Supine 'til Aurora • Dan Howell

• Chapter 9 •

• 22nd November •

Over the next few days, I set about buying Christmas presents, as my mum was always a firm believer in buying these things early.

Not only are things significantly cheaper, but it gets it out the way and you won't have to shop in the Christmas rush; of which Helsinki was always a victim of.

Even though it was only mid November, you could see the festive season beginning to trickle onto the shelves in the stores; Addi had even begun to stock ornate styled ball balls and some hand made tinsel her children had made. When she had first told me about the tinsel I had been slightly skeptical of it, but it wasn't that bad, and surprisingly we had sold several boxes of it.

I woke up on a cold Friday morning, greeted by the soft ping of my phone.
The message was from Dan and was literally just a picture of him smiling with a pink tiara perched on his head. No context what so ever. Either way, it was a hilarious start to the day.

Within 40 minutes, I was down at the shopping centre, and shifting through shelves of potential Christmas gifts.

Soon, I found myself amidst a Primark sale, looking down one of the home ware sections, hunting for some stuff for Lis.

For Oliver, I'd found a purple jumper for him, as purple is his favourite colour, and surprisingly I'd found a game he'd been wanting to play for years which he had been trying to find.

The shelf infront of me was jam packed with pillows and small clutter type objects. Lis had always been difficult to shop for, even after knowing her as long as I had, it was still a challenge.
After a few more minutes of desperate browsing, I came across a small ivory box, a brass lock attached to the front and hinges to the back.

Flicking the lock, I opened it, revealing a tiny rose, ombre pink and white, that span as twinkling music began to play.
Closing the box, I whipped out my phone, snapping a picture of it and sending it to Oliver, not caring about the extra cost of sending it to a different country.

Oliver 🐐🍍💙
11:54

How perfect is
this music box
for Lis?!

I continued to browse as I waited for a reply. It was about 9 there in England, so I knew Oliver would be up to get ready to go to work.
My phone pinged a few minutes later as I was searching through a rack of jumpers.

Oh my gosh she
will love that
so much

I smiled at the text, knowing that I'd found the perfect gift.

○○○

After dinner that night, I wrapped all the presents in Christmas tree wrapping paper, and tied red ribbons around each. I always over did it with wrapping presents and spent a lot of time on them because I loved making them look pretty.

I wrapped Lis' chocolate, music box and a cute blue bobble hat I had found.
Next, I wrapped up Oliver's presents, and then a dark grey sweater I'd found for Dan. It had "Walking Existential Crisis" written across it in italics, with tiny black and white planets dotted underneath. I really hoped he would like it.
For Phil, I'd found some duck slippers which quacked when pressure was applied. It was hilarious.