With the first day of December, the preparations for Christmas began. While most of it was getting out the tree and decorating it with ornaments, there were still other things getting prepared.
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One of the most important, to Animalia, was the preparation for the Great Snow War. While the "trenches" were relatively easy to create, there were other structures that required a bit more structural knowledge. Fortunately there were a few structural engineering students who were able to create things like "bunkers". Some of them were leaving college that winter and thus were using this as their "final exam", so to speak.
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One of the more "surprising" new products from Animalia was a maternity model calendar for 2019. Some of them were truly adorable, like Sabine curled around her clutch of eggs, while others were a bit more confusing.
"Why are Iphis, Ianthe, Ty, and Lily there for December?" asked Maggie, somewhat surprised at the image used for December.
"Partly it's a morale booster for women," said the man behind the calendar, "and partly it was inspired by an article I saw once on pictures of pregnant animals that have it worse than some humans."
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There were also "migratory packages" that were being sold by the "bucketful" for vacations in warmer places for cold-blooded Animalians. This year, Silvia Rattlerton was spending her winter at New Zerzura, partly to meet some desert snakes from there.
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There was also a place set aside for winter arts and crafts, like similar times in Animalia. All of them were ranging in difficulty from Beginner (basically craft sticks and glue) to Advanced (painting scenes on glass ball ornaments).
There was also cooking "classes" for winter foods, mainly the sweets and desserts. One of the more popular ones was the gingerbread classes, such as gingerbread people and houses. This last one inspired a gingerbread house decoration competition, with the winner getting a special Cavern Spa pampering package as a prize.
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There was also a charity event inspired by a similar one done by Macy's. Children would drop their letters to Santa in a special mailbox, and charity money would be donated by Horizon. Why this was wasn't easily explained, because most people would only see the commercial about it, but not much else.
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Also, because Gazette was Jewish, there was a new plan to include other, similar holidays that were celebrated in December, such as Kwanza and Hanukkah. Part of it was to explain what these festivals were about, but the majority of it was to further cultural heritage exchange by WSA's Foreign Affairs Office. Many people, especially Animalians, were looking forward to these events, especially what was already part of the Animalia Christmas Exposition.