Christmas time. The best time of the year for children of all ages. Through his social circles, Max has accumulated quite a lot of families he likes to visit during the holidays. This year in particular he came up with a fun idea. He got the adults to pitch in and rent a cabin this year, driving the cost for a mini-Christmas vacation down to a very affordable cost for just about everyone. This accomplishes two big goals – Christmas Eve turns into a very big sleepover for all of the kids in the playroom, and in the living room the adults get to properly socialize and drink without having too much stress.
This also means the adults get to enjoy the best part of Christmas, watching the kids open their gifts, and once gifts are open, they can go sleepoff their eggnog related hangovers, aside from the ones who opted to supervise on Christmas morning.
All of the kids had a fun Christmas Eve sleepover, but there was a particular rule that all of the adults agreed upon to make things easier. A lot of the children at the event require bed-wetting protection and some even need them for daytime accidents, so to avoid any embarrassment throughout the sleepover, it's decided that all of the children are to wear diapers, even if they don't require them. There were some rather loud complaints from a few of the children, but a few fake threats about being taken home brought them down to quiet mumbles. The kids who don't need them weren't required to use them, but it's better safe than sorry when you're in a rented location and loaded up on sugary hot chocolate before bedtime on Christmas Eve.
But the night went smoothly with plenty of Christmas cheer and the kids were put to bed at a bit before midnight. Most of the other adults were already several drinks in at the point having a great time socializing. Melody ended up losing her right to sleep in after losing it in a poker game to Julia, which lead to plenty of laughs after Melody groaned about the holidays being unfair.
In the earliest part of the morning before dawn, Max and Augustin put on a couple of costumes. Augustin lost the bet and ended up as one of Santa's deer, with Max playing the role of Santa, with a stuffed belly and white beard. Max and Augustin unload an extra batch of presents underneath the tree for all of the kids, while attempting to stay quiet. All of the other kids are in respective bedrooms sleeping, but their intentional choice to ring some small bells gets some kids awake, but all of them were told to not get up in the middle of the night as they wouldn't want to interrupt Santa's gift giving!
The adults told the kids in a no-nonsense way that gifts aren't going to be opened until 6AM. Several kids are already awake at that point, primarily the more excitable ones or the ones with bedwetting needs that need to be resolved before the presents are opened. Most of the adults are sleep deprived and some are hungover, but they all manage to get their respective children taken care of and all enjoy the morning watching their children enjoy their presents. All of the children seem very satisfied with their gifts and thank their parents and 'Santa' for their gifts.
Max and Augustin kept their respective costumes on since all of the kids seemed to enjoy seeing them dressed up. With most of the gifts having been opened, the more sleepy and hungover adults hug their respective kids and head back to bed, telling them to behave and that 'Santa' is watching and is already making his naughty list for next year. All of the kids seem to be preoccupied with either their Xmas activities or gifts, so no incidents should occur.
Once the gifts are all more or less set, that leaves 4 adults to look over 14 children, which is more than fair since they're all in the same room and enjoying either toys or their friends for entertainment. Max and Augustin primarily keep a focus on the youngest children in the room while making sure the remainder of the children are still present and happy.
Minny quickly recognized her babysitter Max in the Santa costume but her mother already told her last night that the real Santa recruited Max to help out since Santa has a lot of homes to visit, which makes perfect sense to the four year old Chai cub. She got a few toys she wanted, but also a plethora of storybooks, one of her favorite activities. Max offered storytime to any of the kids who wanted it, but all of them have new toys to play with, so it's mainly just Minny and Rachel for story time in this early part of the morning. Minny snuggles up with her favorite 'Santa', her diaper crinkling as she sits on his lap and enjoys the story with him.
Rachel is a bundle of energy this particular morning who's been already grabbed by Augustin a couple of times for running around. She got some lovely stuffed animals but she's very excited. Since Augustin is still in his deer costume, he decides to help Rachel relieve some of her excitement by letting her ride one of Santa's reindeer. She squeals as she gets to do so, definitely having a fun experience with her teacher. It's a good thing that Rachel remained diapered because a little girl hopped up on sugar and excitement is a prime target for accidents, but thankfully this morning all remained an amazing day for her.
A bit away from the tree, two of the girls are experimenting with one of their gifts. Kiki's early childhood before becoming Max's foster hatching was in an all-boys environment, so she had very few girly experiences. But since moving in with Max, she's gotten to experience things like a proper girl should. Her bedwetting means she was one of the reasons the group diapering rule was put into place, but she doesn't mind, and she was a bit grateful the rule was put into place so she wouldn't feel too bad. Among her gifts was a makeup and nail painting set, something she was interested in trying out right away!
Vixy had no problem letting herself be volunteered for her best friend's girly experiments. Today has been a rather lovely morning for the girl. Last night was at first a bit tough because she was one of the louder complainers about the diaper policy, but considering ALL of the kids were wearing them, she reluctantly agreed to it. She told her daddy Augustin that doing this was one of HER gifts to him, which made him laugh.
This is Jade and Ocelotte's first group Christmas event, usually just spending it with their parents at home. Neither of them complained about the diaper policy, both of them being infrequent bedwetters, it just makes it easier to have it out in the open. Being a bit mischievous, Ocelotte decided to introduce himself and his brother as twin sisters to the ones who didn't already know them. At that age and with their frames, it wasn't too hard for some of the other kids who didn't know, along with some of the other adults to see that. However in the poker game with all of the adults, the twin's mother Selena let the other adults know that their children are in fact males, but like to indulge in some girlish tendencies, which all of the other adults are ok with, not too difficult to file away in their mental banks.
Jade couldn't exactly back out of Ocelotte's claim of sisterhood, deciding to go along with it. If it comes up, he can just say he was playing a trick later. But it was a bit fun getting to pretend to be a girl for a night. Ocelotte's claim came to bite them back on Christmas morning after the gift giving. The twins were pulled away by the two mothers for a bit of 'girl time'.
Next to the tree in the center of the room are the other two parents who drew the short end of the stick with watching over the children. Melody, Minny's mother, and Heather, Rachel's mother. Both of them are still in their early motherhoods with their own young children, but it's very nice for them to be able to act in a motherly role for some of the older children. Both of their small children either have short hair or are still growing it out, so both mothers relish the opportunity to play with long lovely boyhair, putting them in a variety of styles. Both twins felt a bit awkward but it was fun to experiment a bit with a few different alternative hairstyles and they've both got some other hair experiments to talk to each other about later on!
One group of friends all got the same gift among their presents and got to work right away. Yuuma, Chloe, Finn, and Aidan all got a copy of 'Human Hunter Z', a game beyond adult comprehension where armor-clad furs take on naked giant humanoid creatures. It's Christmas and their other gifts can wait until later when they're home and not in prime gamer socialization hours!
In their little gamer group, only Finn needed any sort of bedwetting protection, and he was nearly as loud as Vixy for the fact that he'd be diapered instead of wearing his preferred Goodnites, but a threat from his father to be taken home got him to accept it for Christmas Eve only. He felt much better on Christmas morning once everything was settled in and he had gifts to open. He got really into the game with the group, wanting to explore as much of the content with his friends as fast as he could!
Aidan is newer to the group, but happily fit in once he found out that Finn is as much of a gamer as he is! He doesn't need diapers but he's partaken in them before, so he took the protection rule without any sort of complaint. He feels like he'll be great buddies once he gets to know this group a bit more, but for now he'll do his best to bring a bit of chill energy to the group and play games with him while sharing his known tips and strategies.
Chloe and Yuuma are well known even among the adults that they are a couple and have been for years, and will continue to be for many more years, probably even forever. They complete each other and are frequently in each other's company, if not in each other's arms. Which is why it's absolutely to no one's surprise that while Yuuma is taking a break from Human Hunter Z, he's cuddling Chloe instead. Yuuma doesn't need any sort of protection but a certain babysitter introduced them to him, so he was perfectly fine with the group rule. The girl being cuddled however was THE loudest complainer about the rule, and she was nearly inconsolable. It was only through Yuuma's own wearing them first that she grit her teeth and wore them like everyone else. But the morning was much better once the gifts were opened and she's having fun with her friends and boyfriend.
The Larimore girls are frequent attenders at Max's parties, being their most frequent babysitter. Neither Lynnelle nor Chelsea need any sort of protection but they're both used to his antics and willing to cooperate with adults that they didn't fuss too much about the diapers. Lynnelle got plenty of gifts, but she finds interacting with unusual things to be the most fun. As long as she's laughing and not actually stuck, none of the adults mind her playing with some of the Christmas lights, as they're made of plastic and won't hurt her. Chelsea helped out most of the other kids throw away the leftover packaging, as she's a bit of a clean freak, so she's one of the last kids to actually open her gifts. She got a new telescope part she wanted, so the girl is having a fantastic time wondering what she'll see in the stars once she goes home.
Lucky, the former street rat turned foster child, still can't break her habits. She's a loud denier that she's a bedwetter, always claiming that an evil raincloud haunts her and wets her bed if she's not wearing diapers. This is a true fact, but no adults can actually believe in such a crazy story. Lucky grew up having to steal food, and all of the delicious candy canes on the tree are too much for her to resist taking as many as she can inside of her gift boxes. She did get permission to take them and all of the other kids got plenty of candy in their stockings, so it's ok for Lucky to take as many as she can reach off the tree, considering she's having a lot of fun doing so in the process.
And the last child Zoe still hasn't gotten to open her gifts, as she was the first one down the stairs and she found that Santa only ate one of the cookies and only had a sip of milk. She had no issues with the group padding either, having worn them in a variety of way since meeting Max. Being known for her sweet tooth, she couldn't let that slide. She was going to be a good girl and help Santa finish off his treat. But eating a few cookies and milk in the early morning got her nice and sleepy, and considering the girl can sleep like a rock, she's bound to be out for a little bit longer before she wakes up to realize that she's the last one to open her gifts!
All in all, it was an extremely hectic Christmas, but one that was very fun for everyone. They'll have to do this again, since it's easier to have one large party rather than individual parties at their own houses. Some kids might complain about the rules but they can't deny that this sort of thing was so much fun and something they'll remember for years and years to come!
