Stephew One Shots (MatPat x Stephanie)

Essential Christmas Apparel

Story 2: Essential Christmas Apparel

"Now remember Matthew, we only have an hour before we need to go or else we'll be late for the livestream and we don't need a repeat of Tuesday," Stephanie instructed as they headed towards the mall. Already festive decorations could be seen hanging off of every possible surface and Christmas carols echoed from within the building. "Although really it's more like 45 minutes now thanks to it taking forever to find a park."

"Gotta love those holiday carpark problems," Matthew replied in a sarcastically cheerful tone.

"Now repeat after me: I do not need any more structured outerwear."

"I do not need any more structured outerwear."

"I am here on a mission and I will not be distracted."

He rolled his eyes, but played along, "I am here on a mission and I will not be distracted."

"Good, and what exactly is that mission?" She asked as they entered into the mall, feeling the warm air engulf them, melting off the cold that had seeped through their clothes on the journey through the carpark.

"To find the ugliest Christmas sweater sold within these stores," Matt answered, smiling at the thought of finding a sweater that would outshine Steph's. That was probably an unrealistic expectation, but hey, almost anything would be a step up from last year.

"Bingo! We can't have a repeat of the borderline-bondage Christmas sweater catastrophe that you wore last year," she said almost as if she could read his mind.

"That is very true Steph," he sighed and began to laugh at the memory of his 'sweater' "Oh dear, oh that was truly unfortunate."

"It wasn't even an ugly sweater, it was just a - wait, was it even a sweater?"

His laughter intensified, "I don't think it was. It was just a red shirt I had lying around!" His laughter rang through the hallway, and although slightly embarrassed by her husband's incredibly loud laugh, she couldn't suppress the smile that crept over her lips.

"Come on GigglyPat, our first stop's right over here," she sighed, pulling him along by the hand.

The first shop was as successful as most are on shopping trips: remarkably unsuccessful. They scoured through the entire men's department (and some of the women's section too), and at one point Stephanie had to pry Matt off of a navy leather jacket he began to take a shine to, but as far as a Christmas sweater went there was nothing.

"I told you we should just buy it online," he complained as they exited the first store.

"One, we've barely begun looking. Two, shopping online for an ugly sweater takes away all the fun. And three, maybe we could've shopped online if someone hadn't left it to the last minute."

"Who would leave something so important to the last minute?" Matthew replied innocently, before sliding into his 'conspiracy' voice, "Wait, I know exactly who to blame: Jason! #BlameJason"

"Really Matthew?"

"This just in, Jason to blame behind lack of cringey festive sweaters!" He said in his best old-fashioned reporter impression. "30 points from house Jasonclaw!"

"Oh my gosh, stop being such a drama queen. Come on, we still have another 4 shops to check out." So the couple walked off in the direction of the next store on the list, hand in hand, laughing all the way.

"Why do kids get all the good festive clothes?!" Matt exclaimed as they passed the children's section on the way out on the fourth store on their list. So far each had been just as successful as the previous one, and the best it looked like they could do from those stores is get Matthew a plain red or green sweater, so at least he'll actually be wearing a sweater this year.