Somehow, over the last six month since starting at the ministry Alvin found his life to be strangely settled and... boring, if he was going to admit it. Stable, profitable, but it was starting to feel a little mindless and he was starting to remember why he never wanted a ministry job to begin with. The worst part was that he was sort of stuck. There wasn't anything else he could envision himself doing; making brooms wasn't an option anymore, he couldn't work with his hands like he'd always planned to and now he was starting to get his financial life together, but at the cost of his sanity, it felt like.

Luckily for him, it was hard to be too melancholy at an event like this. Alvin was no stranger to tree farms, he had worked with several in various countries during his apprenticeship and short-lived broommaking career and thought it brought on a wave of nostalgia, he found he didn't mind as much as expected. This Christmas would be much better than the last. Sloane was home, Wally was making progress and they would all be together again. He had been tasked with getting a tree for the house and so he and Sloane had set out together, but she had gotten caught up with some friends near the fire pits with her cocoa, so he agreed to wander around to find a tree himself. He was getting better about not hovering over her, especially when she was with other people. These weren't young ladies he recognized as her Hogwarts, circle, they must have been from her society days and he found that still twisted his insides a little, so the walk in the fresh air was good to clear his head.

He was meandering down the rows, pulling in the unmistakable aroma of the evergreens around him, bent on finding a Douglass fir, because in his professional opinion, they were the sturdiest and had the best scent. It couldn't be too tall and he had perhaps too critical of an eye, but he was content to keep meandering until he found exactly what he was looking for. That was until something cold hit the back of his head, causing him to yelp, trying to shake the snow from the back of his jacket. He turned to find a group of fairies laughing as they gathered more snow. He had a few choices; fight or flee and Alvin wasn't stupid enough to retaliate against the fairies, so he turned on his heel to try and make a hasty retreat. Of course they gave chase and pelted him with more snowballs, even as he rounded the corner of the aisle. "Duck!" He suggested as he hastily scrambled to find some shelter, motioning to to the person coming his way to get out of the way too.