CHAPTER THREE: GIFT WRAPPING
"Elsa! Wake up wake up wake up! It's Christmas tomorrow! We gotta prepare our gifts!" Anna was violently shaking her sister on her bed to get her up. She was very excited because their parents would arrive later.
"Anna, it's too early. Go back to sleep" she said without opening her eyes.
"Alright but I have one question for you. Do you wanna build a snowman?" she said in a sing-song manner. Elsa instantly got up and prepared herself for the day and pulled her sister outside, stopping by the dining room first (of course) to grab some chocolate.
After a few minutes of playing in the snow, Elsa grew tired and coincidentally, spotted Jack and Holly in the distance, walking down the street.
"Anna, do you wanna go buy our presents now?" she asked. Anna was busy making snow angels until Elsa said what she said. She nodded, and Elsa called Jack for their attention.
"You guys headed to the square?" Elsa asked as they got closer.
"Yeah! We're going to buy presents!" the little girl beside Jack replied with a smile on her face.
"Then we can all go together!" Anna practically shouted and giggled right afterward.
"Great" Jack simply said. But it was clear in the tone of his voice that, he too, was excited in a subtle way.
"I'm just gonna go back and tell them we're leaving. Wait for me right here" Elsa abruptly said as she ran back to the giant house. A few minutes later, Elsa came back to the spot but not alone. She had Hiccup with her, and as for how she managed to convince him to go with them maybe forever a mystery.
"Awww Elsa you didn't tell me that this creature was coming with us." Hiccup complained as they reached the others. Jack heard his complaint and felt slightly offended. He was about to protest when Elsa spoke.
"Hey! Could you at least be nice to him until Christmas ends?" she furrowed her eyebrows at him but not seriously.
"Now why would I want to do that?" he grumbled. Elsa still heard though, she was literally standing right next to him.
"Because you are a good cousin and I'm the princess so you will do as I say." She teased.
He was about to protest but Elsa snapped her fingers and a snowball materialized in her hand. Gently throwing it up and landing back in her hand only to be thrown up again. It was her way of threatening her friends, but once again, she wasn't that serious about it.
"Fine" he groaned. They walked down the streets to the heart of the village; Hiccup as far from Jack as possible, but still managed to keep a steady argument about anything and everything. Usually Anna would interrupt, but other than that, it was swell.
As the group made their way to the market square, they all came to an agreement that they all meet back to where the humongous Christmas tree was an hour later.
Anna was with Elsa, of course. Jack went with Holly, and Hiccup was alone. He whispered to Elsa he'd rather be alone than to go with Jack. Which earned her approval and a tiny giggle.
Elsa and Anna first stopped at the bookstore, much to Anna's dismay. She said reading books was boring, but Elsa thought otherwise. As they were scanning the children's section, a certain book caught her attention the most. She pulled it off the shelf and examined the cover. 'Guardians of Childhood' it read. She opened it and coincidentally landed on a blank page. 'That's weird' she thought to herself. When she flipped to the other pages, though, they were completely filled in with text and drawings. Her curiosity only grew so she decided to buy it.
Walking over to the salesclerk with Anna playfully tagging along, she put the book on the counter and asked for the price.
"Let me see that" the old lady said as she put her glasses on. She examined the book carefully and when she put the book down, a smile crept up her face.
"It's yours, keep it. Consider it as a gift" she said lovingly. Elsa was in shock but thankfully accepted the gift. In return, she left a beautiful snowflake that she meant to place on the counter, but instead landed on her nose. The old lady just chuckled in delight.
"You remind me of someone" she blatantly said as Elsa and Anna were almost at the door. Causing her to stop in mid-tracks, Elsa turned around and asked out of curiosity,
"Who?".
"Jack Frost" she smiled playfully. Frankly, Elsa had no idea who this was, she never heard of him before, the only thing that was in her mind was 'JACK Frost? Like my best friend, Jack?'. She shook her head and gave the lady a confused look, but she only nodded in response right before an impatient Anna dragged her out of the store.
"What was that all about?" a confused Anna asked her sister. But her sister was no less confused than she was, and this didn't help clear anything at all. In response, Elsa just shrugged and they decided to drop the topic as they made their way to other stores.
They all met up at the giant Christmas tree in the center of the square just as planned with a few exceptions. Hiccup ran into Merida and the two teamed up on their quest to buy presents, at least that's how Hiccup put it, and earned a giggle from Merida. So they arrived together at the tree. Much to Jack and Elsa's surprise that Hiccup knew Merida. Merida in return was surprised that Hiccup knew both of Jack and Elsa.
Their conversation ended when they heard a rumbling noise. Elsa looked down at Anna, who in return, gave a sheepish smile. Elsa just chuckled.
"How 'bout we go get something to eat before we all go home?" she suggested. Everyone but Anna stared at her as if trying to relay a message. When finally figuring it out, she let out a sigh and said, "Don't worry, I'm paying". With everyone smiling and nodding at each other, Elsa knew they agreed.
They went to Jack and Elsa's favorite joint, and not after long, they were all eating heartily, except maybe for Merida.
"Is there something wrong?" Jack asked the red-head.
"It's just… I'm not used to eating this kind of food" she said as she rolled the meatballs on her plate with her fork.
"If the Princesses eat it, and they're still alive, well, I thinks it perfectly safe" Hiccup teased which earned him a glare from Elsa, which like I said, wasn't too serious.
"I guess there's no harm in trying" she reluctantly said as she slowly put the meatball in her mouth. There was a sign of satisfaction and utter happiness that radiated from her face. And before she knew it, her whole plate of spaghetti was gone. Jack and Elsa, who were sitting next to each other (obviously) just smiled at each other in amusement of their friend.
Minutes after Merida finished her second plate of spaghetti, she let out a loud burp. She instantly covered her mouth for it was very unladylike for her. It was soon followed by a much larger burp that came from the strawberry-blonde that was sitting right next to her and the whole group burst into laughter.
Elsa noticed that Jack and Hiccup would constantly glance at Merida and when the redhead would turn her head to face them, they would look away. Once again, she felt that strange feeling of being out of place. And when a conversation commenced, the loudest talking were Merida, Jack and Hiccup. Elsa decided to talk to Holly and Anna instead. When everything was quiet once again, Merida decided to break the silence and asked Elsa a question out of her curiosity.
"So, Elsa, I may not be in the position to ask but uh…people usually wear mittens in the winter so why are you wearing gloves?"
"Aren't the two just the same?" she asked back. The redhead felt slightly embarrassed but shook it off and nodded at Elsa.
"Well, I guess we better get going, we have gifts to wrap up" Elsa finally said as she stood up.
"Hey, we should all meet up at the Christmas Tree tonight and tomorrow night" Hiccup suggested. That's right, the festivities started the night before Christmas and ended the day after.
"That sounds great!" the redhead approved and everyone else either gave a nod or a thumbs up. They all began to disperse and headed back to their designated homes.
Elsa was in her room, alone. Anna decided to spend some time with her distant cousin, Hiccup so she had to wrap both their gifts. As she wrapped the gifts she was going to give her friends, she deliberately matched them up with their personalities and the color they seemed to like the most. Her gifts start with Anna. Into a small cardboard box she put a silver locket shaped into a heart with the word "Love" inscribed on it. She then wrapped the gift up in pink colored paper with a blue bow in the middle. Crafting a small piece of parchment, she dipped her pen in the ink and carefully wrote down the word "Anna".
Hiccup's gift was a journal with leather as the cover. Inscribed on the very back at the lower left corner lie the words, "Friendship transcends through lifetimes…". Although she wasn't too sure what they meant, she still thought it was a cool gift for her friend. She wrapped it up in green colored paper, put a blue bow on it and wrote his name on a piece of parchment she stuck on the gift with some paste.
She decided to give Merida a gift, although she wasn't prepared, she wrapped up the gift she was going to give Jack instead. It was a dark cloak with fabric as soft as marshmallows. [sorry, I'm hungry for marshmallows XD]. She placed it into a cardboard box and wrapped it up with some red colored paper; in which she was lucky enough to have. She just hoped Merida would like it. Inscribing her name on a small piece of parchment, she stuck it on the gift right next to the light green bow.
The only gift left to wrap was Jack's, but unfortunately she didn't have one left, nor did she have any more colored paper. There were just some bits and pieces here and there, but it was certainly not enough to wrap up a whole gift.
She reached for her bag to search if she bought anything that would interest Jack. All she could find was a pouch of her remaining money and the book the old lady gave to her a while ago. She had completely forgotten about it and now was her chance to find out what the blank pages were about. Carefully opening the book, she began to search for the blank pages only to find out there were none.
"What?!" she uttered out loud. She began frantically flipping through the pages one by one until she reached the end of the book. Nothing in her entire life had puzzled her more than this. However, her subconscious just spat back at her, "If you have ice powers, then I don't think it would be too much of a mystery if there were any magic books either." Upon the realization, she just shook it off and continued to the part where she would debate to whether or not she should give this to Jack. When she came up with an idea she began crafting her little trinket. Channeling her energy to her fingers, she did her very best to make it look perfect. She thought of every memory she had with Jack whether they were good or bad. It was a tiny little thing that was shaped into a crystal but was clearly made of ice. It was thin at the top part but slowly got wider at
the bottom. She found a piece of string and attached it to it, thus creating a necklace of no other. She smiled at her handiwork with satisfaction. She glanced at the clock that hung on the wall on her right, and gasped when she realized the time. She was almost late for the beginning festivities. Quickly, she tucked all her wrapped presents in a drawer of her desk. Because of her frantic state, they didn't fit in perfectly so she couldn't close it well. She decided to leave the drawer slightly open to not suppress the gifts and left a few sticking out. The necklace she recently made was one of them. Running, she left her bedroom and headed to the dining room where she found the rest of her family. Sadly though, her parents weren't there.
"Elsa! There you are. We're leaving as soon as Hiccup gets his butt over here" Stoick said, while munching on a chicken leg. Elsa guessed they were bringing food with them to have some sort of picnic this year.
"Awww…Uncle Stoick leave some food for later" Anna whined, causing Stoick and Elsa to chuckle. Her statement only proved Elsa's theory correct.
A few minutes later, Hiccup showed up and they all rode on a carriage to the center of the town.
Don't you just love cliffhangers even though they're not that thrilling? What?! You don't? Well too bad, there's going to be many chapters that are going to end like this. Hi :)