The Perfect Gift for the Perfect Sister
Sweetie Belle loved Hearth's Warming Eve. It was her favorite holiday of the year. It wasn't just because of the presents, the big feast or the overall cheerfulness of everypony in town; she loved Hearth's Warming Eve, because it as the one night in the year that was guaranteed to be a full family affair.
Sweetie Belle adored her older sister, more than anypony else she could think of. Sure, she loved her parents dearly too, but Rarity was her idol, her hero, her star. She admired Rarity so much, that some days, she would just sit down and think about how lucky she was to have the beautiful unicorn as her sister.
Ever since Rarity had moved out and decided to live on her own at the Carousel Boutique, Sweetie Belle always felt that their home—their parents' house—felt a little empty. Sometimes it felt like she was an only child, and she was just admiring Rarity from afar. But Hearth's Warming Eve was the one night when Rarity was guaranteed to come over, and spend time with them as a whole family. And it wasn't that just she would come over for the night—she would spend the night over too.
Sure, Sweetie Belle had slept over at Rarity's house countless of times. Her sister was their parents' go-to-babysitter, whenever they decided to take an exotic trip. Other fillies would probably be upset that their parents were going away on a big trip without them, but not Sweetie Belle. That meant she could spend the time at her big sister's house.
This Hearth's Warming Eve was going to be extraordinarily special. Not only was Rarity coming over, as per usual, and not only where they then going to spend time as a big family of four—Sweetie Belle's favorite feeling was when all four of them were together. The family atmosphere made her heart melt—but this year, for the first year ever, Sweetie Belle was going to buy Rarity a present all on her own, with her own money.
Sweetie Belle had been saving up her allowance for the past couple of months. She had taken on extra chores, helped neighbours, and saved every last penny she could find. Now, with her savings tucked neatly in her saddlebag, Sweetie Belle headed into town.
It was only six days until Hearth's Warming Eve. Only six days to find the perfect gift for the perfect sister.
Sweetie Belle walked down the snowy streets of Ponyville, her booties on and a scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. She waved when she saw Apple Bloom pass by with Applejack, but didn't stop to chat. She was on a mission. A mission to find the perfect gift.
She stopped in front of Sugarcube Corner. Maybe she could buy Rarity something sweet? She thought about it for a second, but then shook her head and moved on. She didn't want to buy Rarity something that she could devour in a minute. She wanted to get her something that would last. Something that was meaningful.
She passed by the flower shop. Maybe some nice flowers? But those posed to have the same problem as the sweets. Flowers would be nice to look at for a few days, but eventually they would die, and her gift would be over. Flowers weren't any good either.
Maybe she could buy Rarity a book? A book about sewing perhaps?
What if she thinks I'm insulting her, that I think she doesn't know how to sew well enough already? Sweetie Belle thought. She quickly shook her head at the book idea.
Sweetie Belle sighed. Nothing in town seemed to prove worthy enough for her sister. Disappointed, Sweetie Belle slowly made her way back home, stopping every now and then to peer into the window of a shop and consider another unworthy gift.
Sweetie Belle sighed heavily as she entered the kitchen of her home. She slumped her bag on the floor, her savings inside clinking as it hit the ground.
"What's wrong sugar-bear?" her mother asked, as she continued to make lunch.
"There's nothing in town worthy enough as a present for Rarity," Sweetie Belle whined.
"Why don't you buy her something nice to wear? You know how your sister is such a fashionista," her mother suggested.
"But the only place that sells clothes fashionable enough for Rarity, is Rarity's shop! I can't buy her something that she made!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed, her voice cracking. Her mother laughed.
"Oh my, yes, I guess that's true," she said, "Well, tomorrow your father is going to Canterlot. Why don't you tag along and see if there's something there you can get for Rarity?"
"That's a GREAT idea!" Sweetie Belle said. She jumped with excitement and ran out of the kitchen to go find her father.
The next day, Sweetie Belle boarded the train with her father and set off for Canterlot. Once they were there, the stallion told Sweetie Belle to meet him back at the train station in two and a half hours.
Sweetie Belle was excited that she was allowed to roam the great city by herself. She smiled and waved at unknown ponies as she walked down the snowy streets. The street lights were adorned with festive wreaths and Hearth's Warming Eve colorful lights were strung between them.
Sweetie Belle entered a few different boutiques, browsing at the fashionable items, trying to decide what would be the best present for her sister. Every now and then she'd find something she thought would be absolutely perfect, but wouldn't buy it because she would never be sure enough.
The time was coming near and soon she would have to leave. She only had a half hour left to find something for her sister, before she was going back to Ponyville. What if she didn't find a present in time? What if she didn't have anything to give to Rarity on Hearth's Warming Eve!? It was only 5 days away now.
Trying not to panic and stress, Sweetie Belle slowly started to make her way back to the train station, peering into all of the shops along the way. The train station was coming closer, and she was getting further and further away from finding a present for Rarity.
She could see her father in the distance, waiting for her on the platform, twenty minutes still to go before the official time meet. Sweetie Belle was about to give up and just go meet him at the station, when something caught her eye at the train station's souvenir shop.
She ran to the window and pressed her face against in. In the shop's window, was a beautiful hat. Different shades of blue swirled into an elegant hat, a white rose with sparkly gems featured in front, held on by a silk white ribbon. It was the perfect gift.
Sweetie Belle motioned to her father that she'd be a minute. She ran inside the shop and approached the hat cautiously. Holding her breath, she turned over the price tag. 50 dollars! That was exactly how much she had in her savings!
Doing a little victory-jig, Sweetie Belle carefully brought the hat up to the cash register. An elderly mare sat behind the register, a smile on her face.
"What a lovely hat, deary," she said kindly.
"It's for my sister!" Sweetie Belle said excitedly, "I saved up all my money so I could buy her the perfect present!"
"Oh, what a nice little filly you are. She's lucky to have a sister like you," the mare said, with a wink. "Would you like me to wrap it dear?"
"No, that's ok; I want to wrap it myself," Sweetie Belle said, a big smile on her face. The mare chuckled softly.
"Fair enough. That will be 50 dollars please," the mare said.
Sweetie Belle carefully handed over all of her change. She waited patiently as the mare counted it, and printed out the receipt. Just as she handed over the box, the hat neatly inside, Sweetie Belle heard the train whistle.
"I've got to go now! Have a nice Hearth's Warming Eve!" Sweetie Belle said, as she ran out of the shop.
"Hope your sister enjoys the hat!" the mare called back.
Sweetie Belle smiled as she boarded the train with her father. She had found the perfect present at last.
When they arrived back home, Sweetie Belle rushed up to her room to wrap the present. She had begged her mother a few weeks earlier to buy the last roll of a pretty silvery wrapping paper, the perfect wrap for the perfect sister.
Sweetie Belle pushed aside some assorted fabrics and a sad attempt at a scarf that were on her desk, beside her small sewing machine. She carefully placed the hat box down on the desk, and gathered her scissors, tape and wrapping paper.
Although it was blistery cold outside, Sweetie Belle opened her window to let in some air. Her room felt a little stuffy, and she didn't want to die from suffocation in the middle of wrapping Rarity's perfect gift. She couldn't have any stress. This was it, the last detail in her mission of finding the perfect gift.
She carefully laid out the wrapping paper underneath the hat box. Sweetie Belle began to fold the paper over the box, but then hesitated. She wasn't sure if the cashier had taken off the tag. Sweetie Belle's mother always had to remind her father to cut the price tags off of things, so it was now ingrained in Sweetie's mind as well.
She took the lid off of the box, and carefully took the hat out. Sure enough, the tag was still on. Sweetie Belle carefully put the hat back down on top of the box, and went to reach for her scissors. And then the unthinkable happened; just as she had turned her head away, a gust of wind shot into the room. Her window burst open further, and flurries of snow flew into the room. The hat began to dance on the desk, and before Sweetie Belle could stop it, the hat flew out the window.
"No!" Sweetie cried.
She dropped the scissors and ran to the window. The hat danced in the wind, falling gracefully. But just as fast as the burst of wind had come, it stopped. The hat plummeted down and landed on the ground.
Sweetie Belle grabbed her scarf and ran outside. The hat had only landed a few feet away from her house, but the damage had been done. Crying, she picked up the ruined hat, and went back inside.
"It doesn't look that bad," Sweetie Belle's mother said, her foreleg around the filly's shoulder. Sweetie Belle sobbed, her shoulders heaving.
"It's ruined!" she cried.
They sat at the kitchen table. The hat, indeed ruined, was in front of them on the table. The hat had been soaking wet from the snow by the time Sweetie Belle had found it. The white ribbon had peeled off, and the rose looked wilted. The gems inside the rose had gotten scratched and no longer shined. Sweetie Belle's mother had tried to dry the hat by the fireside, but now the hat was misshapen and the edges were wavy. The beautiful swirls of blue were now drab and looked green. The perfect gift was gone, and all that remained was a distorted corpse.
"It was the perrrrfect gift," Sweetie Belle cried, "I worked so hard and saved so long for it. And now it's completely ruined!"
Sweetie Belle's mother sighed. She didn't know what else to say. She had tried to console her young daughter, but she was right. The hat was completely ruined.
"Well, you know Sweetie, it's the thought that counts," her mother said, "It's not about the present you give at Hearth's Warming Eve, it's the heart that you put into it. You know, sometimes homemade gifts are worth more than those bought in stores."
"But it was perfect for her. She's my big, perfect sister, and I just wanted to buy something that reflected her, something that she'd like," Sweetie Belle sniffed.
"If she's really the perfect sister, then she'd treasure anything you made her, anything you gave to her with all your heart," her mother said.
"B-But I can barely make a scarf," Sweetie Belle said.
"It's not about the quality, Sweetie. It's about the heart, love and thought that goes into it."
Sweetie Belle had thought long and hard about what her mother had said. And eventually, she decided her mother was right. There was no way that Sweetie Belle could remake the ruined hat, which now sat at her desk, on top of her sewing machine. But she could try to make something else just as nice. The very least she could do was try.
Because of the whole fiasco, her father gave Sweetie Belle 20 dollars to go find something else for Rarity. Sweetie Belle used the money to buy some sewing supplies. She bought various shades of blue fabric and some silky white, some blue gems, and some thread. She thought about buying a pattern, one that she saw that was close to what she had in mind, but she shook her head. This was going to be her design, her own creation. Her very first important piece of sewing—aside from the CMC's capes of course.
She only had four days before Hearth's Warming Eve, four days before Rarity was coming over. Four days to make the next-best thing to the perfect gift.
Sweetie Belle did a few practice runs with the fabrics she already had at home. She barely slept as the days went by, but each practice piece came out better than the last. Finally, she took the plunge and sewed the real thing. She carefully wrapped the finished product, scribbled a note on it and placed it under the tree.
It was Hearth's Warming Eve. Rarity arrived at her parents' house just as her mother was setting the table. She placed her gifts under the tree, and unpacked her overnight things in the now guest bedroom, the room that had once been hers.
She was surprised Sweetie Belle hadn't come to bug her yet. She was just as surprised when her young sister sat at the table, eating quietly. Rarity tried to exchange conversation with her sister, but Sweetie Belle only gave one word answers. The filly's mind was elsewhere. Rarity shrugged and talked to her parents instead.
When it came time to exchange gifts, Sweetie Belle handed them out. She gave out gifts to her parents first. She then moved onto Rarity. First, she handed her a gift from their parents. It was a new pair of slippers, something Rarity had been in need of.
"Oh, they're just lovely," Rarity squealed, trying them on. Rarity expected Sweetie Belle to move onto opening her own presents, but instead, the filly handed Rarity another gift. Rarity was surprised.
She looked at the tag on the box.
To Rarity, the perfect sister. Love Sweetie Belle, it said, in neat, though slightly childish, script. Rarity looked at her sister in surprise. Sweetie Belle avoided her gaze.
"Oh, Sweetie dear, you didn't have to get me anything," Rarity said.
The wrapping paper sparkled in the firelight. Rarity carefully unwrapped it, revealing a hat box. Sweetie Belle had gotten her a hat? Rarity simply adored hats! In her opinion, not enough ponies wore hats.
Excitement brimming inside, Rarity carefully opened the lid. But there was no hat inside. In fact, the box was practically empty. Instead of a hat, a long piece of carefully folded fabric sat inside. Rarity pulled it out.
The fabric was of different shades of blue, tightly woven together. There didn't seem to be any design pattern to the blue on the scarf. They seemed sporadic, and were in different, mismatched sizes and shapes. The stitching, though sturdy, was somewhat sloppy. A loose thread hung here and there. The scarf went oddly wide at one point, about two thirds the way down. At the bottom was an odd ball of white fabric. It looked like a terribly misshapen attempt at a rose. Random blue gems had been stuffed into the middle of it.
Despite it all of the flaws, there was something magical about the scarf.
"Sweetie Belle, where on earth did you get this?" Rarity asked.
"I-I made it," Sweetie Belle said quietly, still avoiding her sister's eye.
Rarity stood from the couch. She wrapped the scarf proudly around her neck. Sweetie Belle looked up at her sister, unsure tears in her eyes. Rarity pulled the little filly into a tight hug.
"It's perfect," Rarity whispered quietly, "The perfect gift, from the perfect sister."
Happy Holidays
