The Holly and the Ivy(And the Others)
Mary went into labour late on their second Thursday in Appaloosa Plains. Aaarghhh!! Was being Surrounded by Family really worth this?
(She wasn’t the only one making pained noises. I’d got them to Try for Baby very early in the morning, knowing that the first Reproductive Day was going to be pretty hectic, but when she went into labour before midnight, I thought I’d blown it. Fortunately, the first baby didn't arrive until around 1am the following day.)
Their first daughter, Mistletoe, arrived and Mary realised she’d been right after all – children were wonderful.
She walked around cuddling the baby until she felt the urge to spin and sparkle again – so Holly and Ivy were born just outside the front door. Then she took the triplets to their first birthday cakes while Father Christmas went to the arboretum to shed his wings with a sigh of relief. He stopped off at the hospital on the way back and emerged with two small copies of himself. He named the first Noel and the second Yule.
Mary became human with some regret. Even though she’d lost her job, she was still a Christmas tree fairy at heart. Even acquiring another daughter, Carol, didn’t really make up for the loss of her wings.
Everyone posed for a family photo before the children had their first cakes.
(That’s Ivy on her dad’s shoulders, Holly holding Mary’s hand, Carol and Yule standing in front of them, and Noel and Mistletoe sitting on the ground.)During Mary’s pregnancy, the parents-to-be had taken up a new skill, alchemy.
Now they returned to their books and cauldrons, while the teens spray-painted almost everything else and the toddlers amused themselves…
…although it was hard to get much done with all of the birthdays that kept happening around them.
Sweet little Mistletoe remained a child until her parents had mastered alchemy. (I was surprised that clones count towards Surrounded by Family, since they start out as children. Father Christmas was going to achieve his lifetime wish sooner than I’d expected – and I wanted him to drink wish-enhancing serum first.)
Noel, as Senior Elf, took to inventing – someone had to come up with new toy ideas.
Carol, of course, became a singer.
Yule and Mistletoe, who were drawn to the mystical side of Christmas, became a fortune teller and an alchemist respectively, while Ivy temporarily took over the garden and Holly the genius became an investigator.
(Holly was given genius as a birth trait by the game. When I discovered how quickly she learned street art from books at the library – far faster than her siblings who were covering the house in graffiti – I decided to choose the trait for every elf I could in future.)
Based on a tip from Deirdra, Mary advised all of the kids to choose Swimming in Cash as their lifetime wishes, but Yule, who was rebellious and artistic, wanted to be Street Credible instead.
(I really messed up there. I thought Yule would knock out his seven masterpieces as quickly as my previous street artists had done – and then I could use his happiness points to buy an inheritance or a genie lamp, so that all of the others would get their wishes. Nice idea – but Yule was astonishingly untalented. Even after he maxed the skill and picked up avant garde as a rebel trait, he still kept churning out ordinary murals. He was actually the last to achieve his LTW – Mary’s elixir store dealings were profitable enough for the other elves to get their wishes without extra cash.)
Reproductive Day 1 Elves (born/cloned W2D6)NoelMaxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Inventor
Building/property: Flying V’s Coffeehouse
Moved out: W3D6
New home: 19440 Bob-o-Link Drive
YuleMaxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Fortune Teller
Building/property: Rustler'’s Den
Moved out: W3D7
New home: 305 Sweetapple Ridge Way
CarolMaxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Singer
Building/property: Gypsy Wagon
Moved out: W3D5
New home: 141 Nandina Parkway
HollyMaxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Investigator
Building/property: Performance Park
Moved out: W3D7
New home: 19443 Bob-o-Link Drive
IvyMaxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Gardener
Building/property: Vault of Antiquity
Moved out: W3D6
New home: 67 Rachelle Lane
MistletoeMaxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Alchemist. (She actually reached level 8.)
Building/property: Darris Teeter Grocery and the Koffi Café
Moved out: W4D1
New home: 19442 Bob-o-Link Drive
And the first point of the snowflake lit up:
Oddly, all of the houses are now occupied – even though story progression is off, the game has moved people into most of the empty houses.