Quietly, the door of the cottage opened and closed, a dark, hunched figure slipping inside. Then the electric lights blazed on as the figure hit the switch, leaving the exhausted form of Aoife blinking and cringing and pawing at the air.

"Bleeergh… aaaaa… Liiiight, baaaaad…"

Still, she left it on and efficiently took off her boots and hung up her coat – which she pointedly ignored when it fell to the ground with a thump and muffled clink of keys – and then trudged into the kitchen-living area.

The redheaded young woman stared at the one project she'd still had time for during the week up to that point, dark circles under her eyes. Hundreds of gingerbread cookies in the shape of little men, all in a big pile on her kitchen counter… all entirely bare.

"Aww. All my boys are sad and naked…" she whined, pouting.

There was a bowl of gumdrops and a bunch of icing pipettes ready for decorating, but…

Halfheartedly, she prepped one cookie with gumdrop buttons and a lopsided icing smiley face, and then gave up, heading for her bedroom. Slowly, she got ready for sleep, her mood in the dumps.

"Oh yeah, Mr. Shockley, I can take over for Bart, 's not like it's frgshgrtgrn Christmas Eve or, haha, something craaaazy like that," she mumbled, violently throwing her shirt into the corner of her bedroom. "Ragh!"

It limply flopped into her pile of laundry.

"Sure Finn, I can drive ya home from yer bender with yer mates," she grumbled past her toothbrush, "I don't have a life, what're ya talkin' about? P'tooie!"

Her toothpaste saliva splatted into the sink and failed to melt the porcelain even though she was channeling those acid spitting dinosaurs from Jurassic Park super hard.

Eventually, she settled into her bed, staring at the red digital "2:48 AM" display on her ancient alarm clock sideways.

"... Stupid," she whispered, eyes watering, turning her body under the covers to face the other way, towards the window. This far away from any big town centers, she had a perfect view of the starry sky.

I'm being so stupid… those kids will love those cookies no matter what…

A tear dripped sideways out of her eye, tracking off her face and onto her pillow.

Then, right in front of her face, a shooting star zipped by.

After a stunned moment, Aoife's eyes narrowed and her bottom lip stuck out.

"Alright, smarty pants. You want me to make a wish? When I wake up, I wish I had a pile of the most fabulously dressed gingerbread men… ever. The best cookies those gremlins will ever have or taste in their long, long… like, super long lives. Gucci, Prada, and Georgio Armani would cry over how beautiful they are."

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Angrily, she flipped back to face the other way, and proceeded to drift off to sleep in fits and starts.

—

After the last motes of consciousness left Aoife's troubled mind, in the darkened kitchen, the single decorated cookie on the counter… moved.

The gingerbread man sat up and looked around itself… gingerly. Upon seeing all the undecorated cookies surrounding it with its frosting eyes, its wobbly smile turned into a pensive frown, and it stood up. Then it looked over to the gumdrops and icing off to the side, and marched over to them with determination.

With a mighty heave, the gingerbread man dragged an icing pipette over to one of its brethren, and squeezed out a sugary smile onto their face.

The newly-enfaced cookie man 'blinked' and sat up, looking around itself. After taking in the scene of lifeless gingerbread men, it frowned, and looked up at the one holding the pipette.

The metal tip of the pipette was thrust towards the new cookie man, which it used to pull itself up. The two animated gingerbread men nodded, and the one with icing moved on to the next one while the other hopped off to grab another icing pipette.

Soon, the whole kitchen was full of busy cookie people. Some were making fresh bowls of icing with different colors, some were filling new pipettes, but most were painting on new costumes.

Through the night and into the morning they worked. But the cookie that kicked things off, the one that the poor tired girl had decorated after coming home from a long day, was off to the side of the quiet commotion, wrangling a pen and a notebook.

—

"Shmrgrshffgr, already almost noon… gonna hafta eat and bail and oh my GOD-!"

All she registered was an unexpected splash of rainbow colors in her kitchen, and her tired mind snapped awake with adrenaline, her body leaping into an automatic fighting stance she learned from karate class when she was like, twelve.

"Hwaaaaa-! I will kill you mysterious home-invading…" she hissed, eyes darting from side to side. But then her fists lowered as she processed what she was seeing fully, eyes widening, "... what."

Inching forwards, she stopped in front of a kitchen counter covered in gingerbread men all lined up for inspection.

She swept her gaze across.

"... hwaaaaaat~?" she sang out under her breath.

This one had a pirate captain outfit, that one was a ninja, and the one over there was a cowboy…

A princess, a rockstar, a robot…

And all the way over to the right, was a very plain cookie, relatively speaking, sitting on top of a piece of paper.

Numbly, the young woman picked up the scrap of notebook paper, sliding the cookie off. The writing was terrible chicken scratch, but… it was a letter:

Hi Miss Aoife,

After you gave me my smile and my nice buttons, a wishing star told me you needed help! I woke everybody up and we worked extra hard to be ready for action!

Please don't worry anymore, miss, everything will be fine today. Nobody will forget when you hand us out! It'll be a special day for everyone.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

The Gingerbread Man