Making my own gifts. on Magical Arts Room and Sports

Isaac Song

April 12, 2018 8:08 PM

Unofficial Christmas Eve Party! All invited! by Isaac Song

Being quarantined sucked. Isaac was just as disappointed as the rest of the school at staying here over winter break. He would be missing the annual snowboarding trip he took with his friends and that was kind of a big deal since they wouldn’t be able to understand why. This whole sickness had affected him too, but he'd had his bouts of accidental magic and ended up in the Hospital Wing with a fever. He felt completely well now, so he was hoping he wouldn't catch it again.

The whole vibe of winter break so far was pretty sad. The whole school was pretty decorated and festive. There was snow outside to make it a white Christmas—an event Isaac himself had never experienced before—but that just wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to get to know his fellow classmates and provide a place where they could all get together and hang out. If they were all going to eventually get sick, might as well have as much fun as possible beforehand. Or afterwards. Christmas was his absolute favorite holiday and it needed to be celebrated right.

Isaac thought he knew enough people at school by now to throw a grand party like this. It was an ambitious project, so he asked Luke to help him plan since he considered him one of his close friends here, and spread the word by mouth during mealtimes. He especially enlisted the people he talked to to tell everyone they knew and come with their friends. A few days before the party, he made a few flyers to stick up in the Pecari common room, Cascade Hall, and the MARS rooms. On the flyers, it read:

Come celebrate Christmas Eve with your friends at the MARS art room! Bring gifts, wear your best Christmas outfits or ugly sweaters, and have a great time! There will be snacks, games, and crafts. See you then!

When: Christmas Eve
Where: MARS Art Room
Time: Seven-thirty p.m. till curfew

Putting it together was the tough part because there wasn’t much he could do to decorate. He could use spells to the best of his ability, but that was about it. The best idea was to go to MARS and hope that the room transformed into some kind of party room. He decided to set up in the art room even though he’d never stepped foot in there before. It seemed like a good place in case people wanted to make crafts or dance. When he walked in, the room looked exactly as he’d hoped it would. The floor was smooth wood and the walls were a darker shade to reflect the dimmer lighting. There was a large Christmas tree fully decorated in one corner of the room and a dance floor in the center. There were very few sprigs of mistletoe hanging from various spots in the ceiling, but they were still there to make it feel more festive.

Apparently the school itself was on his side about this.

The bad thing about throwing a party on his own was that he was responsible for everything. He asked the prairie elves if they could provide some holiday snacks and he was surprised that they agreed. There was a table with eggnog, brownies, frosted cookies, fruitcake, and candy canes. He set up his Christmas music playlist and set it on repeat. He transfigured a bunch of objects to make ornaments and took the time to wrap them in order to make party favors. He piled those on one side of the room. People could take them and charm them or decorate them with ribbons or paint. He hoped they wouldn't run out fast, but he could also transfigure more if needed.

At another table, he set up papers and a number of art supplies where anyone could create holiday cards they wanted to send home or give to each other. In another corner, there were board games piled up that Isaac had received for Christmas from his family. Actually, he’d asked for them so he could bring them to the party. There was a mix of Muggle and magical board games. Later, he was sure he could start up a game of charades if people were interested.

Isaac just wanted it to be a fun, relaxing time where people could celebrate together. He did, however, had a secret desire to be known and gain brownie points as the popular kid at school. Throwing a school-wide party would probably help once everyone figured out that he had orchestrated it all. The only risk with this was that no one would show up. Isaac felt like he was pretty chill about those sorts of things, but it would still hurt his ego if it was a total flop. He just tried not to think about the possibility and the debilitating disappointment that would follow.

The party was supposed to start at around seven-thirty, and by then Isaac was ready. He even had his ugly sweater on: a red and green sweater with a friendly reindeer face that had a glowing red nose. Isaac was feeling pretty proud of his work and poured himself some eggnog to celebrate. When the first person walked in, he approached them eagerly, ecstatic that at least some people were showing up. “Hey, thanks for coming! Want some eggnog?” He handed them his untouched glass. “Sucks that we’re quarantined, but at least we can make the best of it."

Subthreads:

Sounds good to me by Raine Collindale with Isaac

Making my own gifts. by Lily Spencer with Parker Fitzgerald

Hmm.. more social encounters... by Gary Harper

19 Isaac Song Unofficial Christmas Eve Party! All invited! 375 Isaac Song 1 5

Raine Collindale

April 15, 2018 10:03 AM

Sounds good to me by Raine Collindale

To say that Raine had never been the biggest fan of school was something of an understatement. She had managed to become somewhat fond of Sonora because of the friends she had there but she still regarded being in school as an unpleasant experience. Being quarantined over the holidays therefore had her feeling pretty mad. She needed a break. The holidays were usually fun. A chance to do family stuff, and let off steam. The didn’t have shows over the vacation, but a lot of the adult members of her family worked corporate gigs - Christmas parties that wanted jugglers or stilt walkers or the like. They didn’t though. Those types were touchy about things like child labour laws, and having minors in an environment that included alcohol. Which meant the kids were usually free to meet friends and get trashed at New Year.

She had been excited to see the sign for Isaac’s party. She doubted it would be as wild as the ones she went to back home but it was at least an excuse to have some fun, and she needed that. She didn’t have much in the way of a Christmas outfit - it was a shame that she didn’t have any of her costumes at school, as a lot of those were very sparkly. She had found red and green clothes though. She had a red crop-top with a cross back that she wore for working out and a pair of green harem pants with sequins around the ankle bands. She had charmed both to glitter. A year or so ago, she would have been self-conscious about the amount of her body that her workout top showed off but she’d learnt that guys tended to like her the less she wore, and she liked guys liking her… She didn’t have much makeup at school but she had borrowed some, giving her eyes a good deal of shimmer and shadow. Her normally rather wild brown hair was straightened.

She headed to the MARS room at seven thirty. Normally she wasn’t exactly punctual, especially for informal things like parties but well… it wasn’t like there was much else to do. Although she felt slightly awkward when she realised that she was the first person there.

“Thanks,” she smiled, taking the cup from Isaac. She knew who he was in that it was a small school and most people knew each other, at least those within two years of themselves, seeing as they’d had classes together at some point. But she didn’t really know him. “Yeah,” she agreed about the quarantine and its suckiness, “It’s cool of you to throw a party. My brother’s coming too. He said he would. Kyte,” she added, although she suspected Isaac knew she was Kyte’s twin because… well, everyone knew everyone.

OOC- This is the style of top Raine is wearing. She is not infected in spite of having had exposure to the virus, just for clarity.

13 Raine Collindale Sounds good to me 327 Raine Collindale 0 5

Isaac

April 16, 2018 10:36 PM

Making small talk by Isaac

Isaac had a relatively brief mental list of Sonoran girls he thought were hot, and Raine was definitely pretty high up there. She just held herself in a different way and wore provocative clothing that definitely caught his eye. He would never do anything about it, of course, because she was older and he had literally no experience with girls in that way while he could bet she had a lot. She was really cool, but as a result a little intimidating to him.

Another girl on his list that he secretly hoped would come was Cleo James, if only because there were times in class he couldn't help but drool over her and other days he hardly noticed her quiet presence. He couldn't quite figure out if he was attracted to her or not, or what it was about her that attracted him.

Being a teenage boy living in a household of women was hard a lot of the time because he couldn't really talk to anybody except his friends about girls. His sisters loved to try and figure out what his "type" was, but Isaac hadn't really figured it out himself yet. He wasn't really crushing on anyone right now, but it was way easier for him to be friends with girls than to make a move. At least, talking to pretty girls was always a plus... and made him just a tiny bit nervous. He was a pretty self-confident kid, however, so he could hide nervousness really well.

"Thanks for coming on time," Isaac replied. "It's not often that happens, but I really appreciate it. Throwing a party this big is always a little nerve-racking cause you want people to show up. Awesome, looking forward to seeing him." Isaac had seen Kyte more often than his sister because they were in the same house, but he didn't know him very well either. "I'm hoping a bunch of people show up, but I guess we'll see if that happens."

He led them back to the snack table so he could grab another cup of eggnog for himself. "So, in keeping with the spirit, what do you and your brother usually do for the holidays?"

19 Isaac Making small talk 375 Isaac 0 5

Raine

April 18, 2018 9:03 AM

Oh. Um. Er... by Raine

There were different types of confidence. Body-confidence, Raine had in spades full. Not that she thought she was necessarily pretty or conventionally attractive (her hair was a little too wild and her teeth were a little too big), but certain bits of her body looked good. Enough other people had told her this that it didn’t seem like arrogance, just something she had accepted as fact that people liked about her. She’d also escaped much of the social stigma which came with the idea of showing one’s body, because her family just wasn’t like that about that kind of thing. Self-and-people confidence however, were different things entirely. She was fine with wearing whatever she wanted, but she didn’t exactly strut around like she owned the place, nor did she know how to really do more than dangle herself in front of guys and hope they made the first move. A tactic which hadn’t been working so well on the somewhat more reserved boys at Sonora…

Isaac seemed pleased she’d come though, and she recognised his slight nervousness about the whole thing, and felt glad that she’d done something to at least help with that, even though she wasn’t sure what they were going to do or say until other people showed up. Luckily though, he led the way in that.

“Oh. Well… We go home,” duh, obviously, crud she was bad at this, “And uh… Well, we have a big family,” she probably needed to say more than that, “I mean, we never really know who’s coming or going when. My family doesn’t exactly do scheduling. So for Christmas, my parents do a meal for the five of us - we have another brother. Then anyone else who wants can stop in but they have to bring a dish, so it ends up like… this completely random meal,” was she talking too much now? Possibly. Probably. “At New Year, our parents are usually out and we go party,” she said, fairly casually. She knew not everyone had the same degree of freedom they did, but it was normal to her, “How about you?” she asked, helping herself to a cookie.

13 Raine Oh. Um. Er... 327 Raine 0 5

Isaac

April 18, 2018 11:20 PM

Let me help you out with that by Isaac

Even though Raine seemed to trip up on her words, she seemed to be aware of it and tried to elaborate. He didn't laugh or even smile at her fumbling, but just nodded with whatever she was saying. He took a sip of his drink and wondered briefly how his sisters and his mom were doing without him when she mentioned her other brother. They were probably fine, but Isaac always felt guilty leaving them for too long, like he had to watch over them and be the "man of the household". At least his dad would be back, but Isaac's heart sank a little at the thought that he wouldn't get to see his dad again for another six months.

Isaac suddenly realized he'd accidentally tuned out for a quick second. He quickly tuned back in when she talked about how her parents were usually out and they went to party. "That's pretty sweet," he said. "Having a big family is pretty nice, although I can't imagine not having a schedule. My mom's all about scheduling." He grinned at Raine and picked up a cookie himself. "I've got two siblings too, but two sisters. The younger one goes to school in Korea where my dad lives." Isaac was glad Raine was getting into the snacks. He hoped free sweets would draw more people in.

"For Christmas, my dad comes back with my sister Maia for like a week and we have Christmas dinner with just us five, no extended family included. It's been a tradition since my dad left to take over his family business in Korea permanently, so for like..." He paused to do the math in his head. "Uh, like, all my life pretty much. It's the first year I'm missing it.

"Then after Christmas Day, my friends and I go on an annual snowboarding trip up in Big Bear, California. There's four of us who've been tight since grade school, pretty much, and it's pretty much become our thing. My friend Drake's parents have a cabin up there that they usually stay in during the summers, but we always use it for our trip. It's usually, like, five days long and then we go back for New Year's. We've gone snowboarding together every year since fourth grade, so this is going to be the first year I'll be missing that too." Isaac hadn't realized how many traditions he was missing until right now and it made him feel a little sad.

"Anyway, and then New Year's I usually spend with family. Last year my mom had a party and invited a ton of family members and friends and it was a lot of fun. I got to invite my friends and we just hung out and played video games for most of the time. Nothing too crazy, but it was hilarious seeing the adults get drunk together. I'm not sure what we've got planned this year, but I guess I won't know." Isaac tried not to seem too bothered by it. As long as his mom and sisters were doing fine, he didn't feel like he was missing out too badly with New Year's.

"We should throw some kind of New Year's Eve party," he said. Isaac was probably coming off as someone who loved to party, which was partially true. He did love to socialize. "I mean, I don't really know what you guys do when you party for NYE, but it might be fun. Low-key though, probably, since we've got all the professors monitoring us."

19 Isaac Let me help you out with that 375 Isaac 0 5

Lily Spencer

April 19, 2018 8:07 PM

Making my own gifts. by Lily Spencer

When Lily saw the notice for a Christmas Eve party, she was thrilled. Spending the holidays at school was similar to torture for her. She'd so been looking forward to seeing her family over the holidays and her beloved dog. Though Tod was logistically her dad's pet, he'd always loved Lily the best and she couldn't imagine life without him. Spending the holidays without his warm fur and doggy kisses before the fire was horrible.

However, there was nothing she could do about the situation. At least she would be here with her friends. That was quite a big perk, actually. Playing in the snow without worrying about her marks or studies would be nice in its own way.

Lily didn't have any festive clothing, but she tried to stick with the colour-scheme with a red shirt and black jeans. At the last minute, she transfigured herself a red Santa hat. Lily wished she'd thought ahead to order gifts for her mates, but it was too late now. She wasn't very good with gifts anyhow, so perhaps it was for the best that it hadn't worked out.

MARS was decorated well enough and Lily was impressed with Isaac's work. She didn't know him very well, but it must've taken loads of organisation and planning to throw a party for the entire school. She took a moment to examine the room before taking off to the table of crafts. She waved at Isaac and Raine as she passed and nabbed a cookie on her way. She'd pour herself some eggnog later, which she hoped contained some alcohol.

If Lily couldn't give her friends gifts, she could at least make them cards. There was Jozua, of course, and his friend Finn. There was also Ingrid, her Pecari Quidditch team-mates and her family back home. She could also post one to Madeleine in France. They'd all be surprised; she wasn't exactly known to be adept in communication by post.

With her paints, markers and blank cards in hand, she unknowingly sat underneath a sprig of mistletoe, dusted her hands free of cookie crumbs and began her decorating process.

40 Lily Spencer Making my own gifts. 357 Lily Spencer 0 5

Parker Fitzgerald

April 20, 2018 6:35 PM

I'd also like to give people gifts. by Parker Fitzgerald

Wizards believe in Jesus? was the first thing Parker could think about when he saw the sign for the party. He did like the idea of a party though, and one where students of all ages would be. He liked the feeling of being around the older students, and felt cooler whenever he was around them. So he decided to go.

He'd been able to complete his gift for Cleo before the party, and had brought it with him, wrapped up. He'd tried to do the wrapping with his wand, so it didn't look as nice as it could have, but he was sure Cleo wouldn't mind. He'd also decided to bring something else with him as a gift in case they decided to do a white elephant.

Parker had looked around his room for something and found an unopened copy of Emerson's Essays that his dad always seemed to be pushing him and his siblings to read. He'd never read it, but was sure someone might find it interesting. Though most of the other students seemed ambivalent about things from the muggle world at best.

He'd put on a forest green sweater with his Pecari scarf, he felt he had some Christmas color and decided to leave. Most days, having a room to himself was nice, but for events like this, he felt awkward walking outside in the snow and then down the halls by himself.

On the way he tried to see if he noticed anyone he knew, but he didn't. Arriving just a bit after the party started, he stood outside the door, worried. He could feel an anxiousness build up as he stood outside the doorway. Would he have fun? Would he know anyone? Parker closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath and started counting. He opened them when he got to five and pushed the door in.

Walking in he let out an audible sound followed by a "wow". Parker was still very much not over the tantalizing thrill of seeing magic in all its glory. Though there weren't a lot of other students there. He saw two older students talking with each other that he didn't know. He noticed what the girl was wearing and immediately felt flushed. He turned his gaze to another part of the room, realizing he needed to sit down, preferably with his back to the girl in the red top. He recognized Lily from both Quidditch and now their DnD games and headed over to her. As he got close he noticed that she was sitting underneath some mistletoe.

He grew a bit flustered and stopped while he was walking towards her. He was unsure of what he should do. In tradition he was supposed to kiss her, at least in the Muggle world that's what that meant, but maybe it meant something else here. Parker started towards Lily again and stopped. Parker realized if it meant the same thing then Lily might try to kiss him, and he'd never kissed anyone before. He'd only recently turned 12 so that wasn't that much of a surprise, but he wasn't sure he felt comfortable having his first kiss be Lily.

Parker shook his head from side to side. No. He would say no if she tried to kiss him. Not that that would happen anyways. He was so much younger than her, not from "the right background" as he'd heard other students say and he was her junior on many levels. It wasn't going to happen at all, so he need not worry. Parker walked up to where Lily was sitting.

"Umm hi Lily, mind if I join you? I was looking to make some things for people too."

As he sat down, Parker leaned in close to Lily so as not to be too loud.

"By the way, did you mean to sit under the mistletoe? Don't worry, I'm not going to kiss you. But, some lucky guy might try, just in case you'd rather not."

41 Parker Fitzgerald I'd also like to give people gifts. 1402 Parker Fitzgerald 0 5

Gary Harper

April 21, 2018 9:28 PM

Hmm.. more social encounters... by Gary Harper

Gary was generally bummed out by the quarantine thing. He'd naturally been looking forward to heading home and seeing Dad again. He had all sorts of news to tell him, mostly about his D&D group, but there was that other issue that he wanted to talk to him about. Now he wasn't going to get that chance. Sure there was the whole Christmas thing as well that he was going to miss out on as well. Oh well, Christmas was nice and all, but it had never been really big, over-the-top event that he's heard about from other people. After getting the news, they had exchanged presents by owl, now it was just a matter of riding out the quarantine, and figuring out what to do with his other issue.

He'd spotted one of the flyers about the Christmas Eve party and decided to check it out. There wasn't much else to do, why not? Well, other than the fact that he didn't really have any gifts to bring, or a Christmas outfit or ugly sweater to wear. What kind of gift was he supposed to bring? Who was going to get it? What do you get that anyone would like, candy? He didn't have any candy, and he couldn't exactly run out to get anything. He had some spare dice, but he only knew a few people that might want those. Maybe he shouldn't go, this was getting complicated. No, he should go. He should try to be social. He grabbed one of his spare dice bags and wrapped it in a spare piece of paper that he turned bright colors, and headed for the party.

Upon his arrival, he saw a few people there already. Two he didn't really know, but the other two were some of his players; Ronin and Nefrig... err.. Lilly and Parker. They seemed to be socializing. He debated for a moment going over and joining in, but then decided against it. There was a small chance they could be talking about the game, and those conversations get a little awkward when the DM joins in on them. So instead he decided to wander around, whoever had set up the party had done a great job with the decorations and such. He found the snack table, picked up a few things, then began investigating the pile of board games. There were some here that he'd never heard of, were they from the magical community? Those had to be interesting, he wondered if he could find anyone to play a game with him. He opened one of the unfamiliar boxes and began checking out the instructions.

2 Gary Harper Hmm.. more social encounters... 1404 Gary Harper 0 5

Raine

April 24, 2018 9:22 AM

Yes, please do by Raine

Isaac’s Christmas sounded… Well, Christmassy. Not quite like a standard family Christmas given that it sounded like his family was scattered around the world the rest of the time, but apart from that, quite normal.

“Sucks to be missing it all,” she echoed his sentiment from earlier. His trip with his friends sounded interesting. And kind of familiar…

“Snowboarding is… kind of like stunt riding, right? My brother mentioned talking to someone in his house about that,” she asked. Kyte had gone into more detail than that, telling her what tricks Isaac had told him he could do, but Raine could only just keep up with what Kyte was doing, not his reports of some Muggle thing she didn’t know much about.

“Yes, we should do something for New Year,” she agreed, “Though it probably won’t be much like home for either of us,” she wasn’t sure what video games were exactly, but that was enough to know that they were unlikely to be happening here. “I can’t imagine the professors letting us drink. Though I bet they all will…” She also doubted Kyte had much in the way of interesting supplies in his room - he would have been relying on stocking up over Midterm - and it was never like he had enough for a whole school party, because if he got busted, he didn’t want to look like he was dealing, which would be far worse than just smoking himself. About the only part of New Year that she could replicate was guys, and that was only in theory.

13 Raine Yes, please do 327 Raine 0 5

Isaac

April 25, 2018 4:50 PM

But in case you want out... by Isaac

"Yeah, I talked to Kyte about it last year, I think." Isaac hadn't remembered that until Raine brought it up just then. "We were talking about tricks, but it's hard to get really good if you only go once a year." Isaac would've loved to go more often, but he was always here at school for most of the prime snowboarding months.

He also remembered Kyte saying how crazy he and his cousins partied, something that was really foreign to Isaac. It would be cool to check out what a Collindale party consisted of in real life. "I bet," he grinned. "But unless somebody's got an inside connection, I doubt we're going to get any of that." Isaac didn't mention that he'd never even touched a drop of alcohol before, but talking to both Kyte and Raine did make him a little curious.

"We'll see if we can get people together for something like that," he continued. "Though putting this together for the whole school was kind of exhausting, honestly. Oh, if you want to check out the other things going on, feel free. There's a board game section and craft-making station, in case you needed to make any gifts." Isaac was feeling pretty good every time a new person came through those doors and he didn't want to hold Raine back if she saw somebody else she wanted to hang out with.

But, if she decided to keep talking with him, he wanted to ask: "What do you usually do for fun when you're at school?"

19 Isaac But in case you want out... 375 Isaac 0 5

Lily

April 26, 2018 5:07 PM

It's the best part of the holidays, isn't it? by Lily

Lily turned to see Parker sitting next to her. “Hey Parker, ’course I don’t mind. They’ve got quite a bit of stuff here to work with.” She liked Parker, though they didn’t spend much time outside of Quidditch things and DnD. She glanced up at Parker’s question and chuckled. “I didn’t see it, actually, but it probably looks like I did it on purpose.” She debated within herself quickly. He was much too young to kiss, but a peck on the cheek would at least be a friendly sign of gratitude. There was nothing in the mistletoe tradition that deemed it had to be a kiss on the lips, did it?

However, his age still deterred her so she just smiled. “Thanks for saving me.” She moved out from underneath to a safer spot. She wasn’t sure if any wizard here would consider themselves lucky for having the opportunity to kiss her. She wasn’t nearly as attractive or feminine as the other witches here, but it was nice for Parker to say.

“So, what’re you going to make?” she asked. She remembered being twelve and looking forward to leaving Sonora to see her family again. Now, since she was older, she didn’t mind it as much, staying over the midterm, but she was certain it was harder for the younger students. It’d be nice to be a friend to them.

“I’m just making cards, but I’m terrible at arts and crafts,” she continued. “I’ve got an eye for colour schemes, though, so I suppose that’ll help me somewhat. It’s just a shame I won’t be able to buy gifts for anyone this year, but if owls can go through I’m hoping my family sends me my Christmas gifts. Um, not that it’s that important, but it’s just nice to know my family is thinking of me even though I’m not there. Do you think I should make one for everyone in our DnD group? That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” Lily pursued her lips and started cutting out box shapes from red parchment.

40 Lily It's the best part of the holidays, isn't it? 357 Lily 0 5

Parker

April 27, 2018 11:46 AM

I love it more than getting gifts really by Parker

Parker smiled as Lily moved to a safer spot.

Parker looked up overhead to make sure he wasn't sitting under the mistletoe. Though he wouldn't be adverse to kissing someone, he'd never done it, so he wasn't sure how exactly to do it. He wasn't sure this would be how he'd like to get his first kiss either.

Since coming back to Sonora though, he'd begun to notice the other students looks more and more, and noticed that many were attractive. Maybe there was a magic spell on everyone here. Or maybe it was just wizard born students as Parker didn't see himself as one of those people though. With his unruly hair, and his scrawny body compared to the other Quidditch players, he didn't think he measured up to the other students like Dorian or Jouza all that much. He would sometimes find himself alone in his room and would look at himself in the mirror and frown.

"Sure thing," Parker said as he got comfortable again and began to unpack a few things he had picked up around the campus. A few sprigs of plants here, some torn pieces of paper there, some stuff from the CoMC room.

Parker nodded along as Lily talked about making cards for people. It was nice to know family was thinking of you, and Parker had already received the most important package from his parents. The one that allowed him to finish Cleo's present, and also left him stuff to make more for other people. It did make him a bit sad though. It's not that he liked or disliked going home, but he did like some of his families holiday traditions, especially one in particular that he wasn't sure he'd be able to replicate here.

"I think people would like it. Maybe address them to the characters instead of the person themselves? That would be funny." Parker laughed at the idea of getting a card for a Dwarf. It put a smile on his face.

"I'm planning on making dream catchers for some people. I already made one for my friend, but I figured I could find other people who don't have a gift during break and are missing home in some way. Not all of our families can use the Floo after all." Parker tapped the wrapped book he brought, "I also brought a gift in case there is a white elephant." Parker paused a moment.

"Lily. I know this might seem odd, but do you know how I could find a radio recording and then play it on campus?"
Parker figured there was no harm in asking. After bringing up family Parker had a sudden yearning to listen an old radio recording of Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve like his family had every year. It was something small, but it would be a way to bring his home to school.

41 Parker I love it more than getting gifts really 1402 Parker 0 5