Nick's been busy since he arrived on the island. Once he realized that this isn't a temporary rest stop, that riding the train just brings him back where he started, he set about ensuring that Christmas was going to be a merry one no matter where he spent it and who he spent it with. He has faith in the universe that everything is going to turn out ( Read more... )

Rickon, for once, was mostly behaving himself. He was not terrorising anyone, destroying anything, or crying, but sitting in a corner of the kitchen happily scribbling away on large sheets of paper with the markers Susan had found in the rec room, and most importantly, he was happy. This was a pleasure that happened far too seldom, and luckily it ( Read more... )

The little girl is absolutely covered in glitter. For a moment, Karen just stares, horrified. This wasn't supposed to happen. They were sitting making Christmas cards and Karen promised Lily that she'd take good care of Emmy. She'd made sure she didn't cut herself with scissors. She'd carefully drawn a Christmas tree for Emmy to colour in. ( Read more... )

As much as Owen hated the fact that the island had turned into some kind of a winter wonderland overnight, he wasn't about to stay cooped up in the compound until the snow'd melted. For starters, the cold meant it was more crowded inside than usual, and sitting around in the rec room really only meant there were more chances he'd end up stuck under ( Read more... )

Up on the wall of his study, Nick has a lovely landscape painting depicting a quaint little cottage and stable alone in the midst of a winter wonderland. It's meant to be a picture of the North Pole, but it's obviously nothing more than a fantasy. Still, Nick thinks the picture is charming and likes to look at it sometimes and imagine a life in ( Read more... )

It was Christmas Day, and in the world of Saint Nick, that meant only one thing: making sure that every girl and boy got their piece of holiday cheer. Nick'd been hard at work for weeks now, using his time on the island not only to acquaint himself with the people but also to craft enough gifts to ensure everyone had a happy holiday. It might not ( Read more... )

Hailing from Southern California, Shari's experience with snow was limited, at best. She'd spent some Christmases in the Lake Tahoe area with her family, and had been on a couple of skiing trips, but she'd always spent most of her time indoors by the fireplace and had never really understood the concept of enjoying snow. The cold didn't agree ( Read more... )

Stephen was building a snowman.

Back in New York, he liked the winter weather enough, but he especially liked it now, after months of heat and sun. It was December. It was supposed to be cold and gray ( Read more... )

Though Jim would never admit it, waking up to snow the day before had been a welcome sight. After years living in an island setting, the charm of it always being warm was lost. It wasn't really special when it was the same thing all the time. He almost missed the change of seasons now, and this month was the closest to that ( Read more... )

Sometimes, even for Saint Nick himself, it was hard not to let the modern world get you down. Kids weren't asking for dolls and teddy bears and toy trucks anymore, they were asking for Wiis and iPods and Guitar Hero. These days Nick was starting to feel more like a distributor than a craftsman ( Read more... )