I havent seen big news that would trigger price to go up beyond the ebay anouncement, so this plus xmas being near hype.
What's the eBay announcement?
I could see people wanting to buy Bitcoins for deals for Christmas shopping. It sounds like there are going to be discounts for products if you pay in Bitcoin for Black Friday, so, I could see people turning their dollars into Bitcoins to get a discount, especially if they can get all their presents for people that way. It would be a good way to save.
Of course if enough people bought into Bitcoins to get those deals, the price would go up a bit.