While there was only three weeks left until Christmas Day, the ACE was supposed to start on the 21st, partly because in the old days the Christmas season lasted for twelve days, as mentioned in the old song "Twelve Days of Christmas" and also to help people learn about Christmas in other countries and how they were celebrated. But it was also a good time to get things ready for next year:
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While the Christmas episode of 'Cheaper by the Dozens' was technically a preview, since the official first episode of the first season wouldn't take place until January, it was a good idea to both get it out of the way and show what would happen when Christmas collides with the economy or similar things.
The younger set of the Piper Family was just hurrying past an apartment complex next to their clan complex on their way to play in the snow when a large, muffled, explosion happened in the basement and a lot of steam started pouring out of a basement window. After that, many people started poking their heads out of windows and complaining about it being cold.
"This is nothing." said Daniel, who happened to be nearby, "You should have been in America in the winter of '69 if you want real cold."
"First off," said one of the tenants, "I was in Vietnam in 1969; and second, I wasn't even born yet!"
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Miss Vivian, meanwhile was accepting pre-orders for Animalian-style winter lingerie, such as see-through snowflake print underwear. Another thing that she was working on was an adults-only Christmas Party at the Meat Market with minors/people who try to use false IDs to get in not allowed in.
Another thing that was planned was the combination of a Secret Santa gift exchange and a White Elephant gift exchange. While some were familiar with the White Elephant, others were more familiar with the Secret Santa. Either way, both those who more familiar with either one or the other took it as a good time to learn about both.
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Diego, the first member of Project Cenozoic, made his way to the Animalia School of Modeling still a little conflicted about things that had just happened. While he didn't regret becoming a Smilodon Animalian, he wasn't used to what would be part of it. After he had posted his picture of his new form, he had gotten no less than 14 date offers, and several contract offers from both protein powder manufacturers and toothbrush and toothpaste companies. Not knowing what to do, he decided to ask Maggie for advice.
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Other people had decided to spend time with their new family members, such as Zeus and Vivian Robinson. Their cygnets had just hatched and they wanted to spend some time to help their new children recognize their scent, etc., as parents. The problem was that there was a question for Vivian to get some people together to do an interpretive ballet dance of the Nutcracker Suite circa Fantasia 1940 as part of the ACE. Fortunately, to help take some of the pressure off of her, Vivian decided to contact several of her old friends from her days in ballet school, especially those who had to leave the performing life behind due to illness or injury, and convince them to become part of Project Phoenix, as well as help her get her planned dance school off the ground. All of them were more than happy to help their old friend, get renewed youth, and teach future dance skills to uplifted Animalians.
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Another new choice was to have a theatrical adaptation of Charles Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol' with Animalians playing the parts of the three ghosts of Christmas. While the first two were yet to be decided on, it was decided to have Rift and Jet play the part of the Ghosts of Christmas Future. They chose them because the third chapter of 'A Christmas Carol' tended to deal with death and the raven was a bird commonly associated with death; but they had to make some script changes because neither Rift nor Jet wanted to be separated from each other.
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All together, there was a lot to look forward to for Christmas this year. But of all the Animalians, whether uplifted or converted, Polly looked forward the most to it, mainly because of how "isolated" she had been before coming to Animalia.