Chapter 20: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like I'm Running Out of Ideas, but We've Come a Long Way from the Supposed Toad-pocalypse, huh?

Dear Mario,

Why don't you join us at the castle for a Christmas party? They'll be plenty of festivities and cake!

Your's truly, Peach.

The snow had fallen heavy that day, leaving the Mushroom Kingdom covered in a thick blanket of white. On days like this, it wasn't too hard to see… I was ripping off a much better story.

Mario meandered through the snow, a nice, warm scarf around his neck, a sack full of gifts slung over his shoulder. I mean, I'd assume he has a neck. It's probably just hard to see. To be fair, it doesn't look like Toad has one either.

Who am I kidding? My art style is just like that, and it's horrible.

His carefree walk ended when he reached the castle grounds, all his friends calling out to him upon the plumber being in eyeshot, the titular man quickly responding to their calls. He quickly ran over to them in a gleeful sprint, a small scamper to his steps. He stopped to a halt upon reaching them, a small amount of snow being sent flying midair upon him stopping.

"Mario!" Princess Peach chimed. "We're so glad you could come!"

Mario's eyes lit up and he gave an enthusiastic nod. "Of course, princess! Christmas time is probably my favorite time of the year!"

"Aside from any other time?" Luigi jokingly sneered.

"Oh, shut up," Mario responded in a carefree manner, lightly punching his brother's arm.

Everyone had a laugh at this. After a bit more talking, they went to where they would be celebrating, plenty of refreshments laying about in various tables.

"So another year's gone by, huh?" Mario mused as he proceeded to take a sip from his cup of warm cider. "A lot has happened, huh? But at the same time, it doesn't feel like much has changed."

"Yeah. I know exactly what you mean," Luigi sighed. "It's crazy how one year can fly by so fast."

Mario gave a slight chuckle and shot his brother a cheeky wink and grin. "I think you mean cuckoo-crazy, Bro."

Luigi snorted at his brother's response. "Yeah. Exactly."

As the two laughed and chatted, everyone else was doing their own thing too, the Yoshis exchanging gifts they had for each other and eating lots of food and the two princesses catching up on what had been going on within their kingdoms. As for Toad and Toadette… I don't know. They were doing something. They were probably having a good time, I assume.

And as for the text box… Umm…

Finally, the time came for exchanging gifts. Of course, the Yoshis had already done so among themselves, but that was easily forgiven. Everyone had a gift for everyone, and I mean everyone. Peach had a gift for the Yoshis, the Mario Bros. had gifts for each other (not very surprising, though), Toad had a gift for Daisy, the list goes on. Hell, Mario even had a gift for the text box, though whether or not he'd be able to give it to them was ambiguous.

Overall, it was a nice time for everyone. The Mario Bros. even got to spend some quality time with the princesses, and in case you're wondering, yes; that does mean Luigi got to spend time with Daisy. Got to give those crazy shippers something good once in a while.

Some time passed, and everyone had settled down. Everyone was relaxing and doing their own thing, and all the gifts had been given out. Well, expect for one.

As Mario was chatting with the Yoshis, he felt something tug at his overalls. He looked down to see Toad, a tense look on the mushroom retainer's face, his cheeks being a similar color to that of the spots on his cap.

Mario gave him a smile. "Oh, hey, Toad! How've you been? I feel like I haven't seen you during this whole party, y'kn-"

Toad proceeded to grab him by the arm and walked away. Mario was confused by this, to say

the least. 'Wha…? Toad, what a-"

"Please continue the conversation without us," Toad simply stated as he guided Mario away, the plumber giving an unsure look the the Yoshis. Toad led him behind the tree and went over to stand on a small soapbox.

"Toad, I was having a conversation," Mario bluntly stated. "You didn't have to pull me away like that."

Toad gave a slight pout. "I know that… It's just… W-well… L-listen! I have a gift for you!" Hastily, Toad pulled out an orange box adorned with red ribbon and shoved it into Mario's hands. Mario inspected it for a moment before untying the ribbon and opening the box, revealing what seemed to be a crochet doll in his likeness.

He held up the craft and took a good look at it. Then, he looked at Toad. "Toad… Did you make this?"

Toad stammered a little as he put a hand behind his head before tapping his fingers together. "I-t's kind of embarrassing to admit, but Toadette kind of helped me with it. See taught me how to make these so I kind of decided to make one for all of us and-"

Toad immediately paused when he felt Mario grab hold of his hands and saw him give him a smile. "I love it. Thank you, Toad."

Toad's lips quivered slightly as they slowly formed a smile, his cheeks becoming flushed. He quickly turned his head away. "Well, all that matters is that you like it."

Mario continued to give him a smile, but then he remember something. "Oh! Toad, I almost forgot! I haven't given you my gift yet, have I? I couldn't find you during the gift exchange, so-"

Mario stopped his train of thought when he heard Toad mumble something under his breath. Having a slight idea where this was going, he asked Toad to speak up, which he did, but it was still hard to understand. The third time, however, was loud and clear.

"MARIO, I STILL HAVE ANOTHER GIFT FOR YOU!"

Mario drew back at the sound of Toad's shouting at put his hands over his ears. When the coast was clear, he put his hands down. He would scold Toad for suddenly shouting like that, but he couldn't find it within himself at the time to do that. All he could do was question. He tilted his head to the side and pointed at himself. "Another gift?"

Toad immediately jolted and stood completely still. His head slowly hung down, his expression becoming ever more exasperated as his face becoming more and more red. Mario was beginning to get concerned. He bent down and tried to get a good look at Toad's face, which had now become completely red. "Toad?" Mario asked. "Are… you okay? ...To-"

"MERRYCHRISTMASMARIOHERESYOURGIFT!"

With that, Toad quickly leaned in and gave Mario a kiss on the nose before running away faster than he ever had before, his face still bright red. He tripped once, but after that, he was gone.

Mario was just left there to ponder what had happened. A small patch of blush had formed on his face, no doubt from the sudden surprise at what had happened. He put a hand to his cheek and shook his head. "That Toad…" he thought to himself. "Always full of surprises…"

He continued to stay in the spot he was in for a little while before Peach called him over. Apparently, it was for cake. Of course, Mario being Mario, he couldn't pass this up. He quickly got up, but then remembered Toad. He looked in the direction of where he ran off as a concerned look began to form on his face again.

However, Toad would soon be back by the time it was nighttime at the tree had become lit up. As the star on top shone brightly, they all held hands and sang Christmas carols.

The next morning (or possibly the day after. I don't know), it was back to peaceful, lazy days in the Mushroom Kingdom, albeit with more snow. Mario had planned another meetup with everyone, so we woke up slightly earlier than usual that day. He moseyed over to the meeting spot, that same scarf around his neck. To his surprise, when he arrived, everyone was already there waiting for him.

"Mario! There you are!" Toadette beamed. "Not like you to be late like this! Then again, it always seems to be like this whenever Peach gets-"

Daisy quickly karate chopped Toadette's head, making her shut up. "Either way, we're glad you could come. It's certainly not the same without you, y'know?"

Mario sheepishly grinned. "Aww, hey. Come on…"

Toadette looked at a smart device and suddenly, her eyes lit up as she went over to grab Mario's arm. "Hey, Mario, Mario! Another Warp Pipe popped up and the upper rim is literally shaped like a star! Isn't that cool? Let's go inside and see where it leads us!"

"There's also apparently a Toad Rally event going on, too!" Toad added, grabbing hold of Mario's other arm. "Let's go do that!"

Mario gave a nervous laugh. "Alright, alright. We can't do all those things at once, though."

"Why don't we all just hold a race here?:" Luigi suggested.

"Great idea!" Toadette instantly chimed. "Let's get set up!

(one sec this is gonna be edited)

"RUN!"