Ruby loved Christmas morning.

She loved creeping down from her bedroom, she loved seeing the presents under the tree, and she especially loved that lazy Christmas morning, eating pastries and sipping cocoa, enjoying time with her family, feeling loved and like she belonged. When she was a little kid, she used to be the first up on Christmas, trying not to wake Yang or dad while she snuck down to just admire the presents and the tree in the early dawn light. Working up the courage to open a present early. Always chickening out.

But this Christmas, she knew she was the last to wake up. She'd been up late the night before, not because she was too excited to fall asleep, but because she was burning the midnight oil, working with Jaune to theorize their next steps. She'd even, jokingly, justified their hard work by noting that they had Christmas day off.

But in spite of all that, she was absolutely certain that this was going to be the all-time absolute best Christmas ever, because not only was she spending it with all the friends she'd made on her long journey, she'd be spending it with her… her girlfriend!

It felt unreal to even say that word. Felt doubly unreal when she thought about who it was. Her incredible, amazing girlfriend, who was so mature and classy and elegant and cool and cultured and beautiful and so, so out of Ruby's league that she had to chalk their relationship up to some kind of miracle. Seriously, Weiss was the best, not only her best friend at Beacon, but the coolest Huntress she'd ever known, and, somehow, the sweetest, most caring girl in the world!

As she shuffled her way down to the main room, she heard Christmas music in the air—thought he kind that had no Santa or reindeer or jingle bells, but instead had mezzosopranos and philharmonics and, um, concertos? Normally, she'd find this kind of music weird and boring, but now, hearing it just made her think of Weiss, and that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She slipped into the room, seeing a lovely sight of all her friends and travelling companions gathered around the tree, idly enjoying their Christmas. But her eyes zoomed to her girlfriend, talking with Ren about the Christmas music, but once she noticed Ruby had entered, her face lit up and she smiled that super-sweet Weiss smile that Ruby loved more than anything.

"Merry Christmas, Weiss!"

"Merry Christmas, Ruby," she said, getting out of her seat and striding over to Ruby where she gave her a quick kiss that made Ruby's heart do somersaults.

"Ugh," Yang cut in, "get a room, you two." Weiss rolled her eyes and Ruby stuck her tongue out in response. "Oh, if you think I'm not going to give my little sister and her girlfriend grief, you've got a whole nother thing coming!"

"Someone's just mad that she's single," Weiss sniffed, and Ruby quickly had to intervene to pacify the situation. But before she could say anything, they heard a clatter outside, a familiar one, one they had all learned to recognize without Maria chiming in, "Sounds like the drunk's back."

Ruby went to the window to look out. Sure enough, it was her uncle… but he wasn't alone.

"Guysh, Guysh!" he shouted, "I foun' Santa!"

"That's clearly Tyrian!" Ruby hollered back.

Shocked, Qrow glanced at the scorpion Faunus, who just shrugged. He looked back up to Ruby in the window and shouted, "No it'sh not!" And then he stumbled to the door.

Adrenaline kicked in. Christmas or not, sleepy or not, they hadn't gotten this far to not be ready for anything. Yang rushed into position at the door to prepare for Tyrian's assault, while Weiss tossed Crescent to Ruby. Merry Christmas, she thought to her scythe as she unfurled it, how about we have our own little celebration?

But as they readied themselves for the assault, they were absolutely blindsided by Qrow and Tyrian coming in arm-in-arm, poorly singing two different carols at the same time, looking all to the world like they were Christmas revelers and not sworn enemies.

Tyrian waved at them cheerfully. "Merry Grimmsmas to one and-"

"You can't be here!" a scandalized Weiss thundered.

He gave her the look of a kicked puppy dog. "But… why?"

"We're enemies!" she hissed.

A shocked Qrow rounded on him. "Izzat true?"

He shrugged, guiltily. "Eh, maybe? But! Watts's plan was just so complicated, and it had too many parts, so I just, you know, wandered off! To celebrate Grimmsmas with my favorite people!"

"Wandered off? We can do that?" Nora suddenly cut in.

"No! You! Can't!" Weiss shouted, rubbing her temples. "Ren, Maria, Jaune, even, please, please, someone please start talking sense."

But Tyrian kept talking as though nobody else had spoken. "Grimmsmas is a time for all of us to come together in the worship of our dark Goddess-"

Yang looked at him incredulously. "We're… we're trying to stop her. Surely, you know this."

"Just because I'm Orthodox Salemist doesn't mean I can't spend Grimmsmas with my best Reform friends!" he answered, cheerfully. Weiss was left stammering at that, completely at a loss for words, which, Ruby figured, was pretty impressive considering how good she'd gotten at managing both Nora and Yang. "Come on!" the scorpion Faunus pleaded, "We're all friends here!"

"We are emphatically not," Ren shot back.

But then, unexpectedly, Qrow pushed himself in between the two and slurred, "Oh, is thish fin'ly happenin'? On Christmas? Christmas? You'n me, we're not friendsh, huh? Couldn't keep that opinions inside for one more day, eh, Renny? Hey everybody!" he shouted, drunkenly, "The Qrow/Ren throwdown's finally happenin'!"

"Oh no!" Nora cried, "This has been building for so long and only now I realize I've done nothing to stop it!"

"It… has?" Ruby asked, pretty sure it hadn't.

"If you've been paying attention to the clues, this has been building for the last four seasons," she replied, soberly.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Months, Nora, for the last time, they're called months. Not seasons. But," she turned to Ruby, "that's not a real problem—your uncle's halfway to tipping over, and- ah, now he's passed out," Ruby glanced back to see that Qrow had toppled onto Ren, who was struggling to hold up her uncle's weight without dropping him on the floor, "So we've got the real problem," she gestured to Tyrian, "Any ideas?"

"Team huddle!" Ruby yelled, and swiftly, her allies fell into formation. Or, at least, several of them did. "Wait, we're not at full strength. Where is everybody?"

"Well, Qrow's on the floor," Maria answered, "and the little boy got stuck with the murderer, somehow," she gestured over to the couch where an excited Tyrian was talking to a terrified Oscar.

"…Three wise men, myself, Watts, and Hazel, came upon a manger, which, if my understanding is correct, is some kind of barn. But Lo! We came upon a child, who was in a manger for some reason, and we all agreed: best Grimmsmas ever! Or, I think that's how the story went…"

Then she pointed to Jaune and Blake. "And those two are just gazing into each others eyes, like they've been doing all morning." And they were, probably unaware that Tyrian, or anyone other than the one in front of them, was even here. Jaune was gently brushing her cheek with his hand, Blake was lovingly whispering things that Ruby had long since learned to never try to listen to, for her own well being. But so long as she didn't do that, they were just so cute together!

"How are we," Weiss huffed, "the ones who get made fun of for being sickeningly cute when they're like that all the time!"

"Cause we're the best!" Ruby cheered, and threw her arms around her girlfriend, who made a move to struggle against the hug, but then just let herself melt into her arms. She just loved Weiss so much!

"…Anyways," Maria continued, "This is too much excitement for my Christmas, so I'm going to help myself to some food and then take a nap. I'm old; I can do what I want."

And then she did exactly that. Ruby had to admire her directness on this.

"Alright, well," Weiss spoke up, "we're down to half strength, but we need to find something to do about the scorpion in the room."

"She means Tyrian," Ruby whispered to Nora who went ohhh and nodded.

"We've got to find a way to take him down quickly, or this is going to be the most violent Christmas we've ever had, on top of being the weirdest Christmas any of us have ever had. Any of us-" she raised a hand to silence Nora, "except for Ren and Nora."

"Eh," Yang piped up, "we've had weirder. Hey Rubes," she turned to her sister, "remember that year when my mom stole Christmas?"

The worst Christmas she'd ever had? That one? With Dad quietly livid and Yang doing her best to try to console her when she woke up and found there were no presents, no tree, no Christmas cookies? Just a terrifying mask left hanging above the chimney and YOU'RE NOT OVER ME TAI written in what she hoped wasn't blood? How could she forget? "I never got my dolly back," she murmured, sadly.

"Yeah, it was… dark, even for her." Yang gave an awkward chuckle.

Everyone silently took a moment to process that.

Looking around the room, Yang whispered, "Well, how about we just jump him right now and hand him over to Ironwood? Five on one, and he's not paying attention—we're not gonna get a chance like this this easy again."

Weiss nodded. "Sounds good, let's…" she trailed off. She was looking at Ruby now, in that Weiss way where she knew Ruby was thinking of something before even Ruby realized it. "Do you have another idea, Ruby?"

Well, he was their enemy. And he needed to be arrested. He was almost certainly up to something, and everything she knew about being sensible told her not to do it, but… "Okay," she started, having found her resolve, "He needs to be stopped. But it doesn't have to be right now, right? Especially if he's here with peaceful intent. I mean… nobody should be alone on Christmas." She glanced over to Tyrian, looming over a terrified Oscar and telling the story of "The First Grimmsmas," though it also seemed like he was making it up as he went. "Even him. Maybe… maybe if we could all get along for one day, one short day where we put aside our fighting and let all of us just breathe, well… Maybe we could all realize that we don't have to be fighting all the time. Maybe we could just have a day where we didn't have to be in a life and death struggle?"

From the looks on her friends' faces, she hadn't exactly won them over. But she knew Weiss had her back. "Ruby's…" she took a breath, "Ruby's right. A day without fighting is worth it."

"We can mind him, or, at least," Ren added, "we can put some distance between him and Oscar." They all took a glance over to Oscar, his eyes wide and completely locked on Tyrian's extremely animated storytelling. "He's… probably going to hold a grudge for this."

Yeah, that was probably true.

"Alright, Tyrian," Weiss barked, and the man's head shot up just like Zwei's would, "You can stay."

A comically oversized smile broke across his face. "You mean it? You really mean it?"

"For some reason," Yang groused, "we really do mean it."

He pumped his fist into the air. "Hooray! And now it's time to exchange traditional Grimmsmas punches—starting with the youngest! So, hold still…"

Weiss was quick to put her foot down to let Oscar skitter away. "No, we're exchanging gifts. That is all. Speaking of…" and she raced past the wide-eyed Oscar, over to the tree to grab one of the colorful parcels and brought it back. "This is for you, Ruby."

The gift was perfectly wrapped, using really nice paper that she was scared to just tear open. It even had a bow on top! But slowly, carefully, she unwrapped the paper and gazed upon her gift.

It was a book. But not like, a book book. It was a… a coupon book? For- for her? She opened to a random page, with four coupons to get out of a lecture for free, with no exceptions! Another page, "Weiss will patiently explain a topic and answer all questions without judgment," for times when she didn't know what people were talking about and was too afraid to ask. And a whole bunch of free kisses coupons that she'd try to ration out to the end of January, but she'd probably spend them all way too quickly.

But the best part was… it was all handmade. Everything was precise and carefully put together, undeniably written in Weiss's neat handwriting, and yet… it was written with brightly colored pens, there were fun little doodles in the margins, and all the other little things that were Ruby things, not Weiss things. She even used glitter, for dust's sake! Glitter!

She felt the tears running down her face as she tried and failed to keep her composure. "Weiss, I- I- Weiss! I-" she managed to sniffle out.

"Do you like it?"

Words failed her. All she could do was nod.

"Then I got everything I wanted for Christmas." And then she leaned forward to plant a sweet little kiss straight on her lips.

But Ruby couldn't let it end there. Sure, all Weiss might have wanted for Christmas was to make Ruby happy, perfect girlfriend that she was, but Ruby had gotten her a gift. A gift she was absolutely certain Weiss would love. "Here you go!" she said cheerfully, handing her a roughly-wrapped package, made up of newspaper comics pages and a whole lot of tape.

Weiss eagerly tore it open, and gasped as she saw it was a book. But not just any book…

"'Ruby and Weiss: From Besties to Sweeties,'" she read off the title, "Is this… a scrapbook?" Ruby rapidly nodded yes, as Weiss opened the book, paging through all the pictures of them she'd gathered from her teammates, including the one Blake had taken of their first kiss which she was NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE and especially NOT SUPPOSED TO TAKE PHOTOS OF, but she figured she could forgive it when it made the scrapbook that much more magical.

"I've got a section that's all my old Beacon assignments, and you can see how my grades went up with your help," she knew Weiss would love that, but not nearly as much as this next part, "And this section, um, well…" "When we were separated, I, um, I was realizing that I, um, like-liked you, and so I wrote a bunch of letters for you that I never finished…"

Weiss, her mouth hanging open in an adorably unladylike fashion, looked from one letter to the next. It had started as a coping mechanism, a way to make things feel more normal while she was away from her team. As though Weiss and the rest were just… away, and she could keep in touch by writing. But as she tried to write down her feelings, she found out that her feelings weren't what she thought they were. And every letter just led her to the unrealized realization that there was something more to her feelings for Weiss. Something she couldn't yet name. As Weiss looked from page to page, incomplete letter to incomplete letter, the awkwardly scribbled out endings and rewrites, she was seeing the story of her girlfriend discovering that she loved her.

"Oh, Ruby!" she cried, tears sparkling in her eyes, "I love it!" And then she tackled her with a big hug. Everyone had a good laugh at that, and as Ruby looked around the room, in her girlfriend's arms and surrounded by the people she loved, and also Tyrian, today really was the best Christmas ever.

"Ho ho ho!" Tyrian laughed, slapping Oscar on the back, causing the poor boy to lock up in terror as he fell over. "Merry Grimmsmas to all, and to allll…" he drew out the syllable, "a GOOD NIGHT!"

Ren looked at him incredulously. "It's ten in the morning? And-" he was cut off as Tyrian toppled over onto the floor. "Ah, he's been drinking too. That… makes sense."

They all stood around the room awkwardly, trying not to stare at either man passed out on their floor. Well, Nora already had a marker in her hand to draw things on their faces, and Jaune and Blake were completely in their own world, a world Ruby was very wary of, but she, Weiss, Yang, and Ren were all trying not to stare at Qrow and Tyrian, snoring peacefully.

"Well," Weiss finally spoke up, "How about we just let them sleep it off, and then we'll figure out what to do once they're up. It's Christmas, after all."

It was Christmas indeed.

And Ruby couldn't be happier.

And a very Merry Grimmsmas to one and all!

I started writing fanfic in August, and I now have written almost 150,000 words across 11 stories on this website. And, really, I wouldn't have done it without all the support I've received from the community. So a very merry holidays, and thank you for all the faves and follows, the comments, the critiques, and the messages and story suggestions. You've been such a welcoming community, and I hope my work continues to merit your attention!