A/N: Those of you who read the most recent chapter of my Grojband request story have already been briefly acquainted with the "Groj-Tree," AKA the awful, but completely canon compliant Christmas tree that the band had put together. I figured there's no better time than the present to write the origin of the abomination I created. I hope you enjoy, and happy holidays!

XxXxX

"So, Core, care to explain why you've gathered us here today? Because I'm willing to bet that it's not band practice."

Laney, Kin, and Kon were all seated on the stage, staring expectantly at their frontman, who was rocking back and forth on his heels in front of a rather large object, sloppily covered in a dingy tarp. It was obviously a Christmas tree – or, at least, that's what it appeared to be. I'm not a scientist or anything, but trees probably shouldn't be neon orange.

"Well," Corey began, "I figured the garage could use a little bit of a…festive touch-"

"Oh, brother," Laney mumbled under her breath.

"- which is why I got us this!" He finished his explanation with a flourish, ripping the tarp away, revealing a six foot tall, sparkly, silver and orange Christmas tree. Laney and the twins cringed so hard they were worried their shoulders would get stuck and their faces wouldn't un-scrunch.

"That's fake, right?" Kin questioned after a moment. "Like, it has to be. It'd be completely inhumane if it's not." Laney and Kon nodded in agreement.

Corey rolled his eyes. And they said he was the dumb one. "Yes, dudes, it's fake. I'm not a heathen. I just spray-painted it! Looks pretty rad, right?"

Laney looked the tree up and down skeptically, wondering how many coats of spray paint it took to get the color that opaque. Corey had to have used at least three cans of orange and an ungodly amount of silver. And there was no way that glitter wouldn't stick to them every time they merely brushed up against it and it would never, ever, ever come off, no many how many showers they took or how many pressure washers they walked through. But overall? Not too shabby.

"Pretty rad, Core," Laney agreed. "I assume we're here to decorate it?"

He grinned. "Indeed, my dear Lanes. I found a bunch of old Christmas decorations up in the attic, and since my dad isn't using them for the tree in the living room, I figured we could use them for our far superior tree."

"You have our ornaments, too, right?" Kon added, wiggling his eyebrows.

Corey nodded, cocking his thumb towards the box. The ornaments Kon was referring to were all made of cardboard from way back when, sometime around the band's first Christmas together. They were all somewhat poorly drawn versions of the little icon on Corey's beanie and terribly cut out photos glued onto terribly cut cardboard, but they were Grojband's ornaments and they loved them. Trina apparently did not, because the morning after the Riffin family had decorated their tree, Corey caught her trying to ship them off to some third world country.

"So, what say we pop on some Christmas tunes and get to work?"

"Sure, just no Mariah Carey. Please."

XxXxX

As it turns out, the radio station playing nothing but Mariah Carey wasn't the only problem Grojband was going to have to deal with. Decorating a six foot tall tree when everyone in your party is under six feet requires just a bit of extra – and unnecessary – work. Because Corey didn't have a step stool. Just great.

Since they were without a basic supply, they had to combine their twelve collective braincells to come up with a new solution. Their first idea was for Laney and Kin to climb on Corey and Kon's shoulders, but Kin fell off the first three times they tried it and Laney couldn't even think about getting up on her frontman's shoulders without her face turning the color of a tomato. They deemed this one the runner-up.

Their next idea was a little more senseless, a heckuva lot more dangerous, but a more plausible solution then the last one, according to the test results. Kin managed to find the skateboard from his baseboard project, which was the only thing he wanted to hang onto after Laney pulled his funding a second time. He figured they could all just be very careful and stand on it, but surprisingly, no one wanted to risk breaking their neck for Groj-Tree, no matter how majestic it was. Well, Corey was willing; Laney wouldn't let him, though.

Third time's a charm, right? Kon suggested that they just push the couch over to the tree, which sounded like a good idea, but in the process of moving the couch, Kon accidentally stepped on the stray skateboard, causing him to barrel into Kin, who fell onto Corey, who toppled onto Laney, landing them all (namely Laney) in a rather uncomfortable dog pile.

"Okay, none of this is working," Corey sighed, pushing himself up off the ground and extending a hand to help Laney, making her blush. "Heh, sorry, Lanes."

"It's fine," she replied, dusting herself off – she made a mental note to bribe one of the boys into sweeping the floor. "But seriously, we need a new plan. I'm about to just ring-toss it."

"How do you not own a step stool, dude?" Kon piped up, still on the floor.

"Yeah," Kin agreed, readjusting his lopsided glasses, "isn't that, like, one of the most basic household necessities?"

Corey just shrugged. Why did they expect him to have an explanation? His dad just never owned one and never thought of buying one. Perks of being tall, I suppose.

"Okay, well, we decorated more than half of the tree, so why don't we just, I dunno, stop?" Corey suggested, walking back to the stage and grabbing his guitar. "I mean, this is proving to be one of my less-wicked awesome ideas." He went to turn around, but accidentally knocked the neck of his instrument into the side of the stage. His eyebrows furrowed and her cringed at the noise, feeling like he'd just accidentally stepped on a puppy's tail. "What's with guitar necks being so long, by the way? That should be your new focus project, Kin."

Just like that, the scrawny nerd's eyes lit up like the horribly fluorescent tree they were having such a hard time decorating.

"That's it!" he triumphed, jumping straight up in the air. "We can use our awkwardly-shaped instruments to our advantage! Corey, you're a genius! Can I see your guitar for a second?"

Corey shrugged and passed his guitar over to Kin, interested to see what exactly his friend had in mind. Kin grabbed an ornament from the Grojband box, just in case this didn't work, he didn't break any of Mr. Riffin's stuff. And ever-so-carefully, he extended the neck of the guitar up towards the top of the tree, and – even more carefully – looped the paper skull onto a neon orange branch. Ah, yes. He'd found the solution to their stupid, yet seemingly implausible problem.

"Bingo!" Kin cried, handing Corey his guitar back, feeling quite accomplished with himself. "We can just use Corey and Laney's instruments to get the job done!"

"Touch my bass and I'll break your fingers," Laney growled from the other side of the garage. She was very protective of her bass.

Kin blinked and grinned nervously. "Okay, we can use Corey's guitar and Laney can use her bass. No broken fingers needed!"

"Sounds rad!"

"Let's do it!

"I'll admit, it's not your worst idea. I'll give it a shot."

CHRISTMAS TREE TRANSITION!

Laney stepped away from the tree, her bass at her side, admiring her handiwork. Not too shabby, if she did say so herself.

The tree was fully decorated now, shining and shimmering in all of it's horrendous glory. Sure, there was still faint concern that breathing in all the fumes from the spray paint would lead to their untimely demise, but other than that, this was shaping up to be Grojband's greatest Christmas tradition yet! It even topped the pre-holiday horror movie nights. Granted, Laney was the only one who watched the films, let alone enjoyed them, the boys either clonked out before anything too freaky happened or got scared out of their minds. But still. This tops all of that.

"This looks wicked awesome, fellas!" Corey whooped. "It took a lot longer to figure out how we were supposed to finish decorating, which was a little…demeaning, but this rocks!"

Kin and Kon nodded in agreement. Laney just gave a thumbs up.

"Hey, Core?"

He pivoted on his heels. "What's up, Lanes?"

"One question: how exactly are we gonna put the star on top of this thing?"

"…Dang it."

In the end, they just stuck a group picture of the band to the top with tape. There was no way they were going to go through the hassle of trying to balance an electric star on top of this thing. It was already a fire hazard.