted the troll. "Everyone else? We'll follow along behind and keep ourselves tucked into the shadows as much as we can. Pay attention to Cotton Snowman and stay silent. We'll be on the roof and clearing the chimney in no time."
                Thrilled to be saving Christmas, but reticent to have any dalliance with the gnomes, the Friends of Christmas crouched as low to the ground as their articulation allowed, which in many cases was no crouching at all, and crept past the short, white, plastic picket fence that marked the edge of gnome territory.
                Leading the way as per their discussions, Cotton Snowman's light, fluffy body made silent progress across soft, damp soil. From shallowed valley to shallowed valley he hopped, keeping himself as obscured as he could between the muddy ridges. Every movement was a chimera of planning and instinct; his eyes darted from gnome to gnome, like a camera trying to follow the action on a particularly busy ping pong table during a minor earthquake, and he hugged the edge of the territory as best he could, so that none of the porcelain monsters could creep up behind him. In the corner was a snarling, sneering member of their number, sitting on a chipped and faded toadstool with a fishing rod held in his barbaric mitts. With a hideous grinding, like stone on stone, his eyes turned in their sockets, scanning the ground ahead of him for any easy prey, or a bite on his prospectively dangled line.
                Snowman pressed himself down into the furrow. The fishergnome's eyes moved seemingly at random, snapping here and there at arbitrary intervals. He looked ahead, he looked right, he looked left, and he even glanced up from time to time, which put to bed any ideas the Snowman might have formed around the use of a trebuchet or similar projectile thrower.
                "Ah!" boomed the hollow ceramic voice of the gnome. It was a harrowing boom like the door slamming on an abandoned prison cell. "Prey!"
                The strike was as swift as it was brutal; the fishing line whipped out from his rod and drove a rusted hook deep through the heart of something small and dark in the furrow ahead of Cotton Snowman.
                A few ridges behind, the Friends of Christmas held their individual and collective lack-of-breath. A ragged, snarling yelp of glee spilled from the gnome’s rigid maw as it yanked the line back towards itself, and grasped in one pitted porcelain hand the spoils of its hunt.
                "Pah! Oak leaf! Dry and dead!"
                Cotton Snowman winced as, despite its very clear derision, the gnome gnashed at the leaf until it disappeared as mass of ruined cellulose into the hollow core of its body. No sooner had it swallowed the last of its meagre prize than it went back to scanning the moonlit garden, with the occasional guttural slurp.
                Giving this grim scene the consideration it was rightly due, Cotton Snowman elected to upgrade getting spotted from 'calamitous' to 'ruinous'; it was a largely subjective and symbolic gesture, but one that nonetheless emphasised the folly of being seen. With his swivelling head and eyes hungrily looking for their next target, this left Cotton Snowman with very few options. In front, to the left, to the right and up above were all out. He looked around himself in the furrow, and sank alongside his own spirits when he thought of something that, unfortunately, just might work.
                "Stick to the fence and follow me." he hissed to the others, sadly, before crawling along that same fence line, directly towards the fishergnome.
                The decrepit stone toadstool on which the gnome was seated was a mighty specimen. Its stem was twice as wide as any of the Friends of Christmas, and its large cap protruded like an umbrella to every side. It was high enough for the canopy to overhang the fence on one side, allowing the stem to sit flush in the corner, but the gnome’s legs hung a clear few inches outward, and couldn't hope to touch the ground. Beneath the fishergnome’s terrible bottom lay a narrow crawlspace, tucked out of its maleficent sights, and it was toward that same passage that Cotton Snowman led his festive crew.
                All manner of thoughts, with a range of levels of optimism, ran through the heads of his companions as they dutifully followed along. Among these thoughts were such cogitations as 'I hope the snowman knows what he's doing', and 'gosh, it would be rotten luck for us to be eaten by this gnome' and even 'eyes on the squad leader; threats at bearings one-twenty-five through to three-fifty-six'. Not all thoughts were made equal.
                His crate paper nose cutting through the soft outer layers of the earth, Cotton Snowman used his equally crate-paper arms to drag himself forwards, remaining low, slow and as quiet as was cottonly possible. The canopy of the toadstool cap came overhead like the rolling in of a storm head at sea, and the merciless strikes it held took the form of a maniacal angling murder-house. He quivered, almost losing the strength to hold his own negligible weight when he entered its shadow. He could feel the others moving behind him, all solid wood, heavy stuffed hessian, feather and wires, and unyielding paper cups, vibrating the soil and dragging along with scratchy, scuffy noise.
                There was something like a clank and a boom overhead, all at once. The gnome had started swinging his tiny legs backwards and forwards, crashing them into the toadstool cap and dislodging showers of wet mud onto the belly-crawling Friends of Christmas. It muttered and griped to itself continually, not even saying words, just allowing air to spill through its ceramic vocal chords and find whatever coarsely biological sounds it could as it escaped.
                Terrified of moving, but even more so of lingering beneath the fishergnome, Cotton Snowman forced himself onwards, dragging himself an arm's length forward, stopping and staring upwards at the gnome, then repeating when he was sure that he'd not been spotted. The others behind him, with arms of varying length and existence, found this to be a jarring and uncomfortable way of moving, but they persisted nonetheless.
                The snowman had made it underneath the second swinging boot when a globule of wet mud sluiced off and landed on his cheek; it was cold and slimy, and it soaked into his cotton body. Mummy had managed to clean him before, when Little Miss had used muddy hands to explore everything in the room, and he focused on the fact that she would do it again. They would make it out. The gnome wouldn't see them. They just had to keep moving.
                Wooden Soldier did her best to move smoothly and quietly, but her rigid limbs worked against her. Her arms rotated like the paddles on a steamer, most often propelling her forwards but sometimes sliding through the mud and slinging a spray backwards. This in turn was forcing Stuffed Robin to lag further behind. The team was getting spread out, more of a target to spot, but little could be done.
                For minute after painful, arduous minute the Friends of Christmas dragged themselves through the unfeeling earth of gnome territory, watching ambulatory gnomes patrol this way and that beyond the legs of the fishergnome. It seemed that few of the patrols saw any need to get within range of the fishing rod, perhaps having learned the hard way how deadly and accurate he was with the hook.
                "Prey!" one of them cackled. It lunged forwards with an outstretched spade and crashed the flat ceramic end down hard on the soil.
                Both of the fisher gnome's feet squelched down into the soil, its boots landing mere centimetres from Wooden Soldier and Disquieting Norse Troll Lad. The Friends of Christmas froze in place, the cold, muddy surface water seeping into their bodies.
                “My prey!” the fishergnome wailed, sweeping its line around wide and lashing towards the spade-wielding patroller. The latter batted away the hook with a snarl.
                “No! I saw!”
                Angry stamping sprayed dirt and debris over the hunkering decorations. They dared not even wipe the mud from their eyes. What followed was the relentless sound of a fishing rod whipping through the air, whooshing and whistling like a riding crop, alongside the ringing of metal on metal as a fishing hook was repeatedly parried away by a spade.
                “Move! Move!” hissed Cotton Snowman, waving his companions onward under the cover of inter-gnome conflict. Moving with as much haste as they could while on their mud-slick bellies, the Friends of Christmas slithered their way under the canopy of the toadstool and out of the other side, scrabbling like misplaced woodlice. They could still hear the open combat over what appeared to be yet another dried leaf, and more gnomes were hurrying in to enjoy the display; more eyes to see them, more ears to hear them, and more cracked ceramic hands to perform distinctly un-festive atrocities.
                 Hearts, had there been any within the non-biological shells of the decorations, would have been pounding at a rate higher than a healthy resting level. They crawled, they kept their eyes focused on the opposite end of gnome territory, and they hoped beyond hope that no gazes would fall upon them.
                A gaze fell upon them.
                “Prey! More prey!” rasped the spiteful tones of a wheelbarrow-toting garden gnome, his hat tip long since broken off.
                There was no need for an order to be issued by any Friend of Christmas. They got to their feet, abandoned all notions of stealth, and made yet another life-or-death sprint for their safety. Mud sprayed behind them as they made their frantic dash with limbs suited to nothing except standing still. With the house to one side of them and gnomes to the other, the only way out was to keep going forwards and hope that they could outrun the heavy ceramic ornaments.
                All the gnome voices were chaos. They screamed over and at one another, the metal clanging of hostilities continued to echo over the garden, and there was no way to tell what was happening. Only Stuffed Robin, still stuck at the rear of the grouping, could see what was closing in on the rest of the decorations. The wheelbarrow's decorative wheel, fixed in place by its lack of an axle, was carving a line towards them. There were gnomes rushing with pickaxe and hammer behind it, and it was abundantly clear that not only did they hold unkind intentions, they were going to cease holding and start exacting them in very short time. Shorter time than it would take for the Friends of Christmas to make it to the other side of gnome territory. The parallels with the Whirring Metal Suction Construct situation were lost on Stuffed Robin; her mind was occupied more with the imminent danger than repetitive narrative devices.
                Stuffed Robin knew, deep down and also close to the surface, that she could no more hope to outrun or overpower the gnomes than her companions could. Despite Paper Cup Angel’s commitment to a Christmas miracle allowing negotiation with the porcelain menaces, the facsimile bird couldn’t find it in herself to commit herself to it. What she could find, however, was some strange hangover of instinct associated with the shape of a small garden bird, and with it some common ground between herself and the gnome contingent.
                “Prey!” she shrieked, as loud as her plastic beak could manage. “Prey under the ground!” she pecked and scratched and dug at the soft earth, and turned up an oblivious worm for the pleasure.
                The pursuing gnomes, intrigued by the sudden disruption and always eager to steal prey from another, ceased their chase and turned to face the bird.
                “Prey running!” one of them snapped.
                “Prey running can get away! Prey underground can be ambushed. Early bird always gets worm!” Stuffed Robin shrieked back.
                “It night!” protested the gnome with the wheelbarrow, whose material transportation skills clearly hadn’t robbed him of the ability to tell the time.
                “Night very early indeed for next morning.” replied Stuffed Robin, pulling the worm out and attempting to swallow it. This amounted, in actuality, to giving it a small, private hotel room with a feathered exterior, on account of its hollow and decorative nature.
                Regardless, this open display of hunting success did not involve waiting around for prey to wander in, nor did it require anyone to scan the furrowed ground for hours on end. They could instead indulge themselves in the visceral pleasure of tearing apart the ground and even find a meal while doing so. Immediately the gardening tools in their hands, thus far applied only to the pursuit of maiming and harming, were turned to the totally unexpected task of gardening.
                “Teach us more! Show us!” slathered and snarled the gnomes, looming over the robin.
                “Will show! Get away, find own patch, then dig. Dig early! Dig fast! Then to bed, ready for next early!” she bellowed. A glance shot towards the Friends of Christmas confirmed that they had been spared, and all she needed to do was hold her nerve for a while. For a being without any nerves of which to speak, it had to be easy enough.

                “Is Stuffed Robin going to be alright?” asked Cotton Snowman, as he and the others stared back from the far fence line.
                “It appears from cursory inspection that she has conducted a successful coup, and taken command of the garden gnomes, sir. They would appear to be digging fortifications or preparing to bury precious equipment or similar. Stuffed Robin appears unharmed at this time.”
                “She did a wonderful job of distracting them. Her quick thinking has ensured that are able to continue our vital work.” said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, clumps of earth clinging to his legs and chest.
                “And we can have faith that she will escape the gnome’s clutches by a Christmas miracle!” beamed Paper Cup Angel, who had somehow managed to come out perfectly clean. The others tried not to think too hard about it.
                Immediately next to the four remaining Friends of Christmas was the objective towards which they had been so recently crawling and running; the gutter drainpipe which led all the way from the garden to the roof with a single vertical passageway. Black plastic, easily wide enough to accommodate them all, opened up over a rubber grating which separated the garden’s debris from the drains below. Like festive funicular it was to be their deliverance from the damp and dirty ground to the promise of purpose up above.
                “Let’s keep moving then. We’ve still got a chimney to clear and Christmas to save.”
                “After you then, snowman. You led us safely through gnome territory, and I have every faith in you to do the same up the drainpipe.” said the troll.
                “Sure.” he replied, bouncing his muddy way onto the grating. Directly above him was a small, rough-edged circle of light in a sea of perfect darkness; the aperture through which they had to pass in order to save Christmas. He stretched his arms out, ready to grab onto the pipe, and leapt as high as he could.
                The squeaking of crate paper against wet plastic was not the most offensive sound in the world, but it was far from pleasant. Equally distant from pleasant was the revelation that there was no purchase to be found on the interior of the pipe. Its smooth and concave profile left nothing for a hand to grasp, or on which a foot might rest. Cotton Snowman tried again, pushing outwards harder with both hands, but again he slid back out anticlimactically.
                “Ah.” said Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, seeing the problem. “We had not considered the practical realities of climbing a gutter, had we?”
                Heads were shaken all round.
                “I suggest, sir, that we might find equipment in the shed which can be used to build a frame, or a set of hard-points to allow a rope assisted ascent.”
                “I like to think myself an optimist,” said Paper Cup Angel, resting one hand on Wooden Soldier’s shoulder, “but even I can say that there’s no way we’ll make it to the shed, find the tools we need, manage to carry them back, then be able to use them sufficiently well to make effective climbing infrastructure.”
                The other decorations gaped at the angel in stunned silence. There was no denying the sense in her words, and everyone was agreed that Wooden Soldier’s plan may as well have been to wish themselves to the roof instead, but realism from Paper Cup Angel was not within the realms of expectation. It felt wrong when it reached their ears.
                “Noted, ma’am.”
                “For that to work it would have to be… a Christmas miracle!” she cried suddenly, spinning herself around in a smug pirouette of minor deception. Everything seemed alright again.
                “Yeah, sure, great. Why don’t we just have you fly everyone up, in that case?” asked Cotton Snowman, whose words might not have been entirely earnest. “I mean, you’re an angel and we’re waiting for a Christmas miracle, right? That would definitely be one.”
                “Yes! Yes you’re right! We’ve been too nebulous and speculative with the miracles for which we’ve been hoping, but for me to fly? Well, that would be the perfect kind of festive magic for the occasion!” Paper Cup Angel said, excitedly dancing around on the grass. “Everyone, quickly! Gather around me at the bottom of the drainpipe. If we hope really hard and believe it’s possible, then we’ll surely make it up to the roof.”
                Cotton Snowman was at a total loss for words while the angel spoke, and then wondered if words would ever be found again, when Wooden Soldier and Disquieting Norse Troll Lad diligently rushed to join her on the grating. Feeling his perception of reality crashing down around him, which was quite the feeling for a moving, talking and thinking tree decoration, he was compelled to go along with the plan that his sarcasm had wrought in his well-intentioned and trusting friends.
                “Hold on to me, everyone, and remember that this can only work if we all believe, really believe, together.” the angel said, excitedly. A wave of guilt rushed up the snowman.
                “We’re in position and fully briefed, ma’am.” said Wooden Soldier. “Prepared to believe on your mark.”
                “I believe in you, Paper Cup Angel.” added Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, whose mass was easily twenty times that of the angel.
                “I… you’ve got this?” said Cotton Snowman, the guilt of a lie adding to the remorse in which he was already swimming. It was the unique regret of saying something hurtful and then having those words taken to heart, in good faith, as the basis of a bad plan. He’d created hope where there should have been none. He’d created the opportunity for his friends to have their night-long dream dashed against the rocks. He’d set the angel up for a fall, or for not having the ability to cause a fall, and it was hard to decide which of those interpretations felt worse.
                “Ready… and… wish!” said Paper Cup Angel, closing her eyes tightly, clenching her fists, and flapping her wings. Grunting and straining sounds came from her and the other decorations as they all tried their hardest to wish for the angel to fly, and even Cotton Snowman gave it a guilty go, but in the end there was no lift to be felt. Not even a tiny hop or modest bounce could be shown for their efforts.
                “Don’t worry, Paper Cup Angel,” said the troll, “these things don’t always work first time. We just need to wish harder.”
                Another wave of guilt crashed into Cotton Snowman, overwhelming the sea wall and washing away several beach huts.
                “I can fly!” the angel cried, willing it to be true, and a further round of closed-eye grunting followed, with three decorations denying reality and one lamenting his words.
                “We’re armed for another salvo of wishing, ma’am. On your word.”
                This time, when they all closed their eyes, Cotton Snowman slipped away from the grating. The answer to their woes was in sight.
                “Keep trying, and keep your eyes closed.” he told them. “I think I can feel it working this time if you just keep trying.”
                The three Friends of Christmas beneath the drainpipe heard a scraping and dragging sound, which, for all they knew, might well be the sound of festive magic being cast. Then there was a click, the kind of click that could easily have come from a miracle being authorised by the Christmas authorities, whoever they might be. Finally, the roaring, whooshing blast of air that erupted into them from sources unknown could only have been the rush of pure magic overtaking every part of their bodies. They started to rise.
                “I’m doing it! I’m flying! We’re flying to the roof and it’s a Christmas miracle!” laughed Paper Cup Angel with euphoria. The soldier and the troll, too, couldn’t help but laugh joyfully as yet another impossible obstacle was overcome.
                “But wait, where’s Cotton Snowman!?” asked Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, having opened his eyes to confirm the miracle. Only he and Wooden Soldier were clinging to the angel’s cup.
                Unable to hear them, and unable to see them since they’d disappeared up the drainpipe, Cotton Snowman smiled sadly to himself as he sat, pushing with all his might, on the power switch of the leaf blower. Mummy had left it out after the clearing the drain, and maybe that was the real Christmas miracle for which they’d been waiting. All he’d had to do was point it in the right direction and let the angel find her magic.
                “We’re nearly there! Gosh we’re going quickly. I’d recommend you hop off me when we get to the top, because I’m not in a lot of control of this newfound flight, yet.” Paper Cup Angel said, “Although, maybe instant control will become part of the miracle when I need it!”
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad’s scraggly beard rustled and whipped in the rush of air, his hessian clothes rippled, and the mud coating his body was blasted clean off. As they flew upwards, higher and higher, he wondered how the snowman had managed to make this happen. Hating to be a Christmas sceptic but condemned to being a year-round realist, there was no way Paper Cup Angel had been touched by the divine, despite her outward appearance. This meant that she would not be blessed with immediate mastery of her powers of flight, and that her advice to let go at roof height was very much worth taking.
                “We’ll leap off when we’re clear of the gutter and meet you on the roof.” he said, with all the best intentions of following through with that promise. Fate, however, conspired to make him a liar.
                A dousing of moonlight overtook the three decorations as they burst from the upper aperture of the gutter, sending with themselves a small spray of leaf litter and moss which had been sitting around innocently, minding its own business. When the troll and the wooden soldier let go, crunching down onto the tiles and spilling one or two loose ones onto the garden below, the effective mass of Paper Cup Angel reduced significantly. This meant, in the same rapid airflow, her velocity increased by quite a margin.
                “I’m still going!” she called down. “It’s still a miracle!”
                All that Wooden Soldier and Disquieting Norse Troll Lad could do was watch Paper Cup Angel spin higher and higher, drifting slightly off to one side, thanks to her lopsided wings. Soon, among the glare and glow of roof decorations across the street, they lost sight of her, but they knew that she would be happy. After all, she’d finally experienced a real Christmas miracle.
                “Sir, I regret to inform you that Paper Cup Angel is formally missing in action. Should we inform the next of kin? Because I think that's us. So I think I've already done it, and I apologise for informing the next of kin without expressed permission, sir.”
                “That's all right, Wooden Soldier.” said the troll. “You've done a good job, and so did the angel. We must honour her memory by finishing our important Christmas mission.”
                High above them, atop the pitched roof in all of its steep, rain-shedding glory, was the chimney pot. There as but one final Christmas journey left to make, before they could complete their divine work.
                Wordlessly, the troll and the soldier began their hike, short legs made of hessian and wood doing their utmost to climb the sharply inclined, tiled surface. Occasionally they would come across a loose tile which would slip unnervingly beneath their feet, but no more since their crash landing had made the full journey from roof to patio. The night was still, which was a blessing for small, lightweight decorations with no desire to be blown away, but regardless the climb was hard and dangerous, like a tremendously out of date yoghurt.
                "Only a few more rows of tile, sir." said Wooden Soldier, stepping across a broad plate of lichen. "The target is very nearly in reach. Would you like me to press forwards ahead of the main unit to secure the area?"
                "No, I think that it will be fine if we stay together." replied the troll, bouncing slightly on a lump of moss. It released some moisture into his foot. "Ugh."
                “There’s evidence of pigeon activity on the peak, sir. They may have been planning this operation carefully for some time, or they may just perch on this roof often while hiding from foxes. Insufficient intelligence has been gathered to determine which is the case.”
                “That’s not entirely surprising; we often see pigeons on the rooftops around here.” said the troll. “In fact, it’s where we most often see birds of any variety.”
                “Then they were able to hide in plain sight there. Devious work by the opposition, sir.” Wooden Soldier said, missing the point to a degree which might well have been deliberate.
                By this stage, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad had also made it to the peak of the roof, and was able to inspect the long slicks of pigeon evidence, as the soldier had euphemised.  Capability did not, however, give way to motivation, and so the troll kept his mind on the task at hand. Leading the way now, he covered the remaining few feet to reach the base of the chimney stack, a mere few bricks’ ascent separating the Friends of Christmas, such as they now were, from the resolution of their mission.
                With a bounce, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad made a brave effort to reach his arms up to the top of the stack, stretching them as high and long as he could. Short, stubby fingers of hessian which had, until recently, been sewn to his stomach failed to grasp onto the edge. They slid and scraped down the brickwork, leaving damp trails of failure. Again, he tried to grab the top, but with no better result. His stature and athletic prowess were simply not up to the task, it seemed.
                “Here, sir.” said Wooden Soldier, kneeling down at the base of the stack and attempting to cup her hands. Due to an unfortunate lack of vision by the decoration manufacturer, the soldier didn’t really have the right joints for such a helpful manoeuvre, so she settled for cupping a single hand. “I’ll help you up, and you can complete the mission.”
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad looked up at the top of the chimney stack again, and followed it up with some cursory spatial reasoning.
                “I won’t be able to reach down and pull you up, Wooden Soldier.”
                “I understand sir, and I won’t be able to negotiate with the pigeons to clear their casino before midnight. Your skillset is required to complete that objective, and my skillset was only required to get you here.”
                Standing on the rooftop, surrounded by Christmas lights and pigeon waste, the troll looked into the eyes of the soldier. She was surprisingly impassive, wearing the composed and controlled mask of a special operative; sacrifice and abandonment came easily to her, it seemed. That didn’t make it any easier on him though.
                “But how will you get down?”
                “I’ll find a way, sir. I have plenty of recon intelligence on the house and its surrounding terrain.”
                “But what if you can’t?”
                “I’ll do it anyway.” she said, with bewildering confidence and logic. “It’ll be a Christmas miracle. Now please, climb up before either of us thinks too hard about how pedestrian my act of self-sacrifice feels compared to everyone else’s.”
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad nodded, with more solemnity than the situation really called for.
                “Sounds like an excellent plan to me, Wooden Soldier. I’ll see you after the miracle, then.”
                Placing one small hessian foot onto Wooden Soldier’s hand, the troll stretched his hands upwards and bounced on his other leg. On the third bounce, which was apparently an unspoken signal between them, Wooden Soldier stood up and hefted the troll skywards. This time, the hessian fingers found purchase on the upper lip of the brickwork, and with a few helpful nudges from the soldier below he was able to clamber his way up.
                “The chimney pot should be easy to scale under your own power, sir. Then you need simply lower yourself gracefully into the casino and begin your parlay. I wish you the best of luck.” Wooden Soldier called up.
                “Thank you, soldier.” replied the troll. He felt like he’d already said his goodbyes to the solider, and to say much more would have been awkward at best. Thinking it best to get himself into the chimney pot before the conversation could be further prolonged, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad vaulted the short terracotta pot and plunged himself into the heart of the threat to Christmas.
                Soot, ash and moss erupted in a plume as the troll’s hands and feet scraped along the interior walls of the chimney. Years of neglecting the work of the sweep had led to an unacceptable build-up of particulate matter and debris, and it was a miracle that Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man could ever get anywhere without being totally covered. It was also, however, a testament to the skill with which the pigeons could transport a whole casino’s worth of equipment without knocking the edges. Regardless of their poor timing, the birds knew what they were doing.
                It only a took a few seconds for the troll to come sliding down to the front, or more accurately top, entrance of the casino. A burly wood pigeon, covered in scars and missing enough feathers to stuff a reasonably sized pillow, held up a wing to bring the troll to a halt.
                “Welcome, patron. You don’t look like your normal clientele. Are you lost?” the pigeon asked, bobbing its head this way and that.
                “Hello there. I’m not lost, but you’re right that I wouldn’t normally attend your establishment. I'm here on critical business to see the proprietor of this casino.” said the troll, as respectfully as he could while holding his full bodyweight static.
                “The proprietor? You want to just turn up and talk to Beaks McKinley?”
                “I do, yes. I am a long-time friend to the pigeons of the area, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad.”
                “Oh, you’re Disquieting Norse Troll Lad? I should have guessed by how disquieted you made me feel.” acknowledged the pigeon bouncer, their demeanour softening a little. “While you’re welcome inside, I’m afraid I can’t guarantee you a chat with Beaks. The boss is very busy monitoring affairs in the casino. I’m sure you understand.”
                “I do, and I’m grateful, but this is a matter of great importance; the potential cancellation of Christmas hangs in the balance.”
                “Cancellation of Christmas?! But it’s only June!” cooed the bouncer with confused alarm.
                “By my scraggly beard, have you been using faulty calendars? It’s Christmas Eve, my friend! Why did you think the trees were bare and decorations littered the streets?”
                “I… I did wonder why summer was going on for so long, and why it was so cold, and why the big calendar in the town centre said it was December.” the pigeon thought out loud. Disquieting Norse Troll Lad nodded sagely. “You’d better talk to Beaks right away; I’ll take you to him now.”
                Before the troll could even thank the bouncer, the latter was dropping downward through the chimney, into the throng of gambling birds. Doing his best to keep up, without accidentally plummeting through a game of blackjack or over a roulette wheel, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad followed the pigeon bouncer past enthusiastic gamblers, diligent serving staff and professional dealers and croupiers. The scale and organisation of the casino was something to be beheld; it was easily the equal of the major gull casinos by the sea, or the sparrow-run racetracks out in the country, but all confined to the chimney of a semi-detached house in the suburbs. Beaks McKinley had always been resourceful, but this spoke to a whole new level of power and authority.
                “Through here.” the bouncer finally said, leading the troll slightly further down, which was the only direction in which they could travel in the narrow chimney. Sure enough, when the bouncer allowed him to squeeze past, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad found himself face-to-face with Beaks McKinley in all his sleek, ring-necked glory. The pigeon himself was counting through the night’s takings so far; enough berries, seeds and discarded crusts of bread to feed a flock for a month surrounded the pigeon, tucked into a series of scavenged carrier bags. He looked up when he saw a body of hessian lowering itself carefully into view.
                “Who’s this now? How can I-“ he started, before a glimmer of recognition appeared in his tiny avian eyes. “Disquieting Norse Troll Lad! What are you doing here?”
                “Hello, Beaks. Good to see that you’re doing well for yourself.”
                The bird gave a short bow.
                “I can’t complain. Some wise investments in people and infrastructure have taken me a long way.”
                “So I see. Your own casino! And you’re clearly not getting any trouble from that tomcat up the road anymore. No feathers missing at all.”
                “Aye, we managed to come to an accord. He leaves me alone, and he doesn’t get used batteries dropped on him. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.” said the pigeon, with that rarest of looks which conveys, with perfect certainty, that the wearer would love to drop some batteries on a violent feline. The troll recognised that he shouldn’t delay his business, lest the batteries start to fall closer to home.
                “Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re not being harried, and I’ll not take up more of your valuable time than is necessary, but I must come to you with grave news and a request of festive magnitude.”
                “A request? You know I will do what I can for you, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, but it’s a busy night. I’m meeting with a heron later about expanding into the reservoir.”
                “I understand, Beak, but I’m here to save Christmas. Only you can help.”
                The ring-necked dove sat up, which was impressive because he wasn’t sitting down to begin with.
                “You see, your casino is completely blocking the chimney, and tonight is Christmas Eve! In a few short hours it will be midnight, and if you’re all still in here, then-“
                “Then Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man won’t be able to get down the chimney, yeah I get it.” Beaks said, gravely. “And worse, if he sees us like this, he might decide that Little Miss belongs on the naughty list. That’d mean no presents at all, just a rag soaked in red diesel and a thoroughly spat-upon dog.”
                “I’m glad that the gravity of the situation has not escaped you.”
                “And I am glad that you brought this to my attention. Nothing kills a casino faster than scrutiny from the likes of Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man. I owe you one for this knowledge, and you owe me one for clearing out here and now. So we’re square, right?” said Beaks.
                “Completely. Better than that, we’re friends, Beaks. You’re just going to get everything out now?”
                “Yep. Davidian? Spread the word. Everyone up and out immediately. We’ll set up in the roof space of the garage for the rest of the night.”
                The bouncer nodded obediently and then unleashed a torrent of coos towards the other occupants of the chimney. A riot of feathers and flapping broke out above the troll, with birds both running and playing games making a sudden, undignified exit out of the terracotta chimney pot, before filling the night sky. The troll smiled broadly and earnestly, thinking that outside, on the roof, Wooden Soldier would see the winged legion departing and know that everything had worked out in the end. They’d saved Christmas.
                “Amazing. I can’t thank you enough, Beaks.”
                “I already said we’re square, troll. Now get back down to that living room and be ready for Christmas Day. We’ll speak again soon.” Beaks said, with a wink.  Two short flaps of his wings gave him enough lift to pass the troll, and soon he was out of sight, bags of winnings in his talons.
                Suddenly alone and quiet in the much more passable chimney, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad decided to take Beaks’ advice, linger no longer, and finish his descent. In a small spray of soot and dust, he plopped into the fireplace, the spot where this whole adventure had started so many minutes before. Had it been, four? Five? Six even? It was hard for him to say, but it was definitely over three minutes. There had been many sacrifices made, of varying necessity, and those losses would be felt for a long time to come, but at least Christmas had been saved.
                The living room was eerily silent. All of the other Friends of Christmas were strewn among the house and garden, so the job of safeguarding the night now fell to him and him alone. Trying to take a deep breath through his nose, but failing because he didn’t breathe, he knew that traditions still needed to be upheld, whether they could be verified by anyone else or not. It was time for the light and breeze check.
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad looked directly up. Through the long, thin chimney which had, until recently, held dozens of pigeons, he could feel a gentle breeze of unseasonably warm air, and could see the faint glow of the night sky. There was a bittersweet peace to it all, but a peace nonetheless.
                And then there was a cracking sound.
                A small stream of brick dust fell down at the troll’s feet. On instinct alone he stepped backwards, before a full chimney stack’s worth of bricks came crashing down onto the fireplace where the troll had just been standing. They cracked, bounced, burst and crushed their way into a pile, each new brick sending a spatter of dust and cement outwards like shrapnel from one of Wooden Soldier’s facsimile explosives. A mound of red and grey gradually grew, sending distinctly non-festive mess outwards, until it met the bottom of the chimney. Once again it was totally blocked, and Disquieting Norse Troll Lad could only gape at it in horror.
                “No. No, no, no! I can’t move all this! After everything we did, all these sacrifices, those silly pigeons ran away too quickly and knocked the blasted chimney down!” he lamented to no-one, for there was no-one left to hear it.
                Red dust covered the fireplace, the troll and the carpet. It was like the flaring of a sunrise over a mountain, but the only thing that this display of colour heralded was the ruination of Christmas Day.
                Panicking, Disquieting Norse Troll Lad grabbed at one of the pieces of brick. He heaved, and he tugged, and he hauled, but even a modest chunk was too heavy for him to move. His hessian hands gave up their grip and he fell backwards onto the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
                “So this is it? After our night’s glorious adventure, and after overcoming such hardship, it was all pointless. We were doomed from the start.” he said to the middle distance, the most supportive of distances in trying times. “Wooden Soldier would call it a rout.” he chuckled to himself, grimly. “Cotton Snowman would have something very reasonable but pessimistic to say, Stuffed Robin would think whatever I told her to, and Anthropomorphic Snowflake would ask whether Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man could walk through brick.”
                Outside the window, the neighbour’s bright blue outside lights stopped flashing. They’d gone to bed and switched them off, it seemed.
                “And Paper Cup Angel? She’d say… she’d say…”
                The troll sat up, and looked down at his hands.
                “She’d say we needed a Christmas miracle. And I cannot think of a better time to trust our fates in taking no action and hoping things resolve themselves.”
                With an awkward set of movements, the troll rolled from sitting to kneeling. With hands clasped together he looked at the pile of bricks, and hoped beyond hope that something divine, or sorcerous, or magical, or even just coincidental, would deliver him from this challenge that he could not overcome.
                In the end, after several minutes of concerted hope, a Christmas miracle didn't come. Whichever knowable or unknowable forces governed the distribution and execution of Christmas miracles didn’t deem it worthy or necessary to visit Disquieting Norse Troll Lad. Nor, sadly, did a Boxing Day miracle come to save the day, nor a New Year's miracle or even an Easter miracle. No, in the end, after everything they’d done, it was a late May Bank Holiday miracle, which had been deferred until the winter because it fit better with the calendar's overall plans for the year, that came to the rescue.
                It was during that Late May Bank Holiday that a certain badger sett, located just behind the church hall on the common land, had collapsed after a few weeks of heavy rain and fly tipping. Finding themselves with nowhere to sleep, and an old washing machine in the place they'd previously rested their heads, the displaced badger family had embarked on their own holiday adventure. Through travails of busy roads, frightened pedestrians, dogs with loud voices and bins which were too tempting to leave unmolested, they had made their way across the town until they found a soft patch of earth by the side of a garden fence.
                This family of badgers was famous, in local circles, for its world-leading and genre-defining digging capability. Many badgers were experts in the soil redistribution arts, but these particular ones were mustelids of well-earned reputation and tremendous skill. Where other badgers would have contented themselves with making a sett where they were, perhaps ruining the lawn and breaking the fence in the process, the displaced family instead dug a tunnel. It was a tunnel so deep that there was no evidence of it on the surface, and so long that it covered the full length of the adequately tended lawn, stretched right underneath gnome territory, and punched through the foundation of the house. Only then did a sett come to form, in the space directly beneath Mummy, Daddy and Little Miss' living room.
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad, despite being a friend to the badgers in principle, was ignorant to all of this. When he heard the scratching of claws beneath the floorboards, the grunting of a mustelid at work, and the cracking of a fireplace under great stress, he wondered if it was simply the sound of great misfortune befalling his home once more, making it up to a nice, round three calamities in one night. When the pile of bricks collapsed outwards, seemingly spontaneously, he worried that one or more of the pigeons had somehow become trapped in the rubble. At no point did he consider that the miracle for which he had been hoping, regardless of its origin, was being enacted in front of his very plastic eyes.
                When Mrs Badger's head came bursting out of the brick pile, dusty from bricks, dirt, broken floorboards and shattered fireplaces, it was still a matter of some alarm.
                "Oh, no. I'm not giving up another premium sett just because some rubbish was dumped on my roof. Did you fly tip all this here?" she demanded of the troll. He shook his head, making his beard rustle like an old broom. "No, I don't suppose you could have shifted these bricks by yourself. It was a silly thing to ask, forgive me."
                "Already done." chuckled Disquieting Norse Troll Lad. "The chimney collapsed when a casino of pigeons fled, so that passage could left clear for Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man, rendering their departure totally pointless, it pains me to say. He'd never get through that rubble. The glorious Christmas Adventure that my friends and I undertook, through hardships and trials aplenty, was futile." he lamented, before remembering his manners. "But you don't need to hear about my problems when your home was nearly squashed."
                Normally, the badger would have agreed. She would have said that she had no quarrel with the troll, but unless he was going to help her get peanuts, worms or other tasty treats then she didn't need to hear him out at all. But the last of the Late May Bank Holiday magic still swirled around them, and his plight made her think of her own arduous journey, so many months before.
                "You need the path cleared? My lot can do that for you. We're great at shifting heavy things, and I want to get all this weight off my roof anyway."
                A light shine from behind Disquieting Norse Troll Lads eyes. He must have knocked the power switch on his back when he fell down earlier.
                "You'll help us? You'll save Christmas?!"
                 "We will, because I'm feeling strangely charitable tonight. Where do you want all the bricks? And why do you keep saying we? Where's everyone else?"
                "That is a bit of a tale, I'm afraid." warned the troll, before launching into a full account of the nights events. Mrs Badger's wouldn't mind the details, he was sure. After all, she was surely his Christmas miracle, he mistakenly but understandably surmised.
                As it was, the Late May Bank Holiday miracle had many tendrils, so powerful of a miracle had it been. While the badgers cleared the bricks, and built them into a tasteful pathway to lead Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man from chimney to Christmas tree, there was a whirring from the kitchen diner. Bursting through the door came Whirring Metal Suction Construct, following a trail of caster sugar being laid down before it by its rider, Anthropomorphic Snowflake. Behind it marched a legion of garden gnomes, well-fed and no longer cranky, with Stuffed Robin at the forefront of their ranks. By her side was Cotton Snowman, bouncing along casually, without getting as carried away as his companions. Finally, with a pair of Beaks McKinley-feather parachutes, Wooden Soldier and Paper Cup Angel drifted gracefully down the chimney, and landed beside the gaping hole where the badgers had erupted.
                Disquieting Norse Troll Lad looked around himself giddily, laughing with the relief and ecstasy of reunion, a job well done, and a Christmas thoroughly saved.
                The next morning, Little Miss ran excitedly into the living room to find a pile of gifts from Sack-Bearing Nocturnal Intruder Man, just as she deserved. Mummy and Daddy arrived to find their chimney in bits on the carpet, their fireplace ruined, a hole in the floor, all their garden gnomes strewn muddily around the room, the sugar exploded over the living room and the kitchen-diner, and their robotic vacuum cleaner totally out of battery power. Only after much swearing, and a telephone call to the police, did they notice an arbitrary grouping of six Christmas decorations on the windowsill, huddled as if in a group hug, and positioned to have presumably witnessed the whole sordid affair. They suspected the work of a nocturnal intruder with motivations unknown, but only those six decorations, the Friends of Christmas, would know which nocturnal intruder it had all been for.