The Christmas Challenge

Annabeth Chase hates Christmas.

As a kid she used to spend Christmas with her dad. Every year they would go out and pick out the biggest, greenest, tallest tree they could find and decorate it with so many ornaments and lights you couldn't even see the tree anymore. After they would have hot chocolate to warm their frozen fingers and Annabeth's would have exactly seven marshmallows, just the way she liked it. It was a tradition, the thing she looked forward to as soon as the weather started to turn cold. That is until her stepmother came into the picture.

Turns out her stepmother had an unrequited hate for any and all things Christmassy. Of course Annabeth's father insisted that they listen to her and shut down everything Christmas related. No lights, no trees, no carols.

It stayed this way until she had decided to run away. When she met Thalia and Luke she had finally found a family, it was kind of hard to celebrate Christmas when you were running away from monsters who were trying to eat you with no money or provision, but they made do. They sang carols while roasting marshmallows that they stole from a supermarket over a roaring fire.

Eventually Annabeth got to Camp Half Blood where they had they went the whole nine yards, trees, carols, ornaments, lights, anything Christmassy they had. You would expect Annabeth to be exited or happy but all it did was bring back painful memories of Thalia and her father. Plus by then she had thought the whole thing was stupid, I mean how could a fat guy slide down billions of chimneys in one night. How would he even get down one if he was fat anyway?

When Annabeth told her boyfriend of four months that's she didn't like Christmas the look of horror on his face was almost comical.

"You don't like Christmas?!"

Annabeth shrugged "i just always though it was a little pointless."

"B-but it's Christmas" Percy stuttered, like that would automatically make her like it.

"I'm just not a fan" she said, not getting why he was so shocked. "So do you want to go get breakfast now?" Percy just stood there with his mouth gaping open. "I'm taking that as a yes" Ananbeth said as she dragged her shell shocked boyfriend down to the pavilion for some food.

Annabeth played with her fingers as she gazed around the dining hall for Percy. They had sat down at the Poseidon table when Percy told her to stay put before running off with an excited smile on his face. Suddenly a plate of Christmas tree shaped pancakes was thrust into her field of vision. "You may not like Christmas now but by the end of the day you'll be the freaking poster child for it!" Percy stated proudly. And thus the Christmas challenge began.

"Done! Percy said proudly as he stood back to admire his handy work . Sure the roof may be a little lopsided and he may have gotten hungry and ate the chimney and yeah he accidentally squashed a section of it with his elbow but he had managed to cover all the damage with blue candy canes so an in all he felt that it had turned out pretty well! He turned to show Annabeth his masterpiece only to be shocked by what he saw.

Sitting in front of her was a two story gingerbread house. It was intricately piped with icing icicles hanging down elegantly, little windows made of tizzlers had been perfectly proportioned and iced on, a red and green smarties door created, and other painstakingly beautiful details manufactured. Not to mention that the whole creation smelled amazing. The smell was alluring and Percy had the wild urge to grab a piece of it and inhale it's deliciousness. So that's exactly what he did.

"Perseus Jackson!" Annabeth yelled at a guilty looking Percy who held resemblance to a chipmunk with his mouth stuffed with a smarties door and chocolate rock pathway.