Shopping Spree Day

by Lets Do This

The Complete Set

They finished up at Joe's Donut Shop for a late afternoon snack of tea and donuts, and spread out their haul on the table to admire:
- Fluttershy's boards and nails,
- Rainbow Dash's signed first edition,
- Applejack's massage stone,
- Pinkie's sack of party goods,
- Twilight's picture frame, confetti, paint box, cape, and hoof trap,
- Derpy's small wooden house,
- Luna's bottle of ivory-white bubble bath soap,
- Celestia's "Elements of Harmony" playset,
plus an "Eat at Joe's" coffee mug that Rarity had purchased, just for completeness' sake.

There was a half-hearted attempt at a vote, but most of them were simply pleased by the sheer variety. Fluttershy meekly suggested a Traders Exchange, where anyone not happy with what they had could trade with someone else. But this only made each of them want the things they'd found all the more.

"Well, Twilight?" Celestia asked, raising her voice a little to be heard over Luna chasing the last of her milkshake with a straw. "Was your friendship research successful?"

"I think it was, your Majesty!" she said. "I learned that sometimes the best way to play by the rules is by making the rules fit the players. And by taking advantage of mistakes you make to find new ways to play!"

Derpy blinked as she looked around the table. "That was a fun game! Can we play it again tomorrow?"

They all laughed at that. And secretly wished that they could.

Unbeknownst to them, the upper-crust ponies that Pinkie Pie had been talking to spread the word about the game. And since it appeared to have the Royal imprimatur, of not just one but both Princesses, it rapidly became the fashionable thing to do. It was spoken of with reverence and an air of knowing sophistication by its aficianados. Soon enough, it was assigned its own day on the social calendar, and every year the celebration became more and more elaborate, with celebrities doing the drawings, and stores readying sales and making sure they had smaller items in stock so they would not be disqualified from selection.

And that, in the end, is how the Canterlot holiday known as "Shopping Spree Day" came to be celebrated.

But to the ponies in Ponyville, all that is just ridiculous. They laugh at the naiveté of the elite, and get on with their day-to-day living.

Because they know it all really started with a pony.

And a book.