He scampered through the Den, leaving a trail of snowflakes behind him as he went. He was long and slender, wingless, but he still flew. In fact, it looked like parts of him flew whether he wanted them to or not, given how rarely his hind end seemed to contact the floor. Icy in color, breezed with snowy-white markings similar to the flakes that he brought with him, this long-horned winter dragon seemed to enjoy helping decorate this year's festive common room.

"... It's that time of year again already?" Baeris sighed, as her feet crunched into freshly-created snow. Her kids loved it, some of the ramps leading around the hatching sands were covered in slick ice, and they slid down them - along with several of the smaller sized dragons - to land in big drifts of snow powder below.

"Looks like," Kalkin said, leaning on one of the Den's many new pillars of ice. He abruptly decided that wasn't what he wanted to do, and instead snuggled up to Baeris. "The Den needs to find a tree," he commented, looking at the bare spot where last year's tree had been. "It's kind of late."

"'Bah, humbug,'" Baeris chuckled. "So, what's the new arrival's name, anyone know?"

"Jegurum," said Baelin, "he says it means 'icy joy' or something..." The boy shrugged, and went back to waiting for his own dragons to arrive... Maybe they would come from presents. Time was working against him and his friends, this year. Halloween was still on hold for them.

Jegurum slowed down and stopped in front of Baeris, tilting his long, long head. He belched, or perhaps he yawned, or he did something else, and a snowflake popped out of his mouth and drifted downwards. Where he paused, piles of snow simply appeared. Baeris wordlessly looked at the snow, then at the long dragon. He finally gave off a bit of a giggle, tiny perfectly formed flakes dancing with his voice, and then ran off again to help apply the right amount of snow to the area.

"Yup," Kalkin smacked his lips and grinned, "it's that time of year again, all right."

"Yup," Kalkin repeated again, the next morning. There was a tree though not nearly as spectacular as last year's, a humbler 15 footer rather than the hundred-or-so foot tall tree that had gone back to its homeworld shortly after last year's festivities ended. But this time, there were other dragons to play host to, plus the fact that Jagurum had piled so much snow that it could be said to be a tree in and of itself.

When this newcomer, another white and blue small-sized dragon, came along, he shifted the nearest mound of snow into a more solid glimmering ice pile. Then, as Kalkin watched with a bemused grin, he shapeshifted into a biped and began humming to himself as he carved up a draconic ice-sculpture.

"Very artistic," Kalkin said, somewhat startling the dragon-man.

"Thank you," he replied. "I can smell ozone on you, have you been in a metal shop?"

Now that took Kalkin by surprise. "I... I have, actually."

"Oh good, there's a metalshop." The blue-haired male nodded to himself and continued working. Eventually Kalkin gleaned his name: Istimewa. Baeris hadn't yet bothered to get up out of bed, but she would once the cocoa and coffee machines started up.

"And he jingles too!" Kali giggled, showing off the latest arrival to the Den near the tree. Her attendant Easter Xenos were mostly unimpressed, though who could say.

"Sandpiper, meet my dad! Daddy, this is Sandpiper!" She flung her arm backwards to show off the gently bobbing reindeer-type dragon. Much more reindeer than dragon, it looked to Kalkin.

The Charger looked at Kalkin with one squinted eye, "I've seen you before," he muttered.

"No, not me, but one of me, probably..." Kalkin was used to that kind of thing by now- if one of his dopplegangers were somewhere - even in draconic form, it was very likely that they'd have met. "We travel around a bit, looking for less-fortunate ... well, less fortunate versions. We've been getting lucky recently but I just have this feeling that can't last."

"Well that's okay! Say, do you think I can come along? I'm good at cheering people up!" Sandpiper chittered a bit, his floofy tail bouncing around, and Kalkin let off a chuckle.

"Of course you can, that's actually very noble of you. We can usually stand a good cheering."

It was settled, some time in the future when the group of Sangers gathered to scout out - Sandpiper would be on hand to help out.