So this popped up to me last Friday after I'd finished an English test that I may or may not have studied for. I forget why, I forget what set the story off; but it's here now. I'm going to be posting the last chapter on December 25- so lucky to the people who hate stories with many short chapters, this is a story with many short chapters that shall be posted on frequetly- sometimes 2 days in a row.

This is a Christmas story about Santa- so make sure you've got Santa Claus' existence figured out in your head.

Also make sure you're up to date on The Heroes of Olympus (or at least the Lost Hero- you can figure out the rest for yourself).

Disclaimer: I don't own Travis or Connor Stoll, or Katie, or any of the Camp Half-Blood characters except for Aggie Sanchez and the other children of Hermes.

Dedicated to: The other nuts who sing Christmas carols in July. I know I'm not alone. Also to my friends, who befriended the nut who sings Christmas carols in July.

1

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Aggie 'bright eyes' Sanchez was camp's only resident 5 and under, which meant she was Hades of an attention vacuum.

The Aphrodite girls couldn't get over how cute she was.

The Demeter cabin was taking care of her a lot because that just wasn't a kind of thing they were ready to trust Cabin 11 with.

The Athena cabin was just waiting to teach her how to read and write fluently.

The Ares cabin just wanted to have a butt-kicking been-training-since-single-digits fighter.

And everyone else just thought she was cute.

"Travis?" Aggie asked. She was five years old, with midneck brown hair and blue eyes like the sky. Her two front teeth were coming in and she was so short compared to the rest of camp (even Leo), it was hilarious. She was wearing cute cabin-10-donated little girl clothes- tiny jeans and sneakers, a pink sweater and a bandana. Travis always surprised himself when Chiron or Mr D didn't take Aggie away from Cabin 11 and plopped her into the Demeter cabin for proper care or something like that.

At meals she sat squished between he and Connor so she wouldn't fall off the bench, and so that Travis could cut her food into small pieces and make her eat green things.

"Yeah?" Travis asked his little sister.

"When's Christmas?" She asked.

"Christmas? Umm… Two weeks."

"12 days," Poppy corrected. "Not counting today."

"Why are you asking?" Travis asked.

"Because how will Santa get in our cabin if there's no chimney?" Aggie asked.

Packrat and Mariah chocked on their drinks, and Travis met his brother's eyes over Aggie's head.

Uh oh.

"Umm, Aggie?" Josh said. "You do know that Santa Claus isn't-"

Before he could finish that sentence Travis threw Josh a fork- which nailed him in the forehead and toppled him back off the bench.

Josh climbed back onto the bench rubbing his forehead and muttering cuss words.

"Santa's magic. Don't worry, he'll figure out how to give you your presents." Max soothed Aggie. She was an expert liar but Travis was pretty sure she –nor anybody here- had ever lied about an old guy with a toy factory of exploited short people.

"We'll leave the back door open for him," Connor sniggered. Travis shot him a look and stared back at Aggie.

Santa Claus.

The kid lived in a world of freaking Greek gods, she'd been raised around swords and sharp weapons and 'do not touch' jurisdictions for the last 6 months, and she believed in Santa.

"Yeah," Travis said. "It'll be okay Aggie."

But what he was really thinking was damn.

"What do you mean 'this is crud'?" Katie said. She pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear. Her eyes were leaf green and they sparkled with the mega-kindness Katie radiated. She was wearing worn jeans with grass stains and a t-shirt from 'GARDNER FAMILY FARM'. "She believes in Greek gods. What's so strange about Santa after you face that? I personally think that it's cute! It shows that she's still a little girl."

"Yeah, it's going to be adorable until Santa doesn't show up!" Travis said. "Man, we're going to have to like, pose someone as Santa."

"I vote you," Katie teased.

"Ha ha." Travis said.

But he was totally serious on this one thing.

Aggie was five? Yeah- no five year old should be at Camp, but Miss Sanchez had been flying a pilot and her plane had been wrongly fixed after an accident and she'd crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. Which left Aggie to go… Nowhere but Camp. And at Camp she was.

Travis couldn't help but feel sorry for her; he bet that Aggie had gotten butt-kicking awesome Christmases before this. Was he, Travis Leonardo Stoll (minus the middle name) going to let that dive bomb, crash, and burn up? Wasn't that why the Grinch turned into the Grinch? Because of a bad Christmas? Gods, if Aggie ended up messed up or green or something… It'd be his fault, as technically-most-in-charge. He'd already let that happen to Connor; Aggie couldn't be messed up.

Which meant…

"You're serious?" Katie said. "You're actually going to give your little sister Christmas?"

"Well, yeah. She's just a kid. Little kids believe in Santa, and so Santa she'll get." Travis said. Katie squeezed his hand.

"That's sweet of you," she said. "If there's anything we can do to help; you just say so, okay? Christmas is big; are you sure you can do this?"

"No," Travis said. "No I am not. But Santa Claus is totally coming to town. Or camp."

There were a total of 8 children of Hermes excluding Aggie around Camp for the holidays, so there would be a total of 8 children of Hermes sucked into this plan.

"We're going to make Christmas?" Packrat said.

"Yeah," Travis said. "Like, real Christmas. Not a game of poker with candy canes, or stealing each other's stuff and wrapping it up to give it back. Real Christmas. Tree, Santa, carols: the whole stereotypical 'in every home' kit."

"The whole kit?" Josh asked. "Travis- in case you wouldn't have noticed, we're not exactly proper-holiday people, here."

They were standing in the Hermes cabin in a top secret urgent council Travis had called. Aggie was helping the children of Demeter and satyrs pick strawberries; making this a great time for Travis to fill his siblings in on the plan.

"Well, neither am I!" Travis said. "But Aggie's five years old, her mom just died, and she's here for Christmas. She expects Christmas. If you guys want to tell her that we dunk eggnog on each other, stuff snow in shoes, steal presents, and wrap people up in their sleep for the holidays; you go do that. Tell her Santa doesn't exist while you're at it."

Silence, sensitive spot, and score.

"Okay, assuming we do make Christmas happen at camp… How?" Max asked.

"I… Don't know. But we can do it. And we will. For Aggie, right? Katie can help, and if we ask anyone I'm sure they will too. We show them Aggie's face, get her to sing something about Santa, and they're totally talked into it." Travis said.

There was a general agreement on that one.

"So are we pulling this stunt?" Travis asked, feeling the answer in the air already.

"Oh yeah." Coco said. "I am for sure in."

"Ditto." Connor said.

"For Aggie." Mariah agreed.

"Could be fun." Josh said.

"As long as I still get to dunk eggnog on someone." Poppy nodded.

Shoelace flashed a thumbs up.

Travis smiled. Great! Now with manpower down, he just had to find reindeer, wrapping paper, lots of tape, and a bunch of other stuff al in the twelve days leading up to Christmas…