“So does the daycare have any Christmas traditions like make gingerbread houses, gift exchange or have a meal together?” Wendy asked her colleagues. It was a Saturday and the three teachers were sitting at a café, discussing what they should do for Christmas.  

“Well we tried getting them to make gingerbread houses last year and it was so messy.” Luna shuddered, afraid to even continue explaining what happened last year.

Victoria sympathetically pat Luna’s shoulder, “Sooyoung and Yoona finished the candies before we had the chance to stick them to the houses. Sunny and Hyoyeon had a little too much fun with the icing and figured it would be fun to cover themselves with icing and then it. Since we didn’t have spare candies, we had to use Taeyeon’s gummy worms, Sooyoung’s gummy bears and Luna’s cola gummies. Jessica wouldn’t stop screaming because there were worms and bears on the house.”

Victoria then took out her phone from her purse and started finding for something on it. When she finally found the photo of the gingerbread house, she showed it to Wendy and the latter almost spat her hot cocoa. She never knew it was that bad.

The roof of the house was covered with gummy worms, bears and cola. For some odd reason, there weren’t any doors but there were two square holes on each side of the house with gummy worms framing it. Wendy guessed it was suppose to be windows (and they probably used gummy worms as window frames, A+ for creativity).

“Well,” Wendy paused, trying to find the right words to describe the house, “At least it’s colourful?”

“Whatever it is, can we not get them to make gingerbread houses? Please.” Luna pleaded with those huge puppy eyes that Victoria found revolting.

“Well we never tried gift exchange before.” Victoria pointed out.

“Oh oh! I know! How about we play Secret Santa?” Wendy suggested and her two colleagues looked at her with a puzzled face. “You guys have never played Secret Santa before?”

The two older ladies shook their heads and Wendy sighed.

“Well basically each of us, including the girls, will be randomly assigned to buy a present for someone.”

“And how do we randomly assign them?”

Wendy took a sip of her hot chocolate before explaining, “Easy. Write our names down on a small piece of paper, throw it into a jar or a container and then each of us pick one name up. Then we get a present for the person we picked.” 

“That’s a brilliant idea! Why didn’t we think of that?” Victoria asked Luna who merely shrugged.

*

When Monday came, the teachers gathered the girls and they sat in rows of three while facing the whiteboard.

“Ok so Christmas is coming, right?”

“YESSSSSS” The girls cheered.

“This year, we’re doing something special. We’re gonna play a game called Secret Santa!”

“YAY!!!!” The girls couldn’t hide their excitement.

“Alright. The instructions are simple. We’ve already placed your names inside this bowl,” Luna held out the big fishbowl with little folded papers in it. “All you have to do is pick one piece of paper and you can’t open it until I say so.” The girls nodded.

“How many pieces of paper do you have to take?” Luna asked, just to be sure that her instructions were clear.

“ONEEEEEEE” The girls yelled the answer.

“Can you open it after you take it?”

“NOOOOOOOOO”

“Good. Now we’ll go row by row ok? Hyoyeon, you’re first.”

*

The girls and the teachers now each have a piece of folded paper in their hands. Next it was Wendy’s turn to explain the rules of the game.

“The rules of the game are very simple.” Wendy grabbed a whiteboard marker and started writing the rules.

“Simple isn’t it?” Wendy asked the girls after she had explained each of the rules. All the girls nodded their heads like those cute bobbleheads.

*

It’s the 23rd of December and finally it was time for them to exchange presents since the daycare would be close on Christmas Eve. It would be a lie to say that none of them were excited for today. They had a mini party in the classroom since Jessica and Sooyoung’s parents were kind enough to sponsor the food and drinks for the girls by buying each girl a Happy Meal from McDonalds and a few boxes of pizza.

After they were done with the mini party, the teachers gathered the girls around and all the students and teachers sat in a circle on the floor. Everyone was holding on to a present and they all had bright smiles. Well, everyone except Irene.

“Irene, where’s your present?” Yuri asked the younger girl who was sniffing her hanky.

Irene looked up from her hanky with teary eyes. “I forgot to bring them, unni. Do you think the teachers will be angry?”

Feeling bad for the younger girl, Yuri pulled her in for a hug. “It’s ok Irene. You can always give the present after Christmas.”

Victoria clapped her hands once to get everyone’s attention. “Is everyone ready? We’ll take turns to exchange the presents. Remember not to open it first. Who wants to go first?”

All the girls eagerly raised their hands and it was hard to tell who had raised their hands first.

“Umm, why don’t we go according to age?” Wendy suggested.

“Yeah that sounds fair enough. I’ll start first then.” Victoria grabbed her present and walked over to Yoona. The doe eyed shikshin was shocked to find out that her Secret Santa is none other than her teacher. As she was too excited, Yoona almost ripped the wrapping of present but was stopped by Seohyun.

“Alright Yoona, your turn to give the present