Christmas with the Cats

Christmas with the Cats is the sixth chapter of Season 2 and the eighteenth chapter of the series overall. It serves as a Christmas-themed chapter to celebrate the holidays.

Prologue
As the month of November turns into December, and the first signs of winter come in, so is the holiday season. Expi and Mariko love this time of year - not necessarily for the gifts, but for the joyful spirit of the holiday and the many activities they like doing. But of course, gift giving is still a part of the holiday for them - and while Mariko can't usually afford a big gift for Expi, Expi is always happy to buy either several gifts for Mariko, or one big gift to rule them all.

This comes into play as Expi and Mariko go to Furmart. Before Expi goes shopping for groceries (and stocking up on eggnog and hot cocoa), Mariko shows Expi the ATL Studios Change Lite Pro, a new variant of the ATL Studios Change for $200 (albeit can only be played as a handheld). Expi comments, saying that "she can see her having one of these in the future," before doing the rest of her shopping.

Expi's Christmas Bonus
At the end of the first week of December, Expi obtains her Christmas bonus alongside and regular paycheck - an extra $300 that she intends to use to pay for what Mariko wants... alongside a couple games. After making some hot cocoa, Expi sets off - first going to the bank to cash in her check. Due to her concern regarding the security of banks and businesses around this time of year however, she decides to obtain $300 worth of cash to use for Mariko's gift. But she ends up being somewhat careless - forgetting to zip up the coat pocket she put her wallet in, which comes back to bite her when she goes to Furmart.

As Expi goes through the Furmart parking lot, she slips on a patch of ice - causing her to lose her wallet without noticing. She gets up, only with a scratch on her leg, and tells herself to be more careful. Expi goes inside, and picks out the Change Lite Pro and two games, but as she goes to grab her wallet from inside her pocket, she realizes it's gone. Just then, an announcement booms through the store that a wallet owned by an animal named "Expi Feliton" was retrieved, and Expi goes back to get it. But she finds out that the $300 she had was gone, and even after looking for it in the parking lot, she is unable to find it. This causes Expi to walk back home, feeling like a disappointment as she is unable to get Mariko the gift she wanted.

Working Overtime
When Expi gets home, Mariko notices Expi seems down, but Expi reassures her that nothing is wrong, before entering her room and laying on her bed, still feeling bad, and worried about Mariko being disappointed on Christmas day. But she remembers that her boss is allowing them overtime for working extra hours on the weekend and afterwards on a normal week day, and decides to pick up a shift for Saturday.

The next day, Mariko catches Expi leaving, and asks her where she's going. She questions why Expi is working to work on a Saturday, but Expi tells her that she felt the need to volunteer and get some extra money in the bank, assuring her too that she would only be gone during the morning. Mariko initially casts some doubt on this - this is the kind of excuse Expi usually made before Christmas shopping, but Expi ends up being gone for longer than she expected. Even after coming home for lunch, Expi goes back to work for the afternoon shift, leaving Mariko feeling lonely. On Sunday, Expi is gone once again, to Mariko's dismay, and grows frustration at Expi being gone, reminiscing on their weekend mornings together. She was worried that Expi was hiding something from her - thinking that they could either be in financial trouble, or that Expi doesn't like spending time with her. Expi does come back for the rest of the day at lunch, but that still leaves Mariko questioning why she is taking extra work time.

On Monday, Expi returns to work - which isn't a surprise to Mariko, but after not seeing Expi for most of the weekend, she still ends up feeling lonely. And Mariko continues to become frustrated as Expi returns home later than usual - working a 12 hour shift for the day. This leads Mariko to snap at Expi, asking her why she hasn't been home while Mariko is wanting to spend time with her. Expi decides to tell her what happened. Mariko assures her that she can understand if Expi can't afford the gift, and tells her that she doesn't want Expi to burn herself out by working extra hours just to get another gift, declaring that there's one gift Mariko wants more than the Change Lite Pro - time spent with her friend. Expi apologizes to Mariko, who forgives her, before the two kiss under the mistletoe.

The next day, Expi returns home a bit late, telling Mariko that she didn't want to upset her boss after picking up a shift. But Expi isn't telling the truth - she had gone to Furmart to pick up a gift for Mariko.

Christmas Day
Christmas Day comes - only two gifts are under the tree, one of them from Mariko to Expi and the other vice versa. Mariko's gift to Expi turns out to be a figure of the lizard character from Underground Story, which makes Expi happy. Mariko then opens her gift to find the Change Lite Pro, a big surprise after everything that happened. Expi tells Mariko that she had just made enough by the time Mariko spoke to her, but she didn't have enough money to buy her two games. Mariko shrugs it off, and is ultimately just happy about getting the Change Lite Pro in the first place. The two tell each other Merry Christmas, and at the end, the fourth wall is broken as Expi tells the audience "happy holidays," to which Mariko responds with confusion.

Trivia

 * This will be the first holiday-themed chapter of the series.
 * This will be the last chapter published in 2020.
 * The title is a reference to the 2004 Christmas film titled "Christmas with the Kranks."
 * The cover art is the first since The Bridge to be drawn using Autodesk Sketchbook for iPad.
 * The "ATL Studios Change Lite Pro" is a reference to a ROBLOX model ExpitheCat previously made called the ATL Studios Change (also known as the Expintertainment Change), which in of itself is based off of the Nintendo Switch console - with the Change Lite Pro referencing the Switch Lite.
 * Although this chapter was released before Dear Old Dad, it takes place after said chapter due to it taking place during the summer of the same year while this chapter takes place during December. Mariko the Fequine is the first chapter to take place after Christmas with the Cats.
 * Both "Dear Old Dad" and "Christmas With the Cats" were worked on around the same time, however ExpitheCat wanted a holiday-themed chapter in time for Christmas of 2020, and "Dear Old Dad" was still taking a longer time to write.