The Reproductive Days of Christmas

[hazelnut]

Comfort and Joy

Requirements for Reproductive Day 3 (W5D5)

Maxed career: Firefighter for both.
Skill challenges: Plumber and Tinkerer for both.
Unique Lifetime Rewards: Nerd Influence for Father Christmas, Bookshop Bargainer for Mary.
Unique best friends: Johnny Johnson (FC) and Juanita Blanco (Mary).
Collection: service awards, two for Father Christmas and three for Mary.  Total value §16.

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I'm not quite sure how they ended up with honour trophies.  They dealt with a herd of rampaging llamas in the gypsy caravan (clearly that place has Tardis-like properties) but I don't remembering them rescuing anyone.


Once again, Mary gave birth outside the front door.

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Imogen Pelly, who happened to be passing, pretended not to notice but then rather spoiled the effect by crossing the road through the ice-cream van.

The customary family photo:

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Back row, left to right: Tinsel, Father Christmas, Mary holding Cranberry, Bauble.
Front row: Sage being hugged by Onion, Star sitting on the floor.

Mary and Father Christmas had starting learning instruments during her second pregnancy.

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Now they decided it was time to go professional.  Father Christmas named their band Comfort and Joy, "because I'’m built for comfort and you bring me so much joy".  What an old romantic  .

Leaving the teenaged clones in charge of the babies (they're such caring parents), they went off to spend most of the next few days playing for tips in the subway.

There was another set of birthdays and the Glittery Three thankfully left the children playing at home while they started on the familiar round of finding jobs and reading about street art.

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The Christmases' first wedding anniversary rolled around.  They celebrated while the kids were out of the house – and there were chimes.

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For those studying strategy, this is where 'How Not to Do It' really gets going.  I thought I was pushing it a bit by letting them Try For Baby so soon.  I should really have waited another day but they had completed their requirements already and I liked the idea of the anniversary celebration resulting in babies.  Sage and Onion were self-employed and ought to be out of the house well before Mary's due date; Tinsel, a professional acrobat, had just left.  The other three were in rabbithole careers, which hadn't been notably successful so far in this game (the elves kept just missing promotions) – but I could do something about that.  Hanging on to every possible happiness point was becoming less important, so all of them could buy Multitasker.  Father Christmas had grown a lot of high-quality basil by now and there was always Liquid Job Booster.

Oh dear!  Have I mentioned how little I've played with Supernatural?  Either I didn't know that Liquid Job Booster has the reverse effect in rabbithole jobs or I'd forgotten it.  Their performance meters hardly moved during their first day at work.  Even worse, Cranberry, who'd randomly rolled Supernatural Sceptic, had a negative moodlet from drinking the elixir.  And, just to rub it in completely, Sage, who'd got her promotion with a single photograph, set a new family record for non-masterpiece portraits – in fact, only one was brilliant, which was quite an achievement by this stage in the game.


Reproductive Day 3 Elves

Tinsel
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Acrobat
Building/property: Hangman's Tree National Historic Landmark (Dog Park)
Moved out: W6D1
New home: 1938 Beach Boulevard (Loveland)

Star
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Film
Building/property: Appaloosa County Water Treatment
Moved out: W6D4
New home: 1810 Ednamary Way (Shanita Mason – EA clone)

Bauble
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Art Appraiser
Building/property: Rags to Riches Consignment Store
Moved out: W6D6
New home: 27 Gentrify Manor (Bedlington)

(Bauble was actually ready to move out two days before this but stayed on to help with the next set of babies and the garden.)

Cranberry
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Law Enforcement
Building/property: Appaloosa Plains Public Pool
Moved out: W6D4
New home: 192 Horseshoe Loop (Country Cowpokes)

Sage
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Photographer
Building/property: Aleister's Elixirs and Sundries
Moved out: W6D5
New home: 1812 Ednamary Way (Darnell)

Onion
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Angler
Building/property: Cinnamon Crest Falls
Moved out: W6D4
New home: 309 Sweetapple Ridge Way (Pinkerton)

The museum portraits:

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[hazelnut]

I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus

Requirements for Reproductive Day 4 (W6D4)

Maxed career: Band for both.
Skill challenges: Piano Money Maker and Electrician for Father Christmas, Guitar Money Maker and Electrician for Mary.
Unique Lifetime Rewards: Rebel Influence for Father Christmas, Jock Influence for Mary.
Unique best friends: Esme Curley (FC), Tate Curley (Mary).
Collection: metals: two collected by Father Christmas and three by Mary.  Total value §112.

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By the time Mary went into labour, only Tinsel and Onion had left home, so she had twins.  (Given that they arrived on 24 December my time, no prizes for guessing the girl's name.)  Cranberry, Star and Bauble all got their promotions a few hours later, so there was just time for the two girls to move out and two new clones to move in before the end of the day.

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From left to right: Snow, Mary holding Eve, Robin, and Father Christmas holding Rudolph.

Mary and FC signed up as lifeguards and divided their time between working out at the gym…

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…and practising their charisma on each other, much to the kids' disgust.

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Maybe it was because there were only four of them, but bringing up this batch of elves went unusually smoothly.  It helped that Mary painted masterpiece portraits of three of them on the first try .


Reproductive Day 4 Elves

Robin
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Criminal
Building/property: Newton Cemetery
Moved out: W7D1
New home: 71 Rachelle Lane (Jeannie Butcher – EA clone)

Snow
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Medicine
Building/property: Adventure Landing
Moved out: W7D2
New home: 70 Rachelle Lane (Spring Farringdon – EA clone)

Eve
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Sculptor
Building/property: Appaloosa Plains Public Library
Moved out: W7D2
New home: 73 Rachelle Lane (Sports, Spice & Everything Nice)

Rudolph
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Business
Building/property: Hueber Associates & Kim Gould's Steakhouse
Moved out: W7D2
New home: 301 Sweetapple Ridge Way (Singleton)

Edit: I forgot to include the portraits (and these are actually halfway decent).

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Rudolph's antlers are by Claeric, from Mod the Sims.

[hazelnut]

Jingle Bell Rock

With the house empty again, it was back to business as usual, with another set of triplets.  Both parents had wished for boys, so Mary went on the Fruit Diet for the first time.

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Requirements for Reproductive Day 5 (W7D4)

Maxed career: Lifeguard for both
Skill challenges: Celebrity and Personable for both
Unique Lifetime Rewards: Eye Candy (Mary) and Strong Stomach (FC)
Unique best friends: Cruz Martingale (FC) and Sofia Martingale (Mary)
Collection: flowers, 4 picked by Mary and 1 by Father Christmas.  Total value §393.

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RD5 family photo:

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That's Jingle being held by his parents.  Satsuma, Sugar Plum, Panto and Nutcracker are standing in front, with Sprout kneeling.

Father Christmas and Mary took up street art.  You'd have thought they'd have had enough of it with all of the kids 'decorating' the place.

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Little Jingle showed an early enthusiasm for music.  As soon as he'd grown up enough to play a real instrument, he persuaded Sugar Plum and Nutcracker to form a band.

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Of course, they had to wait until after the triplets' next birthday to make it official – and when the other two discovered that he'd named the band 'Jingle and the Bells', they rather lost interest.  Well, what did they expect from a diva with star quality?  Of course it was all about him!  Nutcracker went off to join the army (there are plenty of military bands, after all) and Sugar Plum, determined to prove that she, as the only bona fide virtuoso, could do better on her own, retreated to the subway to play for tips.

Sprout, who was growing up to be adorably nerdy, pretty much lived in the library.

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Panto became a magician (professional name Panto Not-a-Mime).  He wasn't very good at it.

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Satsuma found her parents' old drawing board and took up architectural design, while Jingle, deserted by his bandmates, joined the music career.  He was the last of the six to complete his moving-out requirements, and was delayed even more when it proved that Hetty Lionheart, his chosen victim best friend, couldn't be evicted because she had pets up for adoption.  Fortunately, Jingle, amongst his other excellent qualities, was a cat person and was happy to adopt a pair of feline friends.

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They caused a certain amount of chaos, given that Jingle's small siblings were arriving at the same time, but eventually all of the pathing issues were sorted out and Jingle, Gift and Present were able to move into their new home (or back into their old home, in the case of the cats).

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Reproductive Day 5 Elves

Panto
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I had fun with Panto's outfits – and even spent some of his happiness points on social group influence, purely so that he could acquire the insane trait and wear them all randomly.  Like this:

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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Magician
Building/property: The Watering Hole Saloon
Moved out: W8D1
New home: 205 West Appaloosa Avenue (Curley)

Satsuma
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Architectural Designer
Building/property: JRA International Equestrian Centre
Moved out: W8D1
New home: 1936 Beach Boulevard (Dixie Carmichael - EA clone)

Sugar Plum
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Band
Building/property: Mick's Master Karaoke
Moved out: W8D2
New home: 303 Sweetapple Ridge Way (Pelly)

Nutcracker
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Military
Building/property: Swole on Fitness
Moved out: W8D3
New home: 1004 Pomona Promenade (Ellis Hancock – EA clone)

Jingle
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Music
Building/property: Varg's Tavern
Moved out: W8D4
New home: 6 Floodplain Lane (Lionheart)

Sprout
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: Video Game Designer
Building/property: Wolfson's Hospital and Research Facility
Moved out: W8D3
New home: 72 Rachelle Lane (Chandra)

I thought for a while that Sprout was going to be stuck in the household for some time, since he narrowly missed his promotion and was about to have several days off, followed by anther one because of Leisure Day.  Fortunately, his boss was susceptible to persuasion.

The portraits:

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[hazelnut]

Christmas is All Around

Since I was a little preoccupied by Jingle's frustrated attempts to move out, Mary and FC were left on their own during Mary's sixth labour and she chose to have the babies in hospital.  As I wasn't watching, I'm not sure whether the father was there for the birth or just stood outside playing on his mobile phone for the whole time.  Given Mary's look of disgust, I suspect the latter.

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Requirements for Reproductive Day 6 (W8D4)

Maxed career: Painter for both
Skill challenges: Master Muralist for both; Master Planter for Father Christmas and Super Friendly for Mary.
Unique Lifetime Rewards: Complimentary Entertainment (FC) and Discount Diner (Mary).
Unique best friends: Calvin Riffin (FC) and Shawnee Fox (Mary).
Collection: street art: 3 murals by Mary and 2 by FC.  Total value §2 (I'm a little disappointed it wasn't zero).

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They arrived home, picking their way around the cats, and unpacked the basket.

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The usual chaos of birthday cakes and clone voucher redemption followed, before everyone posed for the final Reproductive Day photo.

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Children from left to right: Gingerbread, Chestnut, Eggnog, Garland, Candy Cane and Trifle.

Perhaps because their parents were doing nothing in particular, the elves seemed to grow up even faster than usual.


Reproductive Day 6 Elves

Chestnut
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Maxed skill: handiness (not street art!)
Level 2 career: firefighter.  (No roasting on an open fire for him.)
Building/property: (none left)
Moved out: W8D6
New home: 1005 Pomona Promenade (Tiffanie McFadden - EA clone)

Candy Cane
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: lifeguard
Moved out: W8D6
New home: 1935 Beach Boulevard (Riffin)

Garland
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Maxed skill: painting
Level 2 career: stylist
Moved out: W8D7
New home: 37 Eucalyptus Drive (Fox)

Gingerbread
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: ghost hunter
Moved out: W9D1
New home: 190 Horseshoe Loop (Martingale)

Trifle
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: sports agent
Moved out: W9D2
New home: 1011 Pomona Promenade (Miller)

Eggnog
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Maxed skill: street art
Level 2 career: politics

Eggnog should have been able to move out just after Trifle, since she completed her requirements just an hour later.  Unfortunately, Layla Naquin, the EA clone who had moved into Vera Blackburn's house (had Vera died of old age?) proved remarkably hard to track down.  She kept leaving home, visiting a community lot for a few minutes and then going home again, while Eggnog trailed around town after her.  Finally, shortly before midnight, Eggnog caught up with her and threw a Jar of Potent Friendship.

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And, at 12:05am on day 3 of week 9, the final house was occupied by a Christmas elf.

The portraits:

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The phantom drumkit strikes again!

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Nutcracker's drums had disappeared while I was trying to delete them but Father Christmas tracked them down.  He and Mary spent most of their time gardening or dancing with the sunflowers during this period and also learned the last compositions to become masters of their instruments – I'd been holding them in reserve but it turned out they weren't needed to finish the challenge.

[KRae]

Well, that was fast. Was it difficult accumulating the LTH points to buy all those clone vouchers?

[Sarabi]

Wow!  Great run - congrats.

[hazelnut]

Well, that was fast.

Wow!  Great run - congrats.

Thank you .  I didn't expect to finish so quickly, particularly after messing up in the middle.  In fact, it only occurred to me just before the arrival of the sixth set of babies that they would be the last.  I was about to start the parents on a new set of requirements .

Of course, it's only since finishing that I've realised I could probably have knocked off a few days by using Age of Instant as well as birthday cakes.  Oh well.  I wasn't supposed to be being madly competitive anyway...

Was it difficult accumulating the LTH points to buy all those clone vouchers?

No - I was surprised how easy it was to earn enough happiness points and money to complete the challenge.  Even though I kept forgetting to give them wish-enhancing serum before Reproductive Days, Mary ended the game with over 115,000 unspent points and Father Christmas had over 150,000.  As for the money, they had over 2 million spare Simoleons.  Genie lamps make accumulating wealth so easy it almost feels like cheating.

The big problem I ran into was equally unexpected: all of those EA clones filling the empty houses.  A couple of times early on, I kicked out a townie family but there were no empty houses on the map when the elf tried to move out.  I thought the game had somehow failed to delete the Sims completely in Edit Town, so went back to the save immediately before the move and tried again.  When it happened for the third time, I went into Edit Town again and found that the game had generated a random Sim and moved them into the house before my Sim could get their phone out.  It didn't seem reasonable to have to go through the whole befriending bit again, so I just kicked out the clone.

I found that getting the kids to quit their jobs before moving helped to reduce the problem - several of them turned up later as co-workers or operating cash registers.  It still took poor Sugar Plum five attempts to move into her new house, though.  It was weird - she was standing right outside the door and I could see the new Sims appearing as the game restarted.

I've just gone back into the game and checked the population with Master Controller.  It lists 119 service Sims and 67 homeless, which seems ridiculously excessive  .

[hazelnut]

Let It Snow

And so the snowflake was completed.

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Mary and Father Christmas made their way down the spiral staircase that had suddenly appeared in the back garden and sat in the chairs (thrones?) in front of their portraits in the opposite point of the snowflake.

They'd done it – and well within the time limit.

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"Ermmm… so now what?"

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"Good question!"

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"Hi, Mary. "
"Oh!  My wings!"
"We both noticed how much it hurt you to lose them.  But you never complained.  Unlike somebody else I could mention."
"Um… Anyway, I know what I want to do next – call a meeting with the Lapland Elves' Negotiating Committee.  I think they might be pleased with my proposals."
"Oh?"

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"Um… yes, well… I've realised they're… er… right.  They are entitled to better working conditions.  The kids and I can take up the slack."


"Very well, a 5% pay rise as well as the extra holidays and the pension scheme…"

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"…And then my sons Noel and Sprout have a number of ideas for toys and games that they'd like to show your experts…

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"Rudolph wants to set up an exchange programme.  He'd like to learn reindeer herding – and improve your business model while he's at it.  And, I'm sorry, but Mince Pie and Trifle say your publicity's way out of date…"

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"Mary, I've brought some friends to visit you."
"Oh!  Deirdra, thank you!"

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"I've just had the most wonderful idea!  Why don't I set up a holiday home for tree fairies?  If you and your friends could sneak them out, that is.  As long as we avoided the Christmas period, no-one would ever notice they were missing.   We could easily add another couple of fairy houses – and we're not using the castle any more."

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"But, you know what?  I think I've grown out of standing on treetops.

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"I'd feel trapped.  There are so many other things I want to learn and do."

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"I know what you mean.  How did I ever cope with being stuck in that lamp?"
"So it's time for a change.  Deirdra, do you think I could have one of your magical makeovers?"

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"Santa dear, what you really need is an equal partner.  Here I am… Mother Christmas."

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And the snow began to fall.

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Belated credits for the Reproductive Day family photos: cmomoney for Pose Player; traelia, spladoum, ForeverHailey and jessesue for the poses.

[Trip]

Another story finished? You never fail to disappoint. I'm moving this to the Completed Stories board.

[hazelnut]

Was that supposed to be I always fail to disappoint?

[Trip]

Was that supposed to be I always fail to disappoint?

Shoot, you're right.

[hazelnut]

I did vaguely wonder whether you had something against completed stories...