"All I want for Christmas is you"

                "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart"

💙

A Jaya Christmas Eve

     "Cardboard boxes the color of the leafless trees were decorated with vermillion bows and ribbons, tied perfectly at the top with a message of love attached to it. An ocean of ivory covered the ground, seeming to signal citizens everywhere winter had begun. Lights blinking in every color you could imagine were hung upon roofs of homes and pine trees that represented peace. But that was last year. Who needs a 2020 Christmas when we have a 2021 Christmas right here?!"
     "Jay, we can't possibly put up any more decorations than we already have up," Cole complained.
     "I'm exhausted," Kai added, the box that used to hold lights colliding with the floor as he collapsed onto the red velvet sofa.
     "But this Christmas has to be even better than the last!" Jay twirled beneath the holiday lights above him, as if that would emphasize his point.
     "I don't know, Jay. Isn't the monastery festive enough?" Lloyd asked, gesturing towards the lights strung all over the ceiling, the pine tree full of so many glass balls it was less of a tree and more of an ornament storage bin, and the massive indoor snowman inflatable Jay insisted on buying towering above it all.  
     "Please, just one more string of lights?" Jay begged, his hands clasped together, pleading his emerald-eyed friend to agree.
     "On it!" Nya said, spinning into the room. She hummed Last Christmas as she hung up the string of neon bulbs across the doorway she had emerged from.
     "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart!" Jay sang, elated at his yang's excitement about Christmas that rivaled his own.
     "You two are too much," Cole commented, leaning against Kai on the sofa. The couple was too busy dancing around the now blindingly bright room together to hear his remark.
     "Let's let them do their thing," Lloyd suggested, a slight smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. The others did as instructed and followed.
     Three hours later, Jay and Nya sat in their rooms, wrapping their final presents for each other. Nya perched on her aquamarine bedspread, studying the newly wrapped gift in her hands, making sure every little detail was perfect. She arched back until her head collapsed against the pillow, sinking into the fluffy object. A creak echoed through the room and she turned her head towards the sliding door to her room, where Zane stood.
     "Happy Christmas Eve, Nya," Zane greeted his friend, opening the door all the way so he could see her. Nya's face lit up, and she sat back up with excitement.
     "Ready to go ice skating?" She asked, her smile wide as the strings of lights hung across the doorways.
     "Unfortunately, since Lloyd and his family are going skiing later, the only time the two of us and Pixal have for our monthly snowball fight would be now," Zane apologized. Nya's smile did a perfect 360 and turned to a frown.
     "Sure. I know how much you love that snowball fight," teal eyes performed a roll, amused at flashbacks to their previous monthly snowball fights. "I'll ask someone else," she flexibly agreed to the change of plans, and retrieved her phone from her pocket. She began to scroll through a list of phone numbers that belonged to her friends, searching for someone she could ice skate with.
     "Lloyd, Zane, and Pixal are busy, Skylor and Kai are on a date, Wu and Misako don't have any idea how to ice skate, who knows what Seliel's doing, Cole's leaving to visit his dad in a few minutes......who else?" She continued scrolling, her frown still glued to her face, until she saw a contact she had missed. "Jay!" She exclaimed. Her yang rushed into the room, still bouncing up and down in excitement.
     "Yes, waterlily?" He asked, his lips eternally sculpted into a grin.
     "We should go ice skating!" Nya suggested, bouncing off the bed and over to the electricity ninja with twice his energy.
     "That's a great idea!" Jay agreed, outstretching his arms to wrap them around his yang like the presents he had spent the previous night wrapping. "Cole canceled going Christmas Pranking with me because he forgot he agreed to visit his dad, so this works perfectly!"
     "Zane canceled on me, too-wait, what's Christmas Pranking?" Nya questioned, her eyebrow arched high beneath her hair as black as the midnight sky.
     "I'll show you!" Jay hugged her arm with his hand tightly and pulled her out into the snow.
     The third laugh in twenty seconds escaped Nya's mouth as she gazed at victims of Jay's Christmas Pranks. He has positioned an ornament outside a storefront, and every time someone would pick it up, "Jingle Bell Rock" would loudly blast from hidden speakers above them. The victims instantly either fled, danced, or searched for the source of the sounds before walking away unsuccessfully. The couple had concealed themselves behind a lush jade bush next to the store to watch their reactions.
     "You and Cole do this every year?" Nya asked after their next victim ran for their life.
     "Or maybe three times a year," Jay winked, then returned his eyes to the ornament. Nya laughed.
     "Enough with the pranking, Lord Of The Jig. Let's go ice skating," she posed in an arabesque as if she were a ballerina on the word 'skating.' Jay brushed the snow off his blue jeans before he stood up beside her.
     "All you have to do is show me where the rink is, and I'll skate better than you ever could, Master Of Water," he challenged, his hands rested on his hips.
     "We'll see about that, Sparky."
     Nya glided across the ice as gracefully as a ballerina. Jay, who was used to roller skating, was just as successful. He proceeded to chase after her all across the rink. Nya spun her head around and gasped when she saw how close he had gotten, and sped up.
     "Too bad you're not the master of frozen water," Jay joked, amused by her burst of speed.
     "I can go faster than you without elemental powers," she called, already a fair distance away. Jay smiled even wider, if that was possible, a plan forming in his mind while he slid across the ice. He stopped in his tracks. Nya froze as well, turning around to face him, an unspoken question in her sky blue eyes.
     "Then how about you catch me?" He suggested.
     "That'll be easy."
     "Then do it." Jay chopped the blades on his shoes through the frozen water quickly, aware that his yang loved a challenge and would persevere until she caught up to him. His assumption was correct. Nya performed a perfect front flip, her coat-covered body slicing the air in two. She landed on her feet, propelled forward by the force of her flip. She stretched her hand out to touch Jay's coat and tag him, but he stayed just barely out of her reach as they looked around the ring again. She lifted her leg in an arabesque again, then curled it in so it brushed her head, clutched her ankle, and spun. She slid forwards faster than she had expected, catching up to Jay instantly. She tapped his shoulder with her other arm, and proceeded to spin around once she had passed him. Out of breath, she dropped her limbs out of the formation and hunched over. Jay skidded to a stop in front of Nya.
     "That was an amazing move," he complimented her, his eyes shining with admiration.
     "I learned it all in our ballet class," she smiled happily at him. Not the teasing smile she had on her face when Jay challenged her, but a genuine, Christmas-morning smile. And that's when a Jaya kiss happened.
     Suddenly, the speakers around the rink began to play "All I Want For Christmas Is You," and Jay grabbed Nya's waist and spun her around on the ice skates.
     "Let's do the Hydroelectric Jaya move," he suggested.
     "Exactly what I was thinking." Jay lifted Nya into the air, where she soared above him, then floated down into his arms as they continued the dance.
     By the end of their routine, they were the last people in the rink as it closed. They collapsed onto the bench outside the rink, their earlier energy gone.
     "Happy Christmas Eve, Jay," Nya said sleepily, leaning her head on Jay's shoulder. He pulled her into a hug, and they snuggled.
     "Happy Christmas Eve, my waterlily."