((This rp is set just after Black Friday))

Perhaps it was a bit early to start Christmas shopping shortly after Thanksgiving and the Black Friday sales, but Arian had figured that he might as well get a head start.

After all given that both Gigi and Saffy's birthdays both fell in December, he needed to buy more than just Christmas presents.

Gigi's birthday was the most immediate, falling as it did on the 8th, his cousin's birthday falling later into December - 2 days before Christmas Eve later.

Which was how he had ended up wandering around a set of kiosks that were already festively decorated for Christmas despite the fact that it was early December.

He'd actually managed to pick up his first few presents already from a kiosk that had been selling a variety of upcycled goods, with each item coming with a little tag containing the story of the item of clothing that they had once been.

Arian had ended up finding himself drawn to it, impressed over how the kiosk seller had transformed a variety of old clothes into goods such as phone, kindle and ipad cases. There had been a few glasses cases and Arian had found himself tempted to pick one up for his spare pair of glasses and making a mental note to himself to perhaps have a look back once he had finished all his Christmas shopping.

He had been shifting a few sets of trios of mini scent cushions that had once been jeans when he saw the cream coloured clutch bag with an antique bronze coloured clasp and embroidered flowers in orange and blue - one to either side - and immediately thought of Orah.

The little tag with it mentioned that it was made from cream Indian silk that had once been a sari and cotton, which made it even more perfect for his flatmate and friend and he had decided to buy it on the spot. He'd also managed to find a pink woollen scarf that he thought that Saffy might like and then had thought about it and had bought a couple of the mini scent cushion trio stacks to hold in reserve for the time when he and Saffy went down to visit the family.

Gigi had been a little more difficult in that he wanted to get something nice for his friend's birthday particularly as he'd ended up missing the past few. There was also the fact that his curly haired friend was turning twenty this year.

In the end he had fallen back on making some jewellery for her - earrings for Christmas and a necklace for her birthday.

He had ended up making the earrings first after coming across the sterling silver holly leaves amongst his bead collection and had paired them with round red beads in an attempt to make them look kind of like berries.

The necklace had taken longer, forming the copper loops to his satisfaction taking forever, but after a late nights working on it he had finally ended up with something that he thought his friend might like, the three turquoise butterflies that he had added looking like they were almost perching amongst the loops and serving to give some colour to the bronze.

Fetching some cookies from the kitchen, he paused to eye the finish product. It was pretty fancy and fancier than the other bits and pieces that he had given Gigi over time, like the earrings that he had given her on the day he had ended up finding out that she was a senshi, but twenty was kind of a big birthday and he had missed a bunch of her previous birthdays so he rather thought it called for a little bit more fancy.

He just hoped that she liked what he'd come up with.

Arian finished up his cookies and moved to start clearing up his work area and whilst he wasn't completely done with presents - after all he still had to work on or buy his cousin's birthday and Christmas presents and finish off the rest of his Christmas shopping - he had at least made a start.

Perhaps he would wrap his presents to Gigi in the morning though - after all he still had a bit of time before the 8th if just barely.

-- 710 words --