"I've got no clue what I'm going to get Skye," Jack said with frustration, looking at the figurines on she shelf in front of him. "I should've got my shopping done a lot earlier this year."

"I feel ya," Nick agreed. "I've ended up waiting too long to start my shopping too many times. I had something big that I had purchased for Carrots one year, but I had completely forgot and ended up ordering it too late."

"The only good thing," the buck replied, "is that by shopping here, we don't have to worry about that scenario. I just haven't found anything that I think she would like."

The fox to his left asked, "Well, what are some of her favorite things?"

The striped jackrabbit shrugged his shoulders. "She likes a lot of different things, to be honest," he responded. "She's always happy with whatever you get her for Christmas, but I was just trying to buy something really special this year. I'll never be able to surpass the surprise she gave me two years ago when she got us tickets to the Powerline concert."

"How about one of those ornaments where they engrave both of your names on it?" Nick suggested. "That's something personalized."

Jack shook his head. "Those are nice, but I was thinking something different. Something that she could keep out all year long and not just one month of the year."

"Yeah, you're right."

The fox and buck walked over to the next section of the store, over towards where a large wall of greetings cards of all kinds were displayed. They passed them up (as they both already had mailed their cards out to their friends and family members earlier), heading over to where some unique gifts could be seen.

Jack picked a small wood block that was meant for decoration; the words "Love You Always and Forever" were painted on it. It was pretty, but Skye already had some decor that was similar in style around their home.

"Here we are," the rabbit sighed as he came across something else, something much more interesting.

It was a shiny silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant on it. The box it was in said that it projected a pattern of hearts onto a surface when light shined through the center of it.

Looks very nice, Jack thought. I'm sure she'll like this.

"Hey, this stuff looks pretty cool!" he heard Nick say from the other side of the store.

"What is it?" the lagomorph asked as he walked up to him.

In Nick's paw was a little container that was colored like a candy cane. "It's called 'Snow in a Tin.'"

"If you want to see snow for Christmas," Jack remarked, "that's what Tundratown's for."

"That is true," the vulpine replied, "but not everybody has the ability to create their own from a tin in the comfort of their own home." He turned the container around to read what was written on the other side of its label. "See? It says it right here: Everything you need to make your own super glittery snow is in this-"

"Absolutely not," the buck interrupted.

"Not a big fan of snow, I see…" Nick muttered in reply, setting what he had found back where it had been sitting.

"It's not the snow, Wilde," Jack said. "Heck, I've loved the snow pretty much my entire life. It was the adjective they used to describe that make-your-own snow that's problematic to me."

"Glittery?" the tod asked with a bit of confusion.

The striped leporine rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah."

"So you don't like anything glittery?"

"Exactly. On account of what happened on our anniversary two months ago, I made a vow that I wouldn't be bringing anything with glitter on it into our house."

Nick was curious to know what had happened not too long ago that made him despise glitter this much. "Do you mind telling me what happened?"

Jack shook his head as he recollected what had happened, ready to tell the fox his little story. "So I thinking of what to get Skye for our anniversary. I always bring her a bouquet of those tulips that she loves, but I wanted to do something a little bit different in addition to that."

"Okay."

"So I did what any mammal would do when in a desperate search for ideas on unique anniversary presents."

"What was that, Jack?"

"I went on Zoogle and looked up 'Unique Anniversary Presents.'"

"So when did the glitter come into play?" Nick wondered.

Jack held up a paw. "I'm gonna get to that part, Nick," he said. "You know that a story can't be rushed. Anyway, I scrolled down some of the results that came up, and that was when I found some things."

"And what were those?"

"The first thing was called an 'Enchanted Flower.' It was a rose that was made out of glass that was covered in a little dome, and it had a little inscription on the bottom of it. It looked like that movie where the prince has that flower in the castle, and he has to find love before the last petal falls."

"I get what you mean. Maybe I should buy one of those for Judy when our anniversary comes up."

"Which led me to discover another item being sold by the same store online," Jack continued. "I happened to come across was a surprise anniversary box. I thought it seemed like an interesting addition, so I decided to go ahead and purchase it as well. Before checking out they asked what message I wanted to put inside of the surprise box, so I typed one out. But then they asked me what color. Not knowing what they meant by that, I selected blue since it's Skye's favorite color in the world. I first thought that the color of the box was going to be blue when I said that, but turns out that's not what it meant at all."

"So you could say this surprise box ended up surprising you as well?"

"Exactly. Both of the things I bought arrived on the afternoon of our anniversary. Couldn't have been happier with how quick it got here. So when Skye got home from work later that evening, I gave her both of the boxes for her to open. I wanted her to open the one with the Enchanted Flower thing first, but she insisted on opening the one that was supposed to be surprise box."

"Then the glitter incident happens, right?"

Jack nodded his head. "She started to open the box, but it was sealed up pretty tightly. After struggling to open it up a little bit, the surprise unveiled. Little did I know that when I selected the color blue, it meant that a mess of blue glitter was going to pop out of the box, go into the air and rain down across the living room floor."

"Geez. So what did Skye think of that? Was she upset about that making a mess?"

"I was first worried she was going to be, but she wasn't in the slightest. I, on the other paw, was in shock. All she did was jump a little when it popped out, but then she just started laughing and couldn't stop. She then read the message that sprung up from out of the box when the glitter popped out, which was just a little romantic note I came up with that day." Jack sighed before proceeding with his story. "In addition to that, she absolutely adored that Enchanted Flower thing, said it one of the prettiest things she ever saw."

Nick shook his head. "I can only imagine what cleaning all of that glitter was like."

The buck grunted under his breath. "I mean, it wasn't like there was pounds of it everywhere, but the amount that was in that surprise box surely did make quite a mess around the room. Even after I got the broom out and swept as much of it as I could, we were still randomly finding it on our stuff several weeks later. We were specks of it in the rug. On our darker clothes for no reason, as if the glitter as somehow attracting to them. Heck, one time I even found tiny granules of it sparkling on Skye's face one day, and she hadn't known about it 'til I mentioned it."

"Now I understand why you're not a fan of glitter."

"It was in that moment that I vowed I was never going to let something like that happen again."

Nick grinned. "At least I know how to prank you when April Fool's comes around."

"You better not, Wilde," Jack said with a chuckle.

After a momentary pause, the fox said, "Well, Jack, I think Skye's going to like that necklace you picked out for you."

"I think she will too," Jack agreed. "Let's head to checkout."

The two started to walk over to the counter to wait. As they both got in line (which wasn't too busy since they came at a less busier time), Nick spotted something on the buck's black coat.

"Hold on a sec," the vulpine said. "You have a speck of glitter on the back of your coat."

He brushed it off, and Jack turned around and shook his head the fox. The buck didn't know that another speck was on the front of the coat as well, a teeny little blue dot that glimmered slightly.

"You see what I mean, Nick?" Jack remarked. "Why I despise glitter."

Author's Note: Loosely inspired by something that actually happened to me in real life involving glitter. Received a Christmas card from a friend of mine, only to find out upon opening it up that a large amount of glitter was all inside of it. We were finding that stuff around for weeks afterwards, and now it's safe to say I check the cards before opening them every time. XD

'Til next time, everyone! :)