Eight-fifteen in the morning.

Two men look at two separate clocks and decide that now is as good a time as any.

Two doors open. Feet walk slowly across the wood planks of nearly identical porches. When they step onto the snow-covered grass, they regard each other with sour expressions, and nod in acknowledgment of one another.

“Hummel,” the man with the slightly larger, slightly older house says in dry deference to his more experienced neighbor.

“Anderson,” his adversary returns in a not-so-cordial manner. “Today's the day.”

“Yes, it is,” Blaine agrees.

“Getting started early this morning,” Kurt remarks.

“Well, I've got a big house,” Blaine says, glancing up at his roof as if to confirm that fact. “Lots of space to cover.”

“Same here.” Kurt pulls on the end of his gloves, tightening them over his hands. “You know, it's not too late to back out. There's no shame in admitting that you're in over your head.”

Blaine Anderson turns to his neighbor and flashes a charming, yet sardonic, mega-watt grin. “Not a chance.”

“Well,” Kurt says, irritated by his neighbor's gall, but never one to let anybody see him sweat – especially not an uncivilized, uncouth, and insufferable peon like Blaine Anderson. “Let the games begin.”

***

Blaine Anderson was the new kid on the block. He had moved in next door to Kurt just a week prior, and at the start, Kurt was determined to be neighborly. One of the few empty nesters (and bachelors) in a neighborhood of suburban splendor, it was a relief for Kurt to know that someone like him was not only moving in, but moving in next door. Kurt got along with all of his neighbors, but it had been a long time since he could relate to the soccer moms, juggling middle school aged kids, racing them from cello lessons to ballet practice to softball games, pulling all-nighters to get three dozen cupcakes and two pies done for a bake sale he found out about only hours before. No, that wasn't Kurt's life anymore, and as the years went on, he longed for someone who understood - one of his kind.

Even without opening his mouth to say hello, Kurt discovered that he and Blaine were off to a pretty good start at becoming lifelong friends. According to the neighborhood gossip chain (which was quick, pervasive, and devastatingly accurate), he and Blaine had loads in common. Blaine was a handsome, recent divorcee. Look at that? Kurt was also a stunningly handsome divorcee. Blaine had an adult son in college. Kurt had an adult daughter in college. Blaine had performed on Broadway. Kurt had been to see several Broadway shows. It was like kismet that the two of them should end up living side by side.

Kurt saw it as the potential start of a slow burning romantic comedy, where the two of them are thrown together by chance and eventually fall head-over-heels in love. They would start out as neighbors, commenting over one another's abelia's and giving each other advice on the best way to patch up dead spots in the fescue. Their relationship would segue into the occasional weekend morning coffee date. They would meet on Blaine's porch for Italian roast. Kurt would bring the homemade coffee cheesecake. Lunches would start in Kurt's kitchen, where he would tell Blaine the story of how he made the decision to give up his dream of acting on stage to go into design, and then he and Blaine would swap war stories about their time in the theater trenches.

Along the line, there would be dinners, Friday night movie dates at the revival house in town, trips into the city to see the latest Broadway show, and then before they knew it…

Kurt was getting ahead of himself. He hadn't even gone over and said hello.

Then, unexpectedly, several things happened that turned Blaine Anderson from potential romantic lead to public enemy number one.

First off, he didn't stop by Kurt's place to introduce himself. He had gone to see one of their other neighbors instead - an older, retired neighbor - Mrs. Henderson. Personally, Kurt would have chosen to meet the person who lived right next to him before going all the way across the cul-de-sac, but Blaine could be forgiven for that. Mrs. Henderson is the oldest person on the block, and a widow. He might have done it out of respect.

Kurt would let that one slide.

But according to Mrs. Henderson's adult daughter Lydia, who was visiting for the holidays, the topic of conversation quickly became the neighborhood's annual Christmas house lighting competition, of which Kurt was the standing nine year champion.

And then the conversation turned to Kurt.

Lydia Henderson claimed she didn't know what they talked about specifically because she had to leave for a chiropractor appointment, but just that Kurt should know he was being discussed.

It made Kurt livid to think they were talking about him behind his back when he was right there, available for conversation.

Kurt decided to let that one slide, too. Maybe Blaine was just shy. Blaine, whose life had surrounded acting on stage, performing for large crowds, and teaching high school students the art of theater appreciation, was too nervous to walk twenty or so feet to his left and say hello to a neighbor.

But Kurt realized that wasn't the case when he returned from work the following evening. Blaine wasn't being polite, visiting a nice old lady.

He was gathering intel.

Kurt pulled into his driveway as Blaine was unloading his car. From what Kurt could see, where he sat in the front seat of his Honda Odyssey, seething, Blaine had his front yard loaded with boxes of lights, lights, and more lights, a yet to be assembled artificial tree, animatronic statues, a gigantic inflatable snow globe, and what was probably his piece de resistance – a seven foot Santa on a Harley.

Blaine must have known Kurt was watching, because he turned at that exact moment, smiled and waved. Kurt plastered on his most convincing smile and waved back. Then he cursed under his breath. He watched his smug neighbor unpack more and more ornaments, more decorations, more wreaths and bows and pieces of flair, whistling to himself as he worked.

Kurt knew from that moment on, like the Boleyn sisters, that they would forever be rivals.

The next few days were tense between them, to say the least. Blaine would bring something new home that he picked up on a whim, and Kurt would scoff.

“Amateur,” he'd mutter, just loud enough for Blaine to hear before he disappeared into his house.

Kurt received several large packages from somewhere in Italy. Blaine would catch him signing for them and mumble, “Pretentious,” and climb into his car.

Blaine and Kurt didn't necessarily need to fuel bad blood between them. The neighbors did it for them – the ‘he said, he said' bouncing back and forth without either man actually saying boo. But when it got back to Blaine's ears that Kurt (supposedly) thought he was a pompous, arrogant fool, and when it came to Kurt's attention that Blaine had (supposedly) called him an uptight, stuck up has-been, the battle for decoration supremacy began.

***

It takes Kurt all morning to put white twinkle lights on his roof – front to back and along the eaves, several thousand, covering every inch of exposed space.

Blaine, the amateur that he is, doesn't start with the roof, but with his front yard display. Kurt shakes his head. Blaine's going to find himself without a solid spot to put his ladder with all that stuff cluttering up the ground. But it doesn't matter to Kurt. The sooner he knocks Blaine out of the running, the better.

Kurt isn't some crazed, obsessed Christmas fanatic. It's just that after his divorce, it was hard for him to find a niche, anything that he could do or be, apart from “that recently divorced guy”. Kurt had done a lot in his life to be proud of, but it seemed that the last two decades were defined solely by his role as father and husband. When he moved into this house and started decorating for the holidays, using his design skills to come up with unique and en vogue displays, he discovered that he had a knack.

And the local Soroptimist Club validated it by giving him a trophy.

The fact that it was something his dad, who had passed that same year, would have been proud of, didn't hurt either.

As a side note, Kurt's divorce had been finalized the week before Christmas. He needed something to overshadow the memory of that anniversary.

No one else in their little neck of the woods seems as invested as Kurt, or maybe they are, but his displays are on a different level. Kurt had been poised to be a tenth time champion…until Blaine Anderson showed up and decided to try and steal Kurt's trophy.

To make matters worse, his attempt at a flamboyant Christmas display is seriously cramping Kurt's style.

Every time Kurt takes out a new box of lights, Blaine goes to his car and pulls out three. Kurt puts ornaments on the petite evergreen growing by his mailbox, and Blaine puts a three-foot-tall free standing Christmas ball, complete with hanger, by his mailbox. Kurt sets up a family of silver wire-framed animatronic reindeer, bespeckled with silver lights, that he ordered special from an artisan friend in Milan, and Blaine gets in his car and drives away - to the store, Kurt assumes, to get something that will match it…and one up it.

Kurt doesn't care. He knows that nothing Blaine can find at The Home Depot will match the magnificence of his holiday décor. At least Blaine's conceit and his naivete will eat into his decorating time. So Kurt relaxes and finishes working in his blissfully Blaine-free environment.

By five in the afternoon, Kurt is done, and he's seen no sign of the dreaded Blaine Anderson. Kurt gives his display one last look over, checks the wires, the plugs, and the fuses to make sure everything is working, then he goes inside to shower and get ready for the judges. He doesn't want to look like he just rolled off the roof, which is probably how Blaine is going to look.

If he actually shows up and finishes.

Or maybe he did the gentlemanly thing and bowed out, realizing when he saw Kurt's handcrafted pieces mixed with the timeless beauty of classic Christmas elegance that his department store folly just couldn't compare. Maybe Blaine abandoned his half-finished fiasco and is sitting at the bar at Applebee's, watching the clock, waiting for the judging to be over, so that he can slink back home under the cover of darkness and show his face again tomorrow morning, letting bygones be bygones.

Kurt, with another new trophy gleaming on his mantel, will be gracious and not mention Blaine's overzealousness, or his defeat. They can continue on as neighbors, and eventually become friends.

Kurt breathes a confident sigh as he gets dressed for the judging, piping jolly Christmas music throughout his house to get himself in the holiday mood. He doesn't hear a peep of what's going on outside, doesn't hear the neighbors gathering to get a look at the displays before the judges come.

He doesn't hear Blaine return with a new load of decorations to finish his house and lawn.

From the sanctuary of his upstairs bedroom, which has laminate on the windows to dull the sound, and black-out curtains hanging to block the light, Kurt sees nothing of what's going on.

He throws on his coat and heads downstairs.

He can already see the lights from Blaine's house assaulting his curtains, lighting up his living room as if it's noon and not eight in the evening. But even with that as a precursor, warning him of the nightmare to come, Kurt can't believe what he sees when he walks outside.

Kurt's display for this year is understated, but glorious. His theme is ‘White Christmas', an homage to the timeless carol - shimmering white lights with accents of color, blue icicle lights hanging from the eaves that appear to be melting, tasteful sprays of flocked garland dotted with gold ornaments to accentuate the structure of his house, and specially bred, blood red poinsettias, to add depth and interest. Out front, he's decorated sparingly, to give each feature its moment in the sun, and stuck to traditional whimsy: his wire-frame reindeer family – a buck and a doe, with two frolicking foals; a Santa's workshop bench, handmade and painted by his father for his daughter when she was little, complete with half-finished toys, antique tools, and even large wood curls left in a carefully arranged mess on the surface; and a snowman choir, led by Frosty, his wife and children, singing from sheet music to Irving Berlin's White Christmas, the recorded version playing in HD quality surround sound from speakers hidden in nearby boulder façades.

And his focal piece - a replica skating pond, with Norman Rockwell inspired skaters twirling about the surface, their movements programmed to correspond with the song the snowmen are singing, plus a miniature snow machine giving them a steady stream of flakes to skate beneath.

It's gorgeous, if Kurt does say so himself. It's thoroughly thought out. It reminds Kurt of a Macy's store window, and has miles more class and sophistication than the farce his neighbor has come up with.

Blaine took a more theatrical approach to his decorating.

That was the nice way of putting it.

Actually, it looked more like he went down to the local Sears…or eight of them…walked into their seasonal section, pulled out his Amex card, and said, “I'll take it!”

Every inch of his roof is covered in colored lights. Some of them overlap in a blinding array – twice as many as Kurt managed to fit on his, and when he did it, Kurt had thought he was pushing it. Blaine's lights travel along the gutters and the eaves, wrap around the chimney, and cascade down the sides. Sticking out of his chimney is the rear end of Santa Claus, frantically kicking his legs. From where they're standing, Kurt can hear it saying, “Ho-ho-no! Help me, Rudolph!”

The visual assault of light and color doesn't stop there.

Along with the gigantic inflatable snow globe and its choir of children trapped inside singing Jingle Bells as tiny foam pellets spray around them is Santa on his Harley, ho-ho-ho'ing while the thing makes an obnoxious revving noise, jerking up and down like he's popping a wheelie. Blaine's front yard is a mishmash of various wintery icons – penguins, polar bears, reindeer, snowmen, and more elves than absolutely necessary, performing various tasks like inspecting a doll, drinking some cocoa, one's even picking its nose. He also has a few contemporary creatures – pigs in Santa hats; a pink flamingo, also in a Santa hat; and something that looks like an okapi(?)…wearing a Santa hat. He's flocked everything that stood still, laced garland over that, and out front, dead center, he has decorated a full size Christmas tree, at least seven feet tall, that spins independently on a mirror-ball pedestal, fiber optics sticking out from between the branches shifting colors from red to blue to green to purple, with a star on top that shines so bright in rainbow hues, Kurt's certain it can be seen from space.

The neighbors walking by, with cocoa and cookies in their hands, smile at Kurt's display, but they ooh and aah and stay for Blaine's. Kurt tries to ignore the attention that Blaine's display gets, the compliments, the words of adoration – the comparisons. Yes, Blaine may have dominated Kurt's display a tad, but this competition isn't just about grabbing every light you can and slapping it onto your house. It's about making a statement. It's about curb appeal. It's about…well, it's supposed to be about Christmas, but that's beside the point.

Blaine's display is sizzle. Kurt's display is steak. The judges will know the difference.

And speaking of sizzles, Kurt hears one, and suddenly Santa's Harley stops moving.

“Oops!” Blaine says, winking at the gasping crowd. “I'll fix it.”

Kurt smirks at Blaine rushing over to his many cords to try and solve the problem. Kurt thinks he sees it before Blaine does. This could be his moment. His opportunity to win. This one error on Blaine's part could be the end of his entire display. But Kurt's father taught him better than that. He also taught him to spot an overloaded circuit when he saw it, and to always help when health and safety are involved, so Kurt has to say something.

“Is that a UL approved extension cord?” Kurt asks, approaching Blaine cautiously. “Is it made for outdoor use?”

“Who does or does not approve of my extension cord is none of your business, Kurt,” Blaine says, wedging yet another plug into a power strip that looks frighteningly like the same one Kurt has inside his house for his computer charger.

“Um…Blaine” – Kurt starts hovering when Blaine tries to fill the last spot, and the thing sparks – “I think you've overloaded your circuit.”

“Kurt, I know what I'm doing,” Blaine insists, even though, before today, he'd never hung more than a single string of lights along the gutters of his house. He was entirely out of his depth, and he knew it. He realized it long before his power strip had started to spark, earlier today when he saw Kurt masterfully arrange his lights and his fixtures, his upscale decorations ordered from oversees sparkling in the sunlight. He should probably be listening to Kurt, but his pride's too stung to stop now.

At first, he just wanted to show Kurt that they could be equals, but now he might actually win this thing.

“Okay, but, you know, this is an older house, and I think it might have some aluminum wiring,” Kurt fusses. “You may want to hold off on adding anything else to that power strip until you have an electrician check things out.”

“Yeah, right,” Blaine says, even though his brain screams that that's an excellent idea. “You're just afraid that I'm going to win this thing.”

“Ha!” Kurt laughs. “There's absolutely no way that your vulgar display is ever going to beat my tried and true collection of holiday favorites. But that's beside the point. The judges will never be able to see my masterpiece if you knock out the power on the whole block!”

“Kurt,” Blaine says, standing upright with the power strip in his hands, “I am an adult man and perfectly capable of managing a few Christmas decorations! Really! Everything's going to be fine!”

Blaine, arguing with the power strip clenched in his gloved hands, grips too tightly. One of the plugs spark, and sets the whole strip on fire.

Kurt yells. The neighbors scream.

“Jesus!” Blaine throws the thing down, aiming for a mound of snow, but hits an elf, knocking it over and setting fire to its pointy hat. In a knee jerk reaction, Blaine kicks the elf's head, which goes flying with remarkable accuracy into Kurt's yard, landing at the feet of his Frosty the Snowman, setting the snowman's crocheted cashmere scarf ablaze.

The neighbors scream louder, dispersing in all directions to avoid the spreading flames.

“Call 9-1-1!” someone shouts, and someone else yells, “I've got them!” in response, while closing in on them, the howl of sirens can already be heard.

Kurt, who should be rushing over to his house to rescue his display, stands there stunned, while his snowman choir goes up in flames.

“Look…look what you did!” Kurt roars. “What the hell is wrong with you? You couldn't just be the good, quiet new neighbor, who's shy about coming out of his house for the first few months, and gets a little too giggly over egg nog at the Christmas party in the clubhouse! Oh no! You had to be Mr. Big Shot, coming in here with your elves, and your Santas, and your big snow globe, trying to undermine me, and take my trophy! Well congratulations, Blaine Pyromaniac Anderson! You've done it! You've set my Frosty on fire!”

Blaine stares in shock at Kurt.

Kurt glares at Blaine.

Kurt doesn't know if Blaine starts it first, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably. Or is it him, when the weight of his words hit him all at once. But the two men burst out laughing at the exact same moment, actually guffawing out loud as the fire moves from snowman to snowman.

“I'm sorry, Kurt,” Blaine manages between laughs. “I'm so so sorry. I didn't really want to win the damned thing,” he admits. “To be honest, I thought it would be a way to break the ice. Something that, you know, we could start a conversation over. I didn't know this was a thing with you. I didn't know that you wanted to win so badly.”

“I'm sorry I was rude to you,” Kurt says. “I should have just come over and talked to you. But then I heard what you called me…”

Kurt stops short when a look of confusion crosses Blaine's face.

“What I called you?” he says. “Kurt, I didn't call you anything. You were the one who said…” Blaine cuts off when Kurt's eyebrows wrinkle in the middle. “I take it you didn't say anything about me either, huh?”

“No,” Kurt says, looking around for their neighbors, who have conveniently disappeared, red fire engines taking their place as they pull into Kurt's front yard.

“I think that maybe you and I have been the victims of some neighborhood gossip,” Kurt says. “And I'm sorry about that, too.”

“I'm sorry that I didn't listen,” Blaine says sheepishly, “and that my bad wiring set your snowmen on fire.”

Kurt chuckles, looking at the snowman, now completely engulfed in flames. He shakes his head.

“That's one helluva mess I'm going to be cleaning up tomorrow.” Kurt tuts. Then he shrugs. “Cocoa?”

“Sure,” Blaine says, smiling, and it's truly a beautiful smile. Kurt wishes he had noticed it earlier. “Your place or mine?”

“Well, the fire seems to be contained to the front yard, so my house is…”

“Get that over here!” Kurt hears a man yell. Two firemen blow past. Kurt and Blaine watch as Frosty's head, which somehow shot off his body and hit the house, flares up, and a fireman hoses down his front porch.

“You know what?” Kurt says. “Let's go to your house.”

“Yeah,” Blaine says, taking Kurt by the arm and leading him away, “good call.”