AN: I'm not sure how I feel about this ending but yay for Christmas ft. Donny being subtly Jewish

It was Christmas Eve and the members of the Donny Nova Band were all gathered in Donny's apartment doing various Christmas (or not at all Christmas-related) activities. Donny and Wayne were over by the piano deciding which songs to play for their concert at a new venue the next week, and whether or not Christmas songs would still be appropriate - which really just consisted of Wayne adamantly insisting the Christmas would be over by then and that Christmas songs would no longer be relevant, while Donny continuously interrupted him by playing said songs on the piano somewhat obnoxiously.

Meanwhile, Nick was overseeing Johnny's cookie making attempts, and Davy and Jimmy were trying to teach Julia how to properly cook a turkey.

"Alright, so, first things first, you gotta stick your hand inside the turkey to - "

Julia was already looking disgusted. "What?"

"It's a bird, we have to get the giblets out." Jimmy explained.

"Why didn't they already take those out?"

Davy grinned. "Some people like to eat em'."

Julia looked as though she was going to be sick, and Jimmy quickly reassured her. "We're not going to, we just have to get them out."

She just nodded and turned away as Davey reached his hand inside the turkey, and Nick gave her a fleeting smile as he reached for the flour.

"I can't believe your mother never taught you how to cook a turkey."

"She doesn't know either." Julia laughed. "My father made the turkey when I was little, and then we just stopped eating it until Michael came along."

"Good thing Donny can cook then, huh?" Davy said, and she laughed again, but still didn't dare turn around for fear of seeing something that would make her stomach lurch.

She looked over at Donny and rolled her eyes as she saw him forcefully playing Jingle Bells as Wayne just shook his head.

"Okay, all the giblets are gone." Jimmy announced, and Julia sighed and turned back around, relieved to see that there were indeed no turkey organs in sight.

"Alright then, now what?"

oOo

Half an hour later, Donny and Wayne had settled the debate (they would open with an updated version of Jingle Bells and close with Julia singing Snowfall, since that wasn't specifically a Christmas song), and Wayne had taken Jimmy's place in helping with the turkey, and Donny and Jimmy were watching and being absolutely no help.

"Nick, Johnny, the turkey's almost ready to go in the oven, how much longer do the cookies have?"

Nick turned to Johnny. "How long did you set the timer for?"

"Uh..."

Nick sighed, but kept his patience. "We'll just have to hope you got it right, then."

Julia smiled. "We can wait, right guys?"

Davy and Wayne both nodded, though Wayne did feel the need to add, "Not for too long, though."

Johnny gave her a grateful look. They could always count on Julia to prevent arguments.

Julia turned and leaned on the counter to talk to Donny while Wayne began to ask Davy questions about the recipe. Donny smiled at her.

"Have they turned you into a master chef yet?"

She scoffed. "Sure, as long as they do the actual cooking part for me."

"It's a turkey, it's not that hard."

"The first thing you do is put your hand inside of it." She informed him, and Donny laughed. "So are you gonna do anything to help, or just watch us all slave away?"

"Alright, my slave," Julia gave him a look and he raised his hands in surrender, "I'll go find something to do."

He turned to leave but before he could take more than two steps, the smoke alarm suddenly began to go off, causing various reactions from everyone. Donny instantly grabbed hold of Julia's arm, ready to shield her from anything, Johnny backed straight into the wall with his hands over his ears, Davy nearly knocked over the turkey, Wayne simply froze with a look of panic on his face, and Nick and Jimmy sprang into action, removing the tray of burnt cookies and waving away the smoke.

The alarm stopped after a few moments, and the guys tried to pretend like nothing had happened, with Davy making an offhand joke about having to make another batch off cookies, but there was suddenly a more tense feeling in the air that they all felt.

Julia discreetly took Donny's hand and he squeezed it gratefully, not making eye contact with her. After a few minutes they all resumed their respective tasks, and tried to ignore what had just happened.

oOo

The hours passed quickly enough, and by the time the food was set on the table, the smoke alarm incident had been all but forgotten. They were however, all increasingly hungry due to the fact that all of the food had taken longer to make because of the burnt cookies.

As soon as they had all sat down, the guys began to reach for the food, but Donny stopped them.

"Hold on, wait a minute."

Davy gave him a look. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"I just wanted to say - "

"This isn't gonna be some long sentimental speech, is it? Because I'll leave." Nick interrupted, and Donny rolled his eyes.

"No. I wanted to say that tonight is the fifth night of Hannukah, and it'd be nice of you guys would join me in lighting the menorah after we eat."

They all agreed (most of them sincerely, one or two possibly just saying yes so they could get to the meal), and as they all began to pass plates of food around, Donny and Julia looked at each other and grinned. They'd known that the holiday season would be hard, but the fact that they were all together made it easy to temporarily forget they're troubles.