Author notes: Caught a bad cold during Christmas week, bleh…
So I didn't get to work on the Christmas chapter like I really wanted to. This chapter came out a little late as a result. This isn't beta-read, haven't gone through grammarly, etc. So tell me if there are any errors, okay?
Also, not much happens in this chapter. This is just a christmasy slice of life stuff going on.
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Taylor spent the rest of time before Christmas arrived upgrading and improving her home as much as she could without drastically changing the layout of the house.
She had quite a scare when she came home and got an alert that a bill was waiting for her, that she needed to pay 2,243 simoleons or else the electricity and water would be turned off in 25 hours.
Naturally, this led her into having a panic attack and tearfully confessing to her parents that her powers were from some life sim game. That she didn't know if she was using up real money or not.
Thankfully, her parents were calmer than she was and had decided to check into things. They checked with their local bank to see if their accounts had been tampered with somehow, and as part of the experiment had told Taylor to pay off the bills on her end. Nothing happened on their end, and as a result, her parents were able to figure out that the simoleons account that Taylor had was merely a fictional one… an odd quirk of her powerset and nothing more.
That did a lot to alleviate her worries and guilt over spending so much money, now that she knew it was fictional money.
Of course, this left her free to remodel most of the house inside. Strangely enough, she discovered that she could have four basement levels and then build four levels aboveground… totaling 8 levels altogether.
Taylor was somewhat disappointed that she couldn't go ahead and build a skyscraper if she wanted, and wondered out loud why she had such an arbitrary limit imposed on her.
This amused her parents for some reason. Danny didn't want her altering the house too much aboveground but gave her permission to expand the basement levels if she wanted to. Something about giving her a proper superhero base to work from just in case she wanted to be an independent hero rather than a ward.
Taylor hadn't gotten around to that yet however as she wanted to save most of the sim money towards making the house just a little bit nicer than it was before.
Also, she was learning a lot about some of the more interesting build mode items. For instance, there was a futuristic trash can item that instantly vaporized anything you threw away into it AND gave you 10 simoleons per sim you had in the household every time you did that. This meant that it'd give her 30 Simoleons every time they deposited trash into there considering that it was just her and her parents. It was called the NanoCan Touchless Trash Can.
That meant the family didn't have to take out the trash ever again, and she got "money" out of it… so naturally, she sold all the plain trash cans they had and replaced it with that version, despite it being the most expensive trash can ever in her buy mode list. But, she felt that it would pay for itself over time. She didn't know if that trashcan would count as tinker tech considering it was created with her powers but she didn't care.
And then there was all the skill-related stuff in buy mode. She honestly had no clue which ones she should go for first as seeing she wanted to buy them all….
That was part of the reason why she hadn't started building the basement levels. She wanted to be able to design a theme around what she brought, instead of just buying every skill related item she saw. Obviously, she wanted to turn the original basement itself into a gym but she had no clue what the other basement levels would be used for.
It also didn't help that simoleons were starting to get low now that she had renovated the kitchen, laundry room, and guest rooms. So, for now, she was content to take a break from buying and build mode until she figured a better way to make sim money besides waiting for her parents to come home from work so that she'd get that stupid alert that told her that her parents made the household some fake game money.
Seriously, what the heck was with that?? Whatever.
She even asked her powers how she could make some money herself, and it straight up told her that teenagers could only have part-time jobs if they had good grades. That part she had no problem with, she consistently got good grades anyway. However, she was still limited in what she could and couldn't do in terms of jobs. So… that meant if she took a part-time job that her powers didn't recognize as a legitimate teenage part-time job, then she wouldn't most likely get simoleons on top of the real money she got. Great.
Joining the Wards didn't seem to count, even if they gave her real money for doing so… her power seemed to see that as joining a club, instead. It even labeled that in her groups' tab as "Protectorate Wards."
Also, there were those stupid real-life laws on the books that severely restricted parahumans from getting jobs as easily as other human beings did. Which was the other problem she had when it came to earning money, both real and virtual?
But the inner tutorial/help voice did provide a few interesting alternatives… with some skills, she could "sell" things that she had created, such as woodworking, art, and writing. Baking and Gardening as well, as that yielded various food that she could sell. Hmm.
Gardening was out for the unforeseen future thanks to the winter season unless she created some kind of greenhouse. Or if the PRT provided her with one at their base. But she did like the idea of growing her own food… it'd certainly be one way for her parents to save money on groceries. Something to think about.
Her train of thought on how to make more simoleons was derailed when her mother walked into the living room and asked her what she was doing today.
For some reason, Annette didn't seem very happy when Taylor told her that she was planning ahead on how to make real and virtual money at the same time.
She just sighed loudly, sat down in front of Taylor across the kitchen table and said, "Taylor, I know it's exciting to be a parahuman and figuring out how to profit from it. But, it's Christmas. Can't you try to be a normal teenage girl and have fun?"
Taylor didn't say anything, but she nodded at this.
Annette smiled. "As a matter of fact, Luna Stone's family just invited us, and Chloe's family to a Christmas party. Considering that we don't open the gifts until tomorrow, would you like to go?"
As seeing Taylor had nothing else to do right now? She smiled and replied, "Sure!"
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It turned out that the Christmas party they were going to wasn't being held at Luna's house like Taylor first thought, but instead was being held inside some hockey stadium.
Most of the bleacher seats were stored away as seeing this stadium had retractable audience seats much like the ones they had at Arcadia for basketball games and swim meets, only those ones appeared to be made out of metal rather than wood.
This meant that there was now plenty of room to host a party here, and it appeared that the big draw of the party was the ice skating. They had rented out the entire stadium for their party, and as a result, had brought out the skates as well, so everyone else attending the party could skate here for free instead of renting them like they would've typically done.
There were also other activities to do here because there were booths where kids could get their face painted, booth games like darts to win some prizes and so on forth. There were even food and drink booths where they gave out traditional Christmas drinks and food. Hot chocolate and Eggnog, etc.
There was even a traditional "sit with Santa and take photos with him" thing going on, but Taylor thought herself too old for that now.
It just reminded Taylor how ridiculously rich Luna Stone's family was because she tended to forget that most of the time with how low-key Luna tended to act. This didn't feel like a Christmas party being thrown by one family…. This felt more like a Christmas festival event instead.
…….. AND, it would seem that her game powers agreed with her because she just got an alert.
[You are now attending a Winterfest Festival event! Fulfill all those goals in time, and you'll get a special reward!]
With that, a small progress bar popped up in the right top corner of her UI interface screen and suggested a great number of things she could do to fill up the bar in order to get the special reward she wanted.
- [ Drink hot chocolate AND Eggnog periodically throughout the entire party]
- [Ice skate with friends]
- [Interact with Father Winter]
- [Have three sims or more enter a happy state]
- [wish others a merry Winterfest holiday]
- [Sing Winterfest songs]
It went on and on like that, but what Taylor got out of that whole thing was that her powers were telling her to have fun… doing things she would've done anyway.
She grinned and ran over to her friends Luna Stone and Chloe Copper once she picked them out in the crowd here.
Chloe wasn't dressed in one of her typical pink punk outfits for once, and instead were wearing a dark red Christmas sweater with a large white snowflake icon across her chest area. She wore a pair of red jeans and sneakers that matched the sweater and had a green scarf around her neck. Her hair was still spiky with pink highlights in it though.
Luna wore something similar, only her outfit was mostly in green and yellow colors instead of red. She had dancing reindeers in a line on her sweater.
It kinda made Taylor feel self-conscious for a moment there as she realized that she was one of the few people here who weren't really dressed in bright Christmas colors. She was the type who always went for dark and muted colors when it came to her wardrobe, only ever occasionally wearing bright colors like blues and greens.
And of course, that had reflected itself in the choice of her wardrobe that she selected while she was in that customization room. She was currently wearing a dark green shirt with a black knitted sweater vest over it, black jeans and a pair of green sneakers.
Shaking her head, she just smiled. Even if her clothes didn't reflect the holiday spirit she was feeling, she'd just show it in other ways.
"Luna! Chloe! Merry Christmas!" She called out as she greeted her friends, and they turned around to grin at her.
"Taylor, about time you got here." Chloe greeted back.
Taylor glanced over to her parents, who were now chatting with her friends' parents, and said, "Blame my dad. He didn't have any clean nice clothes to wear, so my mom had to dig through their closet to find something suitable."
In fact, Danny Hebert was wearing a slightly rumpled but clean white button-up shirt and blue denim pants.
Luna smiled. "Well, you're only slightly fashionably late. but not too late to miss all the best parts of a party. Come on, we have eggnog and hot chocolate over there…"
With that, she dragged both Taylor and Chloe though the crowds to a vendor who were manning the drinks booth.
"You know, I thought this was a Christmas party with people we knew. What's with the crowd here?" Taylor wondered.
"My dad decided that it'd be better to hold a party for not only family and friends this year, but also for all his workers and their families too," Luna replied.
"Oh." Taylor didn't know what else she could say in response.
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And just like that, time went by in a flash as Taylor had a blast spending time with her family and friends.
She ice skated, took pictures with both her parents and Santa, and sang songs with everyone when the music came on.
She even had a pleasant time chatting and getting to know her friends' parents as everyone sat around a table eating the food that Luna's mother, Clara, had made for everyone.
The tofu turkey Mrs. Clara Stone had made along with other Christmasy health foods was surprisingly very delicious, even though Taylor could tell that it wasn't real turkey despite the turkey-like flavor.
By the end of the party, as the Hebert family left in their van, Taylor's power informed her that she had gotten gold status for fulfilling all the goals before the Winterfest festival was over.
She was surprised because she had honestly forgotten about that as seeing she had been too busy socializing with her friends and having fun to check up on her progress bar and the game's goals.
She had been awarded some kind of vending gift machine that would let her take out a free random gift per day all month until it was all out of gifts and would let her sell it for a lot of simoleons afterward when it stopped working. Neat.
Apparently, she also completed a number of whims while she was at it too, as seeing her lifetime happiness points had increased as well. Which meant she could buy a few things in the rewards store now if she desired. But she decided to hold off on that, as seeing she was too tired to think about what she wanted there anyhow. She also unlocked the ice skating and singing skill, which was neat.
Taylor found herself yawning loudly, and her parents chuckled.
"Wore yourself out, little owl?" Danny wondered as he kept his eyes on the road.
"I guess so. I did do a lot tonight, after all. I never knew ice skating could be so taxing. Good exercise for my legs though. Hard on my butt too, since I fell a lot too..." Taylor sleepily replied.
Annette then cheerfully replied, "Good thing that tomorrow we'll be taking it easy then. We'll be staying in and opening gifts, after all."
Taylor smiled at this. Truthfully, she was kinda looking forward to that, but not because of the gifts she was gonna get.
Because she got shot at the mall, Taylor hadn't gotten around to getting her mother a proper gift and her dad had only gotten a tie. But Buy mode actually seemed to have gift-wrapped presents that she could buy for a few simoleons, and judging by the description on the bundles of gifts that she had put under the tree, the gift boxes gave out randomized items every time.
Taylor got enough gifts for everyone to go around, so she was looking forward to seeing what everyone would get from those randomized gift boxes. In a way, it kinda felt like a lottery… heh.
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The next morning, after everyone had breakfast, Taylor finally got around to telling her parents about the gift boxes.
Annette looked thoughtful at this. "So you honestly don't know what's in those gift boxes, just that they're randomized items handed out by your power?"
Danny raised his eyebrows. "Sounds interesting… might be kind of fun."
The three of them walked into the living room and her parents sat down together as Taylor sorted out all the gift boxes and divided them up amongst themselves. It was easy to tell which ones were created by her power, and which one had been gift-wrapped by both her parents and herself.
After Taylor was sure that every gift had been sorted and accounted for, the three of them sat down together and took turns opening the gifts while the others had a camera ready to catch each other's reactions.
When Taylor said that the giftboxes her power created had randomized items in them, she hadn't been kidding. There was almost no rhyme or reason to the selection of items they got.
Taylor started off by getting a nutcracker toy in one of the boxes, which were at least seasonally appropriate. But her dad got a bar of copper for some reason, while mom got something called a future cube… which was like a futuristic version of a magic 8-ball.
It went on and on like that, due to the fact that Taylor had brought up to 20 gift boxes in buy mode until they were only left with the original gifts that they had gotten for each other that wasn't created by her powers.
The rest of the gifts yielded the following random items:
- A lump of Clay-- a brown clay type that never dries out and could easily be molded into any shape. Gives sims an inspired mood every time they play with it.
- Various crystal collectibles
- Various toys, some of the superhero figures that nobody in the family recognized at all. Who the heck were LlamaMan and Llama-woman?
- A cheap camera that was apparently called the SnapTastic Flimsy-Cam.
- "Me Too!" Megaphone
- A bundle of seeds called Auntie Esther's Seeds. It seemed to be a bundle of your everyday vegetable seeds.
From her Mom and Dad, Taylor got the books "The PRT case files: Declassified", and "Parahumans in Society."
The first book was obvious what it was about by the name. The second book, on the other hand, was a general Parahuman Sociology book. According to the description on the back of the book, it goes in-depth on how parahumans were integrated into society all over the world, as seeing each country had their own way of doing that. It also goes into depth on how parahumans broker treaties with each other, how they reserve neutral spaces for agreed-upon meetings, etc.
It was a university book, but Taylor was an advanced reader for her age and she was interested in this sort of thing so she had put this on her Amazon wishlist. Unknown to her, her wishlist was public to friends and family, so her mother had looked at her books wishlist and gotten those for her.
Her dad was the practical type who didn't go online much and had gotten her clothes he thought she'd like. Taylor, of course, loved the clothes and books and hugged both of them in thanks.
Dad smiled when he opened up his gift to see the tie Taylor had gotten him and told her he'd wear it to work.
Taylor then looked sheepish as she told mom that she hadn't gotten her a proper gift, at least not one that hadn't been created with her powers, because of the mall shooting incident.
"Oh, Taylor. The fact that you're here with us safe and unharmed… that's the best Christmas gift I could ask for." Annette replied as she hugged her daughter again.
"Ditto to that." Danny smiled, as he joined in and turned it into a group hug.
For some reason, Taylor found herself getting a little misty-eyed at this as she blinked back tears. She hugged back, and mumbled into their shirts, "Yeah, I'm happy that everyone's here alive and safe too...I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost you guys if our roles were reversed."
"This is the real meaning behind Christmas, I think…" Danny mused out loud, "It's not about the gifts, the parties or even the food. It's about being with our loved ones, happy and secure in the knowledge that they're safe and happy here…"
"Oh dad, that's kinda cheesy," Taylor said, but she grinned all the same.
Annette smiled. "I agree with him though. So what if the gifts were weird and random this year? None of that matters to me, because I'm with the ones I love."
The three of them just smiled at each other, basking in the warm feelings they gave each other.
