Yeah, so this story might be kind of ridiculous, but hopefully it's the good, enjoyable kind of ridiculous…Anyways, here's my 2018 Christmas present, with one chapter each day until the 25th! Enjoy!

It started with a war of Christmas lights.

Jude and Layla Heartfilia had always had a reputation of going all-out for the winter holidays, their Christmas light display by far the most extravagant on Strawberry Street. None of their neighbors had ever even tried to compete, though admittedly, none of them really cared for the unspoken competition in which the Heartfilias were the only contestants.

But in May of 1994, the couple met their match, though they wouldn't know it until later that year, specifically not until the Friday after Thanksgiving.

The Dragneels had seemed like a nice enough family when they'd moved into the house next door, and not even being seven months pregnant had stopped Layla from going to greet their new neighbors, a plate piled high with freshly baked brownies in her grasp. Grandeeny had accepted them as graciously as she could with the nearly one-year-old pinkette squirming in her arms, the little Dragneel boy fighting with everything he had to get a look at what was on the plate.

And when Layla had given birth to a little girl on the first of July, the Dragneels had been there to support their neighbors of two months, cooking all kinds of casseroles and desserts for the new parents while they adjusted to life with a child.

But then Thanksgiving came and went, and the Christmas lights went up…and things got fierce.

At first, Jude hadn't though much of it when he went out to begin the lengthy process that was stringing the lights onto their roof, trees, fence, and whatever other surfaces he could possibly throw some lights onto to achieve maximum Christmas spirit and pizzazz, simply giving Igneel a pleasant and quick wave in greeting as his neighbor went about putting up his own lights on the roof of his home.

It was only when Jude had emptied three storage bins of lights that he realized Igneel was still outside, and he was still putting up lights, having moved on to the small trees that decorated their front yard. If he was putting up a normal amount of lights, then there was no way he wasn't done yet, and that's when the idea of the arrival of a possible rival entered Jude's mind.

When the sun set and their own display was lit, the Heartfilia's suspicions were confirmed. The house next door was shining just as brightly, possibly even brighter than their own, which was absolutely not acceptable.

That night, the Heartfilias declared war on the Dragneels. No one had more Christmas spirit than they did and they were determined as hell to prove it.

The next day, Jude went and bought more lights, and up they went, too, as well as the light-up reindeer and candy canes that Layla had purchased to place across the yard.

A few days later, more lights went up on the Dragneel's home, and the Christmas tree, which was very visible through their front window, had a bit of extra shine, no doubt now donning a few more light strands and glittery ornaments.

The unspoken war had begun, and it was not fought without losses, each week giving way to a whole slew of new lights and Christmas figurines scattered across both yards.

On December nineteenth, Igneel had been stringing more lights on one of the tallest trees on his property when the first, and only, casualty of the war took place. Unlike his first day of stringing lights, there was certainly plenty of snow piled in his yard now, and his trek through it had wet the bottoms of his shoes. His decorating had gone fine for the first few minutes, but when he'd moved to climb a rung higher on his ladder, his foot slipped, sending him tumbling into the tightly packed snow below. His fall resulted in a broken wrist and a rather nasty gash to the jaw that left him with a, in his words, 'fucking badass' x-shaped scar.

The war was nearly forgotten the moment the Heartfilias heard about what had happened, the couple's guilt over initiating the petty battle leading to a truce, their apology coming in form of an invitation to Christmas dinner.

The Dragneels had accepted the treaty graciously, though not without a few conditions of their own, namely that Grandeeny would irrefutably be the one to bring the mashed potatoes and gravy, as well as her famous apple pie for desert.

The two families found themselves coming together on Christmas day after the presents had been opened and the ham had been baked, gathering at the table in the Heartfilia's humble dining room with both of their children seated in high chairs next to their parents and their trays filled only with foods that were appropriate for kids their age, though Igneel kept sneaking his son some mashed potatoes when his wife wasn't looking. During their meal, the four adults were taken back to before their little war had begun, recalling how they'd lived in amiable companionship in the months before that fateful Friday after Thanksgiving had come. There was nothing but genuine pleasantries to be exchanged as they returned to the way things had been, and even a few joking jabs about who had claimed victory were harmlessly tossed around, though a settlement was never reached due to the insistence of the families' patriarchs.

After dinner had been eaten and the table cleared, Grandeeny let her squirming little boy down from his high chair so he could crawl and maybe waddle around for a bit, though walking wasn't one of strong-suits just yet.

A few more moments of joyous conversation passed between the adults before Grandeeny's focus slid across the living room to do her routine check on her son to make sure he wasn't off wreaking havoc in her neighbor's home, the little pinkette having the tendency to get into everything and anything and somehow possessing the ability to climb atop every surface possible even though he could barely walk three steps without falling flat on his face.

Her heart nearly stopped, but also warmed a tiny fraction when she found him near where Layla had set Lucy to lay on a blanket beneath her star-filled mobile, the little boy unusually quiet and holding almost perfectly still. Natsu had sat himself right next to the little blonde, his back to his mother.

As Grandeeny saw one of the pinkette's chubby arms move towards Lucy, her heart leapt in her chest, because her son sure as hell was not coordinated enough and far too wild to avoid hurting the little girl. She nearly shot out of her seat to rush towards them, but a certain sound fluttered through the air, both stopping her advance and drawing the attention of the other three adults.

It was a giggle, clearly from Lucy, and it was soon followed by more, both from the blonde and from the salmon haired boy at her side.

Layla stood and slowly approached the two children so as not to disturb them, her hand settling atop her heart at the overwhelming adorableness of what was happening on the ground before her. Grandeeny soon joined her in her swooning, the two women gushing over their kids as their husbands chuckled in accompaniment.

Natsu's chubby little fingers were playing with Lucy's tiny nose, his little stockinged feet wriggling against her side. The blonde didn't seem at all bothered by him, her wide, brown eyes fastened on him as she continued to giggle, her laughter cueing Natsu's own.

That night, as their watched their children play together, the Heartfilias and Dragneels decided that there was definitely room for two ultra-festive houses on Strawberry Street, and sharing Christmas dinner became a tradition, the two children growing ever closer with each December that passed.

AN

AHHHHH I'm so excited for Christmas you guys, and I'm so excited for this story! I was going to post it on Christmas day last year as a one-shot, but then stuff happened and I wasn't up to finishing it, so I decided to postpone it for this year. And in my attempts to spruce it up a bit, it has evolved into something incredibly different from what it was originally.

But I'm still super excited about it, and I hope you guys are, too, because we get a chapter every single day until the final chapter on Christmas! This story will be formatted in a way that every chapter highlights certain events of a specific December (hence the title), so we'll get to see Natsu and Lucy's story through the years, starting with this chapter, when they're born, to when they're 25/24. An easy way to keep track of things is to remember that Natsu will always be the same age as the chapter number, and then Lucy's a year younger than him. Some of these first chapters will be really short snippets that are under a thousand words since their age limits the stuff I can do with them, but when they get older, the chapters should be of decent length.

But yeah, this will probably be the fluffiest thing I'll ever write, so enjoy it while it lasts. There'll be the tiniest, littlest sprinkling of angst in one chapter, but it'll mostly be fluffy, happy cuteness about them growing up and going from friends to lovers, and at the end, we'll get a tiny tiny tiny bit lemony. There won't actually be a lemon, but it'll sure as hell be implied ;) We'll also get sprinkles of some other ships, like Gruvia, Jerza, and Gajevy too!

Also, since this story is like, 75% inspired by events in my own life and the other 25% is random, made up fluff, it'll have a bit to do with ballet since I was a ballet dancer up until I graduated high school, and this year is only the second year that I can remember where I haven't had my December be swamped with Nutcracker rehearsals. Lucy will eventually become a ballet dancer, so just know that that's a big part of who she is in this story too (hence her wearing pointe shoes in the cover).

Anyways, I hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading and I hope you come back again tomorrow to read the next chapter!

Hint for next chapter: First snowfall