'Tis theSeason to Watch the Ceiling

"Hold up guys, I think I saw something." Hound warned. Inferno and Skids waited as the jeep walked up to a support beam running across the hallway, reached up and removed a sprig of mistletoe, taking a quick look at it before flipping it into subspace.
"Any more of it?" Inferno called.
Hound poked around a bit more. "Nope, all clear."

Mistletoe, that almost unnoticeable parasite of a plant, was every Autobot's worst fear come Christmas time. And even though dedicated teams of Autobots combed the hallways for it, more and more of the stuff would turn up just minutes later. Red Alert even joined in on the hunt for the stuff via his network of security cameras, but sadly his efforts were usually hampered by his unnatural extra frazzled-ness around this time of year.

Despite the protests from all and sundry, the command unit thought it better to not declare mistletoe a forbidden item. Knowing the determination of the Ark's population of hooligans, they'd dig up some sort of Earth custom that was even worse. So it was more a case of better the devil you know rather than the custom you did not.

But to appease the rank and file it was decreed that all mistletoe could be anonymously left in a box in the Rec room with no fear of reprisal up to dusk on December 26, after which it was taken outside and semi-ceremoniously burned by Ironhide. Anyone caught with it after the amnesty period would be turned over to Ratchet.

Though despite all the complaints about the greenery, strangely enough not many people seemed to complain when it was Carly who got caught under the mistletoe with them.

0o0o0

Jazz surveyed the Common room with a careful optic. "Lesse now." He picked up a datapad and scrolled through the to do list he'd written out. "Lights, check. Tree, check. Decorations, check. Music, check. Looks like we'll be havin' a cracker of a Christmas party t'morrow." He glanced down at the cat by his feet. "Wadda ya think, Two?"

The feline yawned and started to wash her face.

A grin lit up Jazz's face and he snapped his fingers. "That's it! And t' think I almost forgot about th' booze. Thanks Two. Wouldn't be much of a party without it, eh?" Twostroke mewed her agreement then went back to her grooming.

0o0o0

Meanwhile, Ratchet was making his own preparations for the upcoming party. His glassware had finally been returned, clean thankfully, so for the last few hours the CMO had been ensconced in the small laboratory, brewing up various chemical concoctions to soothe the after-effects of what was bound to be a spectacular party, guaranteed to be Decepticon-free.

Wheeljack had taken the Dinobots out on a little 'exercise' to make sure the 'cons would be kept distracted over Christmas Day and hopefully Boxing Day too if they were lucky.

Of course the trip was totally unauthorised, but the higher ups had learned long ago to never get between the Dinobots and an outside activity. But it did help that Jazz had been on watch when they left and that by now Red Alert would possibly be seeing green sheep and blue kangaroos if he were anywhere near the state of lucid consciousness.

Ratchet had it on good authority (a.k.a the report of one surgeon in training) that the Security Director had been found passed out in his monitor room from energon overdose. The CMO smirked to himself as he mentally reviewed the report he had prepared for Prowl. How the event could have occurred was beyond the good doctor's knowledge, but he did suspect it had something to do with a number of missing chemicals and had put in a footnote suggesting that it might be a good idea to get the store room locks changed.

Though he would have rather shot himself in the foot than admit it, the twins did have some good ideas occasionally.