The DCU campus was covered in Christmas decorations, most tasteful and very well done, and everyone seemed to be in the spirit. The students were looking forward to finally being on the holiday break and enjoying the various activities going on around campus. There had been toy drives, charity runs, and a couple of holiday concerts. Most of the various departments had decorated their buildings and his favorite so far had to be the History department. With all the teachers from so many different backgrounds the hallways shifted pleasantly through the various different celebrations for the season.

He had at least put a wreath on his office door and there was a nice wooden soldier beside the door as well. That had been left there by another teacher but he did like it.

What he wasn’t so happy about was the fact that the faculty had, without really asking, set up a secret santa event and passed out names to each of the members earlier in the day. He probably wouldn’t have participated if anyone had asked but since they hadn’t he really couldn’t say no now without looking like a complete a**.

The only plus side was that he had been given the name of one of the ladies in the department that he got along with. He at least knew some of the things she liked and wouldn’t have too much of a problem picking out a gift for her.

The down side was it also meant he had to turn up at the faculty Christmas party which he had so far avoided every year. He was also going to mostly ignore the requests to come in your best ‘ugly sweater’. He had a few Christmas sweaters, and would wear one, but none of them really qualified as proper ugly sweaters.

First things first though he had to get a gift and that meant braving the shops while all the crazy shoppers were still running about.

Not his favorite thing to do if one asked.

Which meant his first order of business was going to be poking around online to see who had what he was looking for so he didn’t have to go searching through various shops to try to find a gift. Going prepared would mean he had to spend less time with the insane masses.

His laptop in hand and a cup of nice warm tea he sat down on his couch to go searching for what to get her. He knew what kinds of books she’d enjoy but that might be a bit too easy and there was always the chance she already had it. He could go with a bottle of wine but she was only sort of fond of it and he wasn’t going to go in for getting anything harder for her. She did have a thing for wood carved animals and masks but those were a little harder to find outside of specialty shops.

Ordering something was out since that would either require paying for expedited shipping or getting the item late and neither of those were proper options.

That left searching online to see if there were any shops around town which would have what he wanted. Settling in for a long haul he flipped open google so he could start looking around town.