“Okay, that was a text from my father and Carole. Their plane landed about an hour ago. They were waiting for Finn and Rachel to pick them up.” Kurt calls into the house, hurrying through the door with his luggage, himself returning from a last minute business trip and cutting it insanely close. Kurt hated to do that to Blaine, leave in the middle of holiday planning, when there was so much work to be done, but this new winter fashion show in Belize was one of the most important end of the year shows that Vogue covered, slated to become one of the most important in the world, and Isabelle, unfortunately, had come down with a horrible case of pneumonia. Security caught her in the lobby of the Vogue office, trying to leave for the airport, wearing three coats, seven pairs of socks, and running a 105 degree fever. Kurt had to go in her stead. But that meant the weight of holiday setup fell on Blaine's shoulders – decorating, food preparation, presents. Kurt knew that Blaine could do it. He had all the faith in the world in his husband. Walking through the door and greeted by his exquisitely decorated house, Kurt knows he had every reason to. “Thank God my flight was on time” – Kurt puts his bags down and locks the door behind him, admiring with a smile the gorgeously appointed living room, it's cheerfully decorated white Christmas tree (very fashionable in New York this year), the walls bedecked with silver and blue garland, and a wonderland of gifts, stacked nearly chest high, all in matching paper. “They're just around the corner,” Kurt continues, though he's seen no sign of his husband. “They should be here any…oh my God! Blaine! Blaine, where are you!? Blaine, come in here quick!”

“What?” a bleary Blaine races in, yanking a trapped finger from the knot of his bowtie and undoing the whole thing. “What is it? Is the brie the wrong temperature? Did I decant too soon? Did you see a mouse?” He gives his choice of questions a second thought. “Are you hurt?”

“Blaine” – Kurt points at the piles of presents, finger shaking, eyes round with fear – “what…the hell…did you do to the presents?”

“What?” Blaine asks, squinting to see clearly. “I wrapped them. It took me, like, twelve hours. Finally got to bed at six a.m. You know, Rachel and Finn's daughter is only one, and their son's four. We may have bought them a bit too much.”

“Well, that's not going to matter when they get a look at the wrapping paper!”

“Wh---what's wrong with the wrapping paper?” Blaine asks, squeezing his eyes shut while he yawns. When he opens them, there's a wrapped present in his arms. A present he wrapped last night. A present wrapped in the same red-and-green Santa paper he wrapped all the presents in. He bought five huge rolls of it for fifteen dollars. It was quite the bargain. “I don't understand what's wrong, Kurt. I think I did a wonderful job considering I've been working on no sleep.”

“Why don't you take a closer look at that gift, Blaine?” Kurt grits out between his teeth. Blaine is sure he's missing something. Kurt wouldn't be this over-the-top mad if he wasn't. But whatever it is his husband sees, Blaine just isn't seeing it. It's Christmas paper, like Kurt asked for. Blaine chose Santa because, of all the paper at the bodega he stopped at on the way home, Santa looked so happy, so cheerful, in his traditional red Santa suit, one hand on his chubby belly, and another wrapped around his…oh God! Blaine blinks his eyes several times and brings the gift up to his nose. Holy shit! How did he miss that? Kurt obviously didn't and Blaine can see why. With more than three brain cells working at full capacity, it's kind of difficult to miss.

On a tangent, he thinks, that has to be Photoshopped.

“I…I didn't notice, Kurt. I swear,” Blaine pleads. “I was so tired after work. Three gigs in twelve hours is inhumane. All I saw was Santa laughing and…”

“He's not laughing,” Kurt points out, and Blaine looks again.

“Oh!” Blaine groans, turning his head away. “Wow! Who thought that was okay?”

Kurt glares, forcing Blaine to focus on the immediate issue.

“Alright, alright…” Blaine paces back and forth, the inappropriately wrapped gift clutched in his arms. “Well, we've just go to re-wrap all these gifts. That's what we've got to do!”

“How?” Kurt asks. “They're going to be here in five minutes!”

Ding-dong merrily on high...

Kurt's whimsical musical doorbell announces the arrival of their guests.

Kurt swallows.

“Correction…” he says, blowing out a cleansing breath, which does bupkis. “Listen – you go outside and stall. I'm going to get all these presents into the bedroom and find some old wrapping paper.”

“But, we don't have any other Christmas paper,” Blaine remembers.

“Christmas, birthday, Valentine's Day, Groundhog's Day, at this point it doesn't matter so long as we don't put those poor kids in therapy! Now go!” Kurt shoos Blaine towards the door, almost physically shoving to get him there, then starts grabbing gifts by the armful, squirreling them back to the master bedroom to perform a Kurt Hummel overhaul.

Blaine takes a deep, cleansing breath of his own, hoping it works better for him than it did for Kurt.

Ding-dong merrily on high…

“Hey, Blaine. We heard you guys through the door. Let us in! We're freezing our asses out here!”

“Burt!”

“Sorry. Our butts. Is that better?”

Those voices send Blaine's exhausted heart racing, but he can't just stand there trying to slow it down. He's going to have to let them in. He opens the door a smidge, peeks through the crack, and smiles at the Hudson-Hummel family – four adults and two children, shivering, crowded together on the doorstep to escape the cold.

“Come on, son,” Burt says. “We're turning into snowmen out here.”

“Oh…yeah” – Blaine opens the door a smidgen more and steps out while the group tries to step in, “about that. We're going to have to wait a moment.”

“What? Why?” Rachel whimpers, cuddling close to her husband with their son sandwiched between them, and Finn wrapping their baby underneath his coat for warmth.

“Well” - Blaine stammers, his teeth starting to chatter with the cold - “we've had a little…uh…issue with the presents,” Blaine explains. “But Kurt's taking care of that now, and we'll be able to go inside in just a few seconds.” Blaine chuckles nervously at the quiet stares aimed his way. “How was the drive?” he asks, veering the conversation in a different direction. “You didn't hit too much traffic, I hope.”

Burt raises a suspicious eyebrow. Carole smiles sympathetically at Finn, Rachel, and the kids. Blaine, attempting to up the nonchalant factor since small talk isn't working, leans in to kiss the baby, making faces at her until she giggles.

No one notices little Christopher Hudson, thigh high to Blaine, staring eagerly and intently at the present in his hands. First, he tries to figure out the shape of the present within, to determine if it might be truck-shaped, or football-shaped, but something else attracts his attention, piquing his innocent curiosity.

“Daddy,” the boy says, pulling on his father's arm, “why is the Santa on Uncle Blaine's paper holding a sausage?”