I wake up in the middle of the night. I lie there and stare at the ceiling for a while. Then I grab my phone and check the time.

2:00 in the morning. I sigh and lay back down, even though I know I won't be able to sleep.

"Chara, are you awake?" I hear a whisper from the bunk above me.

"Yeah."

He sighs. "I'm bored."

I hear another voice to my right. "Yeah, me too." Azzy says.

"It's two o'clock in the morning, why are you two awake." I ask them, trying to be annoyed, but failing. Mostly I'm just relieved I'm not the only one up.

"You shook the bunk bed a bit when you woke up," Frisk says.

Azzy replies, "Eh, nightmares."

"Yeah, me too." I say, staring at the bottom of the bunk above me. I look over at him, "What were they about?"

"The usual. Y'know, before." He says hoarsely.

"Me too." I whisper.

I hear Frisk take a deep breath above me. "Do you wanna ' build a snoooowma-" He warbles off-key to lighten the mood.

"NO!" Me and Azzy say at the same time, "STOP! GO TO SLEEP!"

"I can't stop!" Frisk retorts, "The sky's awake,so i'm awake."

Azzy sits up and throws his pillow at him. Frisk squeaks in surprise as it hits him.

I sit up with a laugh.

"No, but seriously." Frisk says. He pokes his head over the bunk so I can see him. My and Azzy look up at him. "Let's just go outside and do something. We can have a snowball fight or something."

I get up. "Sounds good to me!"

Azzy shrugs, "Sure."

I grab clothes and my jacket and change out of my PJs. When I come back into the room, I see Azzy and Frisk already dressed.

I grab some waterproof gloves and a scarf, as does Frisk.

We tiptoe out of the room quietly and slip on our boots. We step outside into the backyard.

For those of you who have never been outside at night while it was snowing, I highly recommend it.

The Christmas lights on the back of the house cast multicolored light on the snow near the house, but as we get further and further from it, it gets darker.The moon is full, and the light reflected off the snow on the ground, casting the world into shades of white and silver. It's still snowing, and the large flakes seem to glow like stars come down to earth. The woods on the back of the house are mostly dark, with parts are shot through with with silver at places that let the moonlight in. I breathe in deeply, letting the crisp air wake me up a bit more. My breath looks like mist in the cold air as I exhale.

"Wow, it snowed a lot since we were last out here," Azzy says, sounding impressed. We keep our voices low, even though we're outside and the nearest neighbor is half a mile away; we don't want to wake up anyone in the house.

"Yeah," Frisk agrees, "You can't even see aftermath of yesterday's snowball fight."

The yard looks as pristine and untouched as it did before we played in it yesterday. There 's maybe a foot of snow, but that's only because we moved a lot of the snow to the side yesterday. Other areas probably have a lot more than that.

I flop down on the ground, letting the cold seep through my jacket as I make a snow angel. The snow is soft and powdery.

I get up, "look I made a snow angel!" I laugh softly.

We take turns making snow angels, and then have a contest to see who made the best one. In the end, it's a three-way tie.

"Hey let's make a snowman!" Asriel calls softly, but excitedly.

We roll a bunch of snow together for the bottom of the snowman. Our breath makes little puffs in the air as we work. Some freshly fallen snow stands out in stark contrast in Frisk's hair making him look younger than he really is. I realize that I probably look the same way.

Snow brings out the kid in all of us, I reflect as we finish making the body of the snowman.

"Here, I have my scarf." I say, taking it off and wrapping it around the snowman's neck.

"Hey, let's go get some stick, and maybe several rocks for the eyes and 'buttons'," Frisk suggests.

"That sounds like a good idea," Azzy says.

"You guys go do that," I tell them, "I'll go get the carrot." And maybe some cookies while I'm at it....

We quietly part ways, me to the house and them to the stream that's in the woods, not to far from the house and the yard.

The snow squeaks under my feet and the world is the kind of quiet that only a land muffled in snow can be.

I creep up the steps to the back door, skipping the bottom one because I know it creaks. I open the door quietly, and then make my way to the kitchen.

Toriel loves carrots, so they should be in here somewhere, I think as I rummage through the fridge.

Aha! There we go! I take out a single carrot triumphantly. I grab the milk and make some hot chocolate, pausing the microwave before it beeps so it doesn't make a lot of noise.

I grab some cookies and place them on the plate and microwave that, too. While those are heating up, I pour the hot chocolate into three thermoses. I put the remaining hot chocolate in the fridge. I stop the microwave before it beeps.

I stick the carrot in one of my outside pockets and two of the thermoses in each inside pockets. Then I head to the door, carrying a plate of cookies and one of the thermoses. I open the door after placing the thermos on the floor for a second.

When I walk outside, I'm slightly surprised to find Frisk and Azzy already back. They're sitting down on the snow, with a slightly elevated snow pile between them.

Frisk and Asriel grin when they see me.

"Azzy figured you were up to something when we came back and you weren't here." Frisk remarks, when he sees the thermos and the cookies. "It was his idea to make the 'table'."

"I don't know what you two are thinking, 'cause this stuff's for me." I say seriously. "Why do you think there's only one thermos?"

"Chara, I'm not blind; I can see that there are two more thermoses in your pocket." Frisk says, observant as ever.

Asriel chimes in, "And besides, if they were just for you, you would've just eaten them inside instead of bringing them out to us." he point out.

I sigh. "You guys never let me have any fun." I harrumph, but there's nothing behind it as I place the plate and thermos on the snow pile and bring out the other two thermoses.

We snack on the cookies and sip our thermoses as we talk.

"I'm so glad we're on break," Azzy says gratefully, "I was getting so sick of school."

"Yeah, and we never could've done stuff like this while school was going on." Frisk agrees.

"So what've you two been up to?" I ask around a mouthful of cookie, spraying crumbs all over myself in the process.

Frisk shakes his head at me with a smile as I brush the crumbs off, "What're we gonna' do with you, Chara?" He sighs.

I shrug with a smile.

"We've been helping Mom prepare for Christmas," Azzy answers my question before taking a bite of cookie. He swallows, and continues, "You know, wrapping presents, saying hello and bringing baked goods to neighbors, decorating."

Frisk grimaces at that last one. He shakes his head ruefully and says, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm never gonna be able to get all this glitter out my hair."

Me and Azzy grin, and immediately take the opportunity to tease him, "I don't know you don't look to bad sparkly." Azzy comments.

Frisk scowls at him and says, "Oh shut up, you," but there's no heat behind it.

He throws a snowball at him as I say, "Yep, definitely. It makes you look adorable." I agree.

I could swear there's a faint blush on his face as he says, "You shut up, too, Chara." He goes on, "Besides, today's Christmas  eve. Everyone's gonna be here to help prepare for Christmas, including you."

"Yep, so even you can't escape looking like a walking glittery rainbow." Azzy teases.

By now we're done with the cookies, and we end up having a snowball fight because we can. Once we've drained our thermoses and had enough snow for one night, (or morning, i should say), We head back inside to defrost.

We walk in to see Sans sitting on the couch. He looks up at us, "what're you guys doin up this early. it's 4 in the morning!"

"We couldn't sleep, so we decided to go outside for a bit and wear ourselves out with a good fight....and some cookies," I add as Sans looks pointedly at the plate in my hands.

"yeah, i can't sleep either." He stifles a yawn. "you kids should probably go back to sleep though, or at least try to." He smiles wryly as he looks a little bit behind me. "Although it looks like some of you won't need to try very hard; Frisk looks like he's about to fall asleep on his feet."

I look behind me to see Frisk yawn widely, and sway a bit, before saying, "Yep, y'got that right." He yawns again.

We go back to bed. Azzy and Frisk seem to drop off automatically, but I still can't sleep, so I just stare at the ceiling.