This is a slightly edited/updated version of Christmas Production, written and posted to DeviantArt December 20212!

Keri Paley walked through her producer's garden as it was busily being transformed into a festive winter wonderland of lights and trees. He stood on his front porch in his red pajamas and reflective red shades, nodding in approval at his workers progress.

"Hey, boss," Keri said as she approached him. She had called him boss for ages, ever since he showed her the ropes of making it as a professional pop singer. He was the one who brought in the writers, musicians, and mixers that launched Keri into superstardom.

That wasn't to say that she had nothing to do with her fame. She was, after all, the one who looked amazing in the costumes she was forced to wear. And the one who could sing the songs they forced her to sing. And dance all at the same time. Times were rough for a few years there where Keri felt like a puppet to her producer and the studio. But that had changed after he last few albums where she had taken creative control. They weren't huge hits, but she was more proud of those albums than anything she had previously done.

Her producer looked at her and smiled a lopsided smile, "Keri, darling, I'm so glad you could make it."

"No problem," she returned the smile. "Do you have any news about my next tour?" Keri, hoping that she would be on the road again soon. Her last tour only lasted a few months, and she had been bored out of her mind since then. The studio kept promising her that a new one was in the works, but plans seemed to always fall through.

"Sorry, darling. There won't be a next tour."

Keri was confused, "You mean, this year, right?"

Her producer's smile, the one he always wore whenever he spoke to her, even in their most contentious times, went away. "No. There won't be anymore touring for you."

Anger flashed in Keri's mind, "That's not your decision to make!" She stuck her finger at him. His smile returned.

"Of course it is." Keri was about to say something again when she saw a perfect white snowflake fall on her outstretched finger. That confused her, as it was sixty degrees in Los Angeles and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. She looked up and saw a clear glass dome condense out of nothingness. And as she watched, flakes of snow began to materialize and float to the ground.

She was too stunned to move until it was far too late and the glass dome had completely surrounded her. In fact, she realized then she wasn't moving at all. She tried to jump out of her malaise, but her feet simply didn't move.

Her producer smiled behind his red sunglasses, "You won't be making any more decisions about what you sing."

Keri felt something shift and change around her feet, and she looked to see she was now wearing puffy white shoes. Her mind flashed back to a costume she wore at a Christmas concert three years ago with those same shoes. And as she watched her jeans reformed into nude colored tights. And then her shirt became a white dress with a foamy, bulbous skirt. Five black buttons popped into existence down her dress, from just between her breasts down to her skirt. Buttons that looked like lumps of coal.

She looked at her arm and saw she wore familiar arm warmers dyed to look like branches, as well as white mitten gloves. Keri also saw the way her skin had a hardness and sheen to it, as if it was made from something other than flesh. And it was hard to see, but Keri thought she saw a thin line running across her shoulder that made it look like it was completely separate from her body. It made her look like a robot or doll.

She felt a hat appear on her head as her hair fall around her neck in a cascade of perfectly style locks. Keri looked back at her producer with wide doe eyes that had enchanted millions of people. She tried to say something; tried to move, but suddenly felt inexplicably tired. Her eyes fluttered closed and snow dreams wafted into her mind.

Keri didn't wake up for days. Didn't, in fact, wake up until the lights in her snowglobe lit up and fake snow began to fall around her. Keri looked out from her little dome, disbelieving and awestruck at the same time. She was the prime attraction in the middle of the winter wonderland. Colorful lights reflected off fake snow and lit up the Los Angeles winter night all around her. And she saw a crowd of people on the other side of her glass dome with eagerness in their eyes.

A familiar tune began to play from somewhere inside the snowglobe. A tune that Keri knew by heart. Her arm, with a white mitten glove and microphone attached, suddenly swung up to her mouth. Her hips began to move to the rhythm, bouncing her round skirt around. Keri tried to control her dance, perfect though they it was, but couldn't alter her steps in anyway. Even her mouth opened against her will and automatically lip synced to the pitch perfect and over produced sounds coming from of the snowglobe's speakers.

The audience ate it up anyway.