Disclaimer: Buffy and Co. are owned by Joss Weadon and anyone else who has stuff to do with the show (i.e. the WB, ect.). The story is mine. (This story was inspired by my own families cleaning up and a tree that never looks like it is going to fit in the box)
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Mrs. Summer's parting words to her daughter on Saturday afternoon were, "Clean up all he decorations from Christmas and take down the tree. If you don't, then you can't go out with your friends tonight."
Buffy sighed dramatically, but her mother didn't hear. Putting up the Christmas stuff. That was always her least favorite normal thing to do. *Why me?* she thought to herself. Then she had another thought, what if Willow and Xander were stuck with the same thing. Maybe they could get together and have three people to work on each house.
Buffy went to the phone and dialed Willow's number.
"Hi, Will. Did you get stuck cleaning up the Christmas stuff at your house?"
"Yeah, I did. That is always my chore at the end of the Christmas season," Willow told her.
Buffy told Willow her plan. Willow said that she would be over in thirty minutes.
Buffy then called Xander and had the same conversation with him. He too promised to be at her house in thirty minutes.
Thirty Minutes Later...
Buffy, Willow and Xander stood in Buffy's living room, surveying what they were going to have to do. There was actually not to much when they looked at it from the standpoint of three people, rather than just one. The toughest job was going to be taking down the tree and they decided that they were going to do that last.
"Willow, would you take the stuff off the shelves and put it on the table? Xander, you take the stuff down off the walls and I'll pack all of that into the boxes. I think that that would be a good idea to divide it up at all of the houses. Who ever's house it is can do the packing, since they know where everything goes," Buffy told them.
"Okay," Willow said.
"Sounds good to me," Xander commented.
They worked for about thirty minutes and then had all of the stuff off the shelves and off the walls put up. Then they turned their attention to the tree, seven feet of ornaments and lights. They took off all of the ornaments first and then went for the lights. It was slightly confusing.
"How in the world did you put these lights on the tree?!" Xander asked as they struggled to find an end to the lights.
They struggled for about five minutes and took a short break to regroup and discuss a plan of action.
"If we don't find a stupid end pretty quick, I'm gonna make one," Buffy said, exasperated.
"No, that wouldn't be a good idea," Willow said gently, not wanting to get her friend anymore upset, because she knew that she was capable of putting a new 'end' on the lights, "I'm sure that if we keep poking around, that we'll eventually find an end."
They set back to work. Pretty soon, Willow called out, "I've got it, I've got it!"
The other two went around the tree to see the end. Sure enough, there it was. They unplugged the two strings of lights and began to work their way around the tree. After they were done, they found that there had been eight strands of lights on the tree.
"Why did you need so many lights on the tree?" Xander asked, not being able to decide if he was annoyed, or just exasperated.
"We like the tree to lit brightly," Buffy told him.
Xander rolled his eyes. If he recalled correctly, they had only put six strands of lights on his tree.
They quickly bound the lights into circles and put them in zipper bags.
"Now for the fun part," Buffy said, semi-sarcastically. This was the part that she hated most, taking the tree apart.
She went down to the basement and brought up the box. The box looked kind of small to fit a seven foot tree in, even if it was collapsible.
"Isn't that box kinda ... small?" Willow asked looking doubtfully at the box that still had pieces of tape from past Christmas'.
"Well, actually, it isn't. You just have to tape it shut really well, though to make sure that it doesn't pop open. But other than that, it all fits. This box is really strong," Buffy told them.
They took off the top of the tree, which could almost have been another little tree. They had to fold in all of the branches, and that took some doing, because not all of the branches wanted to fold in and the needles or what passed for needles on the tree were scratchy.
"This is the part that I hate," Buffy told her friends emphatically, "my hands itch for about a week after this."
The part that she was talking about was taking the branches off the tree, folding them and putting them in the box. They finally got everything folded down and put in the box, the only problem was that it was threatening to come back out again.
"You two, sit on the box and I'll get the tape, I'll be right back," Buffy ordered Willow and Xander. Sitting on the box was the only way to keep everything from coming out of the box. Buffy ran to get the tape and was back in less than a minute. It took some doing, but they finally managed to get the box taped shut.
"Willow, will you get the door to the basement and Xander would you get the other end of the box?" Buffy asked, ready to put the tree up out of the way in the basement.
"Sure," they both said at the same time.
Xander and Buffy lifted the box. Buffy walked backward, because she said and Xander privately agreed that she was in a better position not to get hurt if she fell on the stairs. Being the Slayer did have its advantages.
They safely put the tree down in the basement and all of the other boxes too. They went over to Willow's house and repeated the process. It was when they got over to Xander's that they had a problem. They had gotten everything picked up and put away except for the tree. It was a live tree, or had been at some point.
"What ever possessed you to buy a live tree?" Willow asked, wondering at her best friends motives.
He turned a little red, "Actually, we have a perfectly good fake one down in the basement, but the lady at the store asked me if I would like a tree. I thought they were talking about a little one, you know like they put on desks or something. Instead it was this one, I couldn't really turn it down after I'd said I would take it. I had to carry it five blocks, and it was heavy," Xander finished in a slightly pouty voice.
The two girls tried to hold their laughter in, but failed. They collapsed in gales of laughter and when they looked at the expression on Xander's face, they laughed even more until he finally joined in. When they finished laughing and were wiping their eyes, Buffy asked, "What are you going to do with it?"
"Firewood?"
For some reason, this made the girls start laughing all over again.
"I'm serious," Xander finally said.
"Okay, I can break it up for you," Buffy offered again wiping her eyes from laughing.
"That sounds fine, let's try to get it into the backyard."
They all three picked it up and put it in the backyard. Xander and Willow stood back as Buffy broke the branches off the tree.
"Will you guys come and hold this so that I can break it into sections?" she asked them, not being able to get the leverage that she needed to break it on the ground.
Willow and Xander looked at each other and then shrugged. What the heck? They may as well. It would be much easier than sawing the whole thing up.
They went over and held the tree. Five minutes later, there was a neat pile of logs that could be used in the fireplace. Buffy, Willow and Xander trooped back into the house and surveyed the amount of pine needles that were in the carpet. Xander sighed and went to get the vacuum cleaner while Buffy and Willow began to pick up the needles.
Xander plugged in the vacuum cleaner and turned it on, beginning to pick up pine needles. A little while later, the house began to smell like burnt pine needles. Buffy motioned for him to turn the vacuum off.
"You got most of them, I think that we can pick up the rest," she said, finding the smell of burnt pine needles not terribly appetizing.
They went with her idea, none of them like the smell of the pine needles. They finally had them all picked up about thirty minutes later. Buffy looked at the clock. They had spent almost six hours cleaning up Christmas stuff.
"This is my least favorite job of the year, but having you guys to help and letting me help you made it a lot of fun. I guess we'll start having to do this every year," Buffy told them.
Buffy and Willow both had to go home for dinner. Xander was going to grab something to eat out of the freezer and meet them at the Bronze. Buffy was the first to leave. She had to go home, eat dinner, get ready and then patrol.
"I'll meet you at the Bronze later," she told them as she was leaving.
Willow turned to Xander after Buffy had left. "I guess that I need to go, too," she said regretfully.
She turned to go out the door and Xander let out a breath, she hadn't said anything about the firewood. She turned back around, as if she had suddenly remembered something, "Xander, you don't have a fire place ..."
The End
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