poppy playtime · horror · plush toys · christmas · ensemble cast · cheerful facade · dogday · winter setting · group dynamics
*The view drifts across a neighborhood smothered in pristine snow, a ten-inch-deep quilt of white. Indoors, a pallid light seeps through the cloud-choked sky. The houses stand naked and expectant. A fire snaps and pops in the hearth, its warmth warring against the cold that leaks through the walls. As that icy breath finally penetrates the room, the sleeping forms of the Smiling Critters begin to twitch and shift, waking into the first dawn of the Christmas season.*