Holiday Shopping

It was refreshing after a good afternoon nap. After a quick evening snack and tea, the three of them got ready to go shopping for gifts. Ethan was the most excited among the three.

All of them hopped into the car and Ray drove them to one of the most popular mall in the city. As they neared the mall , they could see it was decked up for the festivities.

As they entered, they could see many big billboards displaying the festive sales..The mall was beautifully decorated with red and white. A huge cut out of a decorated Christmas tree stood at the entrance of the mall. The spirit of Christmas could already be felt in the air.

Rachael felt nostalgic and excited about shopping today. This was the mall she hung out with her friends a few years ago during holidays when she visited NY and she remembered how all of them waited eagerly for this time of the year every single year.

Ethan was awestruck at the beauty of the mall. He was looking all around and did not seem to get enough of it. One could see the happiness on his face.

It was a little early in the evening and there wasn't much crowd in the mall. As soon as they entered the mall a rich aroma of freshly baked cookies, bread and strong coffee mixed with the scent of perfumed air hit their nostrils. All the three of them felt extremely good.

As Rachael had the list ready they did not look around much and headed to the first shop mentioned in the list. They had decided to explore the rest of the mall if time permits once after their shopping.

They found the shop in the first floor however they couldn't find all they wanted in that shop. They brought whatever was available. Rachael felt that they should have planned this party much earlier but there was no point thinking about it now.

She made a note of it and hoped that she could find them in the next set of shops she had listed. If she couldn't find these gifts which she had listed, she had to find other suitable gifts. As a last resort she mentally planned to go for another round of shopping within the next two days.

As they continued shopping Rachael happened to see a tiny shop she had not seen before. She was curious and felt drawn towards it.

As soon as she entered this shop she felt a mystical aura in the shop. The intuition she had earlier came back to her but this time it was a little different. She had strong feeling and she couldn't shed it off.

Ray and Ethan felt the vibes as well and were alert.

An old lady with her grand daughter came to greet them and they behaved like any other shop keeper.

"Hi my name is Mariam and this is my granddaughter Chloe. How can we help you today? "

"We were looking for some gifts and this shop seemed quite interesting. I had never seen this shop the last time I visited" responded Rachael.

"Ah! we are pretty new here" chipped in Mariam. "We opened this shop just a week ago."

Ray felt something out of the ordinary and he could sense some kind of concealment but held back from probing just to avoid showing that they were not super humans. He planned to investigate about this shop at a later time.

Rachael picked few gifts for Jason and his parents from this shop after carefully scrutinising these gifts. She had no plans of giving these gifts to her parents friends who were inhabitants of earth just in case it would turn dangerous, they will not be able to handle it.

After getting out of the shop, the three of them moved around few more shops where they were able to find all of the gifts in the list. None of them spoke about their experience with each other.

Rachael wanted to talk about this only to Ray but with Ethan around she just kept quiet. Ethan may not be as powerful as Ray but he sure was more powerful than Rachael.

After all the shopping was completed, they moved to the food court. The crowd seemed to have increased in the last few hours and the food court was jam packed.

They ordered very light snacks and coffee as they knew that Rachael's mom would have cooked dinner at home. Once they finished eating, they finally headed back home.

Ray was the chosen one to take the responsibility of hiding the new year gifts in the garage attic and conceal it with his powers that no one could break. The rest of the Christmas gifts were carried inside the home.

The three of them never felt fatigued while shopping at the mall, but now all of them were feeling tired. They just wanted to finish dinner and hit the bed. Tomorrow was a long day.

All of them freshened up and came over to the dining table and Rachael went to the kitchen to help her mother get the food and cutlery outside.

Once everyone was at the table, all of them had a hearty dinner while cracking jokes to lighten up the mood. After everyone finished Rachael helped her mum clean up.

All of them finally retired to bed. Ethan hugged his wife before falling asleep and within seconds one could here his loud snore.

Rachael was fed up of his loud snoring

She had given up trying all sorts of methods to stop his snoring. She was unable to sleep as usual and slowly removed Ethan's hand which was on her, she switched on the mobile torch and slowly moved near the study table. She gently opened the drawer and took out the earplugs from it and closed the drawer.

She had told Ray about Ethan's snoring problem and how she was struggling to sleep everyday. Ray had finally helped her find a solution in the form of earplug and a spell to make it soundproof.

She popped the earplugs into her ears before going back to the bed to sleep. She could no longer

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Authors note: This chapter is created to bring out the mood of a holiday shopping during a festive season and a light touch of magic to bring a little vibe to the chapter.

Review spoiler: The chapters get intense starting new year eve.

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