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You've signed up for a Secret Santa this year, be it in a hobby group, school, work, or just in your circle of friends. You've received a name and a small index card's worth of information about their likes and dislikes, so it's time to go shopping for them! Or, maybe you're receiving your own present? Was this a good idea or just extra holiday stress?
Secret Santas were always a thing in the Hunter household. Every Thanksgiving the family would pick a name from a hat of each of the members, and then on Christmas day there would be a great guessing game to figure out who got who in the drawing, if everyone guessed correctly, there was another special prize to be won, even though it was nothing more than one of the other presents that they would have gotten already...but it was still a fun tradition. This year, Nick had been put into the hat with the rest of the names, so that was a neat little twist, of course Arias hadn’t been told that, so that was an even more fun little twist.
This year, she had pulled Arias’s name from the hat, and that left her with a slightly worried, and slightly excited feeling of almost dread. Her brother was always impossible to buy for. He was...picky, while not being picky. It was annoying. She was still a little hesitant about being out on her own after the whole...almost dying thing...but she figured that nothing really bad could happen to her in the middle of a crowded mall...in the middle of the day...right?
Right. Nothing at all. Anyway, it wasn’t really about her right now, it was about Arias and what she was going to get him for the Secret Santa. Maybe...maybe she could get him something for the store...like a new apron or spatula or something...but then that would be too easy to guess that it was from her, since she was always getting him new aprons and the like.
So maybe...she could get him something for his room? Like a blanket or a pillow or something...but she didn’t have that much money so it couldn’t be a really good blanket...pillows were cheap though, or they could be cheap. Maybe she could get him a joke present, some sort of princess pillow or...or something.
Carlee entered the mall and wandered aimlessly for a good forty five minutes before making her way to one of the bigger, fancy department stores and just staring hopelessly at the piles of clothes that were stacked and hung everywhere.
Maybe she could just make him a present...he always liked homemade things...at least he had when she was younger. But...ugh. Why was this so hard? This wasn’t for some stranger...this was for Arias, her best friend...why couldn’t she just find the perfect thing...not like this was even the only thing she was going to get him...she still had to find his real present and the gifts for her parents and…
And why did she ever think it was a good idea to leave her shopping until four days before Christmas? Was she crazy? Of course she was crazy...and now thanks to her crazy, everyone was going to go without presents. And that was awful.
...Well maybe not everyone. Her mom was always easy to buy things for, she loved the Christmas body spray from the one body shop, and her dad always liked candy, so a few bags of his favorites and a box of fancy chocolates was always a good bet...and there was that one movie that Arias was wanting…
Within fifteen minutes, Carlee had the base gifts for everyone and happily left the mall, not realizing until she was halfway home, that she forgot the very thing she had gone in for. She forgot her secret santa for Arias.
