The First Ever Twin Site Secret Santa Gift Exchange - SCP Foundation

The Twin Site’s Secret Santa Gift Exchange went about as well as any Foundation-planned festivity usually went.

First, the mandatory meeting.

About sixty-odd nervous-looking researchers stood in a clump inside the Site 404 Cafeteria, looking around, as two figures stood on a makeshift platform at the front - the tall, lean blonde figure of Site 404 Director Emerald Reynolds (Resident Christmas Spirit Denier), and the fierce gaze and frizzy dark hair of Site 403 Director Moira Fernsby (Resident Christmas Spirit Enforcer).

Neither spoke.

The Holiday spirit was suffocating.

Finally, Moira attempted to establish focus - “Ladies and gentlemen!” she shouted, then paused, stumbling to add- “And, individuals that prefer gender-neutral language, too, of course… everyone. All of you. Can I get your attention?”

“Site Staff,” Reynolds said, and Moira shot her a quiet raised eyebrow.

The room stared at them.

“We have a holiday surprise for you all!” Moira said, trying to sound excited. The room shifted slightly. Someone coughed.

“We’re doing a Secret Santa,” Reynolds said, staring her employees down as if she was daring them to challenge her. A few murmurs broke out. Reynolds turned, looking up to the blank patch of wall where the slideshow was supposed to be appearing. Moira looked as well, furrowing her brow. “Hemlock?”

“Sorry! I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” Dr. Adrien Hemlock (Containment Engineer, shaggy dark hair streaked with pink, cornflower puppy-dog eyes) said, from the projector cart. He typed furiously at a laptop. “Which room do I have to connect to again- wait- got it.”

The projector light flipped on, and the wall (plus most of Emerald’s face and body) lit up with a large view of Hemlock’s laptop home screen, where he was navigating through the settings menu with a passion.

Reynolds crossed her arms.

“Slideshow, Hemlock,” she reminded.

“I know!” he yelped, and a few awkward seconds later, the wall finally displayed a Google Slides presentation, starting with an aggressively edited version of the Foundation’s logo into a Santa hat.

“Alright,” Reynolds said, still not moving from her spot in front of the projector light. Nobody said anything. “We’ve assigned each of you a Secret Santa from the other Site. You have two weeks to get them a present and place it under the Christmas tree that we’ll set up here. On Christmas, we’ll open them. Then you’ll guess who made it. Those who guess wrong will be put on Keter duty.”

Someone gasped.

“That was a joke,” Reynolds said, sighing.

The two women had divided the task of assigning Secret Santas between them, with each getting half a list of names from their own Site and half from the other. Moira had gone on a borderline reconnaissance mission, spending the next three days scrolling through employee social media feeds, eavesdropping on break room conversations and looking over security footage to compile what she suspected was the most crafty, sure-fire Secret Santa list possible, destined to pair up unlikely friends and strengthen already shared bonds.

Emerald had finished her end of the list last night. Her method had been alphabetising both lists, and then pairing up the names in descending order. Then she went home to get her full three hours of sleep.

Moira motioned to Hemlock, who switched to the next slide.

“Rules,” said Reynolds. “If I catch anyone breaking them, I’ll be dealing with you personally.”

The staff of Site 404 shuddered, having spent enough time under her iron fist to know she wasn’t kidding. They didn’t want to see what a fist of silver-and-gold holiday cheer looked like either.

Moira looked at the slide people were reading, feeling proud. She’d designed the slides herself. Graphic design had always been a secret passion of hers, so on the rare occasion that she was given the option to use her skills, she went full speed ahead.

They then called names, one by one, handing each researcher a sealed envelope stamped with their name, containing the (well-redacted) file on their Secret Santa. Thankfully, Reynolds had convinced Moira that the idea of adding a memetic kill agent to the files, so that nobody but the right person could see it, was more along the lines of “cruel and unusual punishment” than “a special Foundation flare”.

After the awkwardly silent, and rather tense affair, the meeting was dismissed, and the Staff filed out, the two Directors stood, Moira smiling hopefully, Emerald tight-lipped.

“I think they took it well!” Moira tried.

“Simes, West and Levi are going to break the rules,” Reynolds observed. “I’ll handle West, but Levi and Simes are your problem.”

Moira sighed.

The first thing the Staff did upon returning to their workplace for lunch was reveal their Secret Santa's to each other.

“I got Jackie Reed from records,” said Dr. Sam “Levi” Leviticus, looking at their slip with amusement. “I don’t know anything about zir other than ze has a lot of freckles.”

“Dr. Lee Shin-young,” Dr. Sage West announced, scoffing. The femme ginger firecracker sat on a desk, which she got away with by being the shortest on staff. “They’re old, right? I’ll get them like, shampoo or something.” Levi rolled their eyes.

“Ezekiah Lenora?” Dr. Viktoralai Lost said, frowning. Their brow furrowed, face going pale against their dark purple bob. “Oh god, I have no idea who that is.”

“Oh, just get them any sort of writing implement or planner. They’ll love you forever,” Levi said. “I worked with them for one of the last Keter cases. They write up scip files, super good at making my containment set-ups sound professional.” The stocky bright-eyed blonde was one of the prized members of the Containment Design and Engineering Department and had pretty much worked with everyone on something.

“What about you, Mads?” Sage asked, trying to bring Dr. Maddie Simes into the conversation from where it sat in the corner of the room. Maddie Simes didn't have hair or skin, or really substance at all beyond a person-shaped black cloud, both having been dissolved in a nasty accident with a reality bender a few years back.

“Not gonna say. It’s against the rules,” muttered Maddie, sipping from a coffee mug. “Me neither,” Adrien Hemlock said, trying to figure out how Maddie managed to drink without a visible mouth.

“Question for the court,” Sage said, spinning a pen in between her fingers. “Ezekiah’s a system, right? Do you have to get all of them gifts, or just the main one?”

“I mean, I only really know Ezzy and Mabel,” Levi said, shrugging. “I’d say just get Ezekiah a gift. They’re the host, anyway.”

Lost looked like they’d swallowed a very confused lemon.

Sam Leviticus was Jackie Reed’s Secret Santa.

Levi had started keeping tabs on zir, wanting to suss out a bit more about their 404 friend. During this time, they found out a few major things.

Jackie had five cats

Jackie dressed like an artsy librarian

Ze hated zir department head with a burning passion

Ze loved the Lord Of The Rings trilogy more than what seemed like a healthy amount

After all this was considered, Levi ordered a pair of glasses chains with tiny cats dangling off them, spent four hours looking up videos of fancy wrapping paper tricks, and finally ended up with a decent-looking present. Levi tagged it with Reed’s name and snuck into the cafeteria early morning the next week to drop it off.

The Christmas Tree they’d planned on bringing in had been deemed a safety hazard, and the fake replacement an unnecessary use of funds. Because of this, the presents all ended up deposited under the coat rack from Moira’s office. Someone had put a Santa hat on top of it. Someone else had hung a few baubles from the “branches”.

Dr. Lost ended up in the stationary aisle of Michael’s, trembling slightly in the face of their own indecisiveness, before finally buying 2 packs of fountain pens, 3 journals, and a set of wax seals with the Letter “L” on them that ended up nearly being over-budget, and took an hour to wrap. That too went under the Christmas Coat Rack, as well as Sage’s lumpy parcel of one-size-fits-all fluffy Science-themed socks, which hadn’t been wrapped as much as covered in duct tape until you couldn’t see the gift underneath.

Ezekiah Lenora bought Sage West a necklace with a gold heart locket at the end, which Mabel returned while in front, and replaced with a floral notepad stamped with “From The Desk Of Dr. Sage Amelia West. In the end, Ezekiah just wrapped both with a sigh, and wrote a very targeted message on the notes app for Mabel to find when she fronted again.

Maddie Simes bought Chemistry Department Head Celeste Novak a small lava lamp for her desk, which had the surprise nearly revealed during their attempt to get the Amazon delivery arranged and approved by Director Moira. Lost brought in a roll of extra wrapping paper for them, which admittedly said “Happy Birthday” in rainbow lettering, but it was the thought that counted.

Celeste bought Levi a beautiful box full of paints, for the watercolour masterpieces they often brought in to hang on their office wall. Everyone loved Levi.

Adrien got Director Reynolds an ugly Christmas sweater. Mostly because he wanted to see her wear an ugly Christmas sweater, as opposed to her usual sneakers, slacks and a white button-up-lab coat combo.

Director Moira watched the slowly growing pile of red, green and gold-wrapped spoils with pride, nodding approvingly every time she caught a researcher sneaking in to surreptitiously drop off their gift.

Director Reynolds did what she did every Christmastime. Locked herself in her office, worked herself to the bone, and ran through the list of tense phone calls with her siblings - making sure Jessica and Andy had a good place to sleep, with a reminder she’d always take them in. Telling David to treat his sisters and brother nicely, and avoiding her parents’ voicemails like a bad virus.

As the 25th approached, the Director’s met, Moira Fernsby’s red lips in a soft smirk. “We did it. We got Foundation personnel to show holiday spirit.”

Reynolds smiled slightly. “Congrats, Moira. You’ve achieved the impossible.” It was meant to be sarcastic, but the tilt of Emerald’s head warmed Moira’s heart.

Christmas went off (mostly) without a hitch. Someone accused the break room’s mistletoe installation (courtesy of Engineering) of possessing a memetic hazard, and half the Site was shut down for two hours so each employee who’d passed beneath it could be surveyed and tested for any potential effects. Director Reynolds let the carols station run its course through five Christmas songs, which was a wild improvement of last year’s zero (she had confiscated the radio on December 1st).

At lunch, everyone headed to the cafeteria, and the gift opening began.

It went…

It went well. Actually well.

Paper was shredded quickly, and Moira’s outstretched recycling bag was ignored no matter how close she shoved it to people’s faces. Sage, wearing her new locket happily, crumpled up a ball of wrapping paper, and tossed it at Levi like a snowball, and in a few minutes, a mini fight had broken out, Lost and Hemlock joining in on their own team.

Ezekiah sat at a table, silently looking through their new notebooks with a warm smile on their face and bright eyes. Reeds wore zir glasses chains with pride. Dr. Celeste Novak walked over to Dr. Lee Shin-young, smiling softly at him. They blushed hard as she held up the lava lamp, thanking him. Lee stuttered out a quick denial, but gave in as Celeste leaned up to kiss them on the cheek. Simes rolled its eyes.

From the front of the room, Reynolds was smiling, her hands covered by the long sleeves of an atrociously ugly reindeer-printed sweater. Moira walked up beside her, having given up on her attempts at pushing for a green (and preferably tidy) thumbed Christmas. looking over. “You look happy.” She arched a dark eyebrow.

“Mm,” Reynolds hummed, her smile remaining. “It’s… nice to see everyone having fun.” She sipped from a thermos of cocoa she’d somehow acquired. “We should do it again next year.”

Well, that was a win if Moira had even seen one. She held out her “#1 Site Director” mug (the gift from her own Santa) and gestured for Reynolds to pour some of her cocoa in. Reynolds obliged, and Moira sipped from it, grimacing at the temperature. “Gah. You must be secretly a dragon to drink stuff this hot.”

“A Site Director never reveals her secrets,” Reynolds replied mysteriously, taking another long drink. Then she bent down, picked up a stray wrapping paper snowball, and tossed it lightly at Moira. Moira gasped, startled, before bending down and returning the favour.

It was a Merry Christmas, overall.

Did you like this? Well then, golly gee, is there more for you!

Dive further into the world of the Twin Sites - Site 403 with Levi and Sycamore's Tale, kick ass with Site Director Emerald Reynolds( by using... Tetris?), or get spooky with Site 404's finest researchers in SCP-7218. Or, just check out my author page! It's right here. And of course - have a lovely day.