Merri Christmas by Victoria Chatham

 

The book that started it all!
AVAILABLE HERE

For the last several years, I have written a short, Christmas-themed story, and here is this year's offering. I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

A passing customer pointed at her name badge, chuckled, and sang out, “Ho, ho, ho.”

Meredith Christmas grinned at him from behind her glass-topped jewellery counter, pointed her finger at him and repeated his greeting before giving him a cheerful thumbs-up.

“Merri, I don’t know how you put up with it,” her colleague, Sandy, moaned. “All that ho-ho-hoing year-round would drive me nuts. How did you get the surname Christmas anyway?”

“It’s from my Dad’s side of the family and dates back to thirteenth-century England via one Richard Christmas, who settled in Virginia in 1647,” Merri said. She waved at a girl of about seven or eight who looked longingly at the jewellery displays but was hurried along by her mother.  

“Wow, it’s a pretty old name then,” Sandy mused.

“Yes, it is. Mom and Dad have a framed certificate showing the family crest and history.”

“That sounds positively baronial,” Sandy said, narrowing her eyes and looking thoughtful. “I can see an oak-beamed hall with a log-filled open fireplace and flames leaping up a stone chimney.”

Merri laughed. “You and your imagination. But wouldn’t that be lovely? It would be decorated with holly, ivy, and real lanterns, and there would be room for everyone.”

Sandy nodded. “Family and friends and all the peasants, of course.”

“Naturally,” Merri agreed, then sighed. “Christmas is such a special time of year.”

“Merri, of everyone I know who loves Christmas, you’re the hands-down winner.”

“You love Christmas, too, Sandy, and don’t pretend otherwise. Ooh, look out, a customer is checking out the gold counter. Your turn.”

Merri picked up a polishing cloth and moved aside for Sandy to approach the counter. They started working on the same day at Boyle’s Emporium, the town’s original and historical corner store. It had been family-owned since it opened, but it was a mystery that none of the staff knew anything about the current Boyle family. Another mystery was that at the end of September, when Boyle’s started hiring for the Christmas season, they had not asked for resumes but five-hundred-word essays on why the applicants wanted to work at Boyle’s and why they liked Christmas.

Meredith glanced around the beautifully decorated store. Who could not like Christmas here? She had loved it since sitting on Father Christmas’s knee in the Winter Wonderland when she was five years old and asking for a baby brother. Her innocent request made her smile now, but hadn’t Father Christmas delivered? The following summer, her baby brother arrived, wrapped in a pale blue crocheted shawl, not in pretty snowflake patterned paper as she had imagined.

The sound of the till opening and closing broke into her reverie.

“Good sale?” Merri asked as Sandy rearranged the jewellery display to fill the gap made by the removal of several pieces.

“Four-hundred and ninety-four dollars and change,” Sandy replied. “I can’t believe how much cash we’ve taken today. I’m glad I’m not closing tonight, so I won’t have to count it.”

Merri glanced at her watch. “Goodness, we’ve only got another half an hour to the end of our shift. The day has flown by.”

“We can’t claim to be bored, that’s for sure,” Sandy agreed. “Especially when there’s a gorgeous-looking man on the horizon.”

She cocked her head, indicating a six-foot-plus, dark-haired individual approaching their counter. “This one’s yours,” she whispered, placing a firm hand on Merri’s back and pushing her toward the counter.

Merri faltered as she recognised the child holding tightly to the man’s hand. Right, she thought, remembering how the mom had hustled her daughter past the jewellery counter. So, there’s mom, dad, the kid, and possibly more than one, but she smiled at the child and said, “Hello again.” Then she shifted her gaze to the man she took to be the girl’s father and swallowed at the twinkle in his warm brown eyes. She pulled herself together. Be professional. “May I help you?”

“Yes, you may,” he replied. “My sister was in a hurry earlier and didn’t give Amanda time to buy a gift for her grandmother.”

“Then let’s see what we can do. Would you like to look at silver or gold earrings?”

Amanda shook her head. “I want to see Christmas earrings. Grandma loves them.”

“Got it.” Merri pulled a chair from behind the counter. “You sit here, and I’ll bring you a selection to view.”

She took a black velvet pad from under the counter and carefully browsed through the earrings on display. She frowned as she realised how few Christmas earrings they had in the silver and gold displays, so she moved to the carousel stands and carefully turned them, relieved to see more of a selection. There were tiny green trees studded with different-coloured stones, glittering globes, a pair of wreaths decorated with red bows, a fun pair simulating red and white striped candies, and another pair in the shape of a snowflake. Merri placed them all on the pad and took them back to her young customer, but then had a thought.

“Amanda, while you look at these, I’m going to check something. I’ll be right back.”

Merri raced to the main floor storeroom. She and Sandy had checked a delivery the day before, but hadn’t they left one box for this morning? Merri keyed in her code and entered the storeroom, scanning the area where they had worked yesterday. Yes, there it was, tucked in the corner of a shelf.

She hauled the cardboard container onto the worktable, reached for a box cutter and slit the tape. She removed the invoice and checked it, but nothing was specifically Christmas earrings. She would have to empty the whole box. She tipped the contents onto the tabletop and checked each packet, breathing a sigh of relief when she found three pairs of Christmas earrings. She ticked the removed items off the invoice and hurried back to her counter.

“I’m sorry I took so long, Amanda,” she said, catching her breath. “Here are three more pairs.” She removed them from the packets and laid them on the pad. “What do you think?”

“Oh, I like these.” Amanda pointed at a pair of enamelled snowmen. “But I like these better.”

She picked up a pair of stars made of mother-of-pearl and hanging from gold wires.

“These are the ones, Dad. Grandma will love them. They will go with her white hair.”

Merri looked up at the child’s father, who nodded. “Could you gift wrap them, please?”

“Of course.” Merri turned to Amanda. “Shall I put them in a box?”

“Yes, please.”

Merri opened a drawer and took out wrapping paper and ribbons. Amanda chose plain blue paper and silver ribbon and watched Merri measure and cut the paper.

“Can you wrap a parcel that small?”

Merri grinned at the child and whispered, “Watch me.”

In a few deft moves, she creased and folded the paper, quickly wrapped the ribbon around the small box, and had Amanda hold it with her finger while forming a bow.

“There, how about that?” She handed the small gift to Amanda. “Do you think your grandma will like it?”

“She’ll love it,” Amanda said. “Grandma says simple things are classy, whatever that means.”

“Your grandma sounds like a smart lady,” Merri said. She shifted her gaze to Amanda’s father. “And I’m sure your dad will explain what your grandma means.”

“Thank you very much, Miss Christmas,” he said, removing a credit card from his wallet.

Unsure he was being sarcastic at her suggestion or thanking her for helping his daughter, Merri barely glanced at the card as she entered the sale into the processing machine and handed it to him.

“Would you like a receipt, Mr.–” Merri stopped, suddenly flustered because she didn’t know the man’s name.

“Yes, I would, please, and the name is Boyle. Josh Boyle.”

Merri looked up at him. “Boyle?” she stammered. “As in Boyle’s Emporium Boyle?”

“That’s the one. We prefer to keep it quiet if you don’t mind.”

“Um, yes, yes, of course,” Merri said. Her head whirled. With her name in plain view so that everyone knew who she was, she still couldn’t quite accept that she was talking to one of the renowned but reclusive Boyles.

“And thank you again for helping Amanda.” The smile he gave her warmed Merri right down to her toes. “My mother said you were a good salesperson. She was right.”

Merri’s brow wrinkled. She didn’t know any Boyles until now.

Josh Boyle whispered, “You know her as Mrs. Winter, in Human Resources. She told me to come and see you. I’m glad I did.”

“Dad,” Amanda tugged his hand impatiently. “We have to go. Aunty Caroline said not to be late. If you want to talk to,” she squinted at Merri’s name badge, “Merri, she should come too.”

“What a splendid idea,” Josh said. His eyes twinkled even more as he smiled at Merri. “How about it, Miss Christmas? If you are free, would you accompany Amanda and me to my mother’s Christmas party?”

“Please come, Merri,” Amanda said. “Grandma is lovely, and so is Aunty Caroline when she’s not in a rush.”

“But what about your…” Merri began, unsure how to ask the question uppermost in her mind.

“Wife? Amanda’s mom?” Josh softly supplied for her.

Merri bit her lip and nodded.

“No longer with us, I’m afraid.”

“She died,” Amanda said with all the candour of childhood.

“Well, then,” Merri took a deep breath. “Yes, I should like that very much.”

“The party starts at eight this evening. We’ll collect you at about seven-thirty if that suits you. Perhaps you’d put your phone number into my phone?”

Merri nodded, speechless because her mouth was suddenly dry. He gave her his cell phone, and she tapped in her number, then returned the phone to him.

He slipped it into his coat pocket. “Later, then.”

“Wow,” Sandy whispered in her ear. “Cinderella shall go to the ball. I can hear the uproar when this news gets out.”

“Don’t,” Merri said. “Please don’t say a word to anyone.”

Sandy chuckled. “Alright, I promise. But you must also promise to tell me more about Mr. Dark and Delicious and his daughter after that party. And if the look on your face is anything to go by, you will have a very merry Christmas.”

Merri groaned. “Not if I don’t get a move on.” She glanced anxiously at her watch. “Where’s Dora and Sue? If they are late–”

Sandy gave her a push. “Just sign out and go. I can manage until they get here.”

“You are–”

“Your best friend, and don’t you forget it. Go and have fun.”

Merri quickly hugged Sandy, grabbed her coat and rushed out of the store into a cold, crisp evening. She still couldn’t quite believe that she had accepted Josh’s invitation, but there was no going back. She couldn’t contact him because although she had provided him with her phone number, she hadn’t taken his.

But, she told herself, you don’t want to go back. Amanda and Josh had charmed her, and she wanted to get to know them much, much better. Merri smiled at the thought that, yes, Sandy was right, and she would have a very merry Christmas indeed.

 

THE END

 

 Victoria Chatham

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Seeing Woody's in Halifax by Vanessa C. Hawkins

 

 

 Vanessa Hawkins Author Page

    

I'm in Halifax! This weekend I have a book fair, and so since the situation is outside my home province, me and two gal friends have decided a ladies night was in order.

Now... We are all mom's in our 30s, so the first stop was Ikea. After hours there, it was the mall to see this!

It's woody the talking xmas tree! It's as scary as it seems and I love it!

Next was eating, hot tub and nails.

It was perfect. But because my nails look like this now:

I can't type well. So this will be a short post. Sorry... I'm already dreading putting on pants tomorrow... So this is hard for me too.

Here's a poem for you in apology.

I bought a new lamp

It's great and it's damp

With lava and green

Like beetlejuice.

Im not a poet, so here's a picture instead.

Cheers!

A Writer's Melting Pot by Victoria Chatham

 AVAILABLE HERE

Beginning a new book is always an exciting project for me. There are places to research, houses to build, characters to create and plots to devise, all or some of which may eventually find their way onto my pages. 

I start with my characters, getting to know them as I build their backstories, their life histories with all their strengths and weaknesses, failures and successes. Whether I am writing historical or contemporary Western romance, my character questionnaire follows the same pattern. The characters have to reflect their era, so I'm careful about naming them, and if I'm writing a Regency romance, then I have to make sure my characters' titles are correct.

Next, I work on my settings, the stage on which my characters perform. My Regencies have a mix of city and rural settings because the peerage split their time between London, for when Parliament was in session, and their country estates when it adjourned. The busiest time, known as the Season, was between Easter and when the House adjourned in July. By then, most people were keen to get out of town because of the smell.

Country estates are lovely to create, and many of my imaginary ones come from illustrations in books like Country Houses From the Air or The English Country House and the very useful Georgian and Regency Houses Explained. I have floor plans for country houses and smaller but no less impressive townhouses. From there, I can create my settings with a measure of accuracy and viability. What might be included on any of these estates as far as farms and crops are concerned, are all gleaned from internet searches for letters and records of the big houses, some of them going back hundreds of years, and depend on what part of the country (being England, Scotland, or Wales) the estate is. Building styles change somewhat from county to county depending on what materials are available or how wealthy the lord of the manor might be.

Weather, with all the light and shade that comes with it, plays a part in my settings, too. For information

on a particular year, I start with a visit to https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history, and to pin-point a timeline for where my characters are, I consult https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1818&country=9. The weather can affect so many aspects of my character’s mood. If it’s warm and sunny, then likely she is too. If it’s raining, all sorts of events can transpire from that. Think Marianne Dashwood getting soaked in the rain in Sense and Sensibility. Rain heralded my hero’s arrival in Folkestone in my book His Dark Enchantress. It fit his mood and the seriousness of the situation in which his wife, my heroine, had been abducted.

Plants and flowers play a part, too, and for this, I use a Reader’s Digest book of English flora, plus Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. It pays to know what plants grow in which part of the country because someone will surely call you out if have a daffodil growing where it never would or a lark singing in central London as this is a bird that likes open countryside.

How I dress my characters also comes into play, and for this, I use an Illustrated Encyclopedia of Costume, Fashion in Jane Austen’s London and just because, The History of Underclothes. When I go home to the UK for a visit, I'll go to museums. One of my favourites is the Costume Museum in Bath. YouTube can be particularly useful, especially clips like Undressing Mr. Darcy. I guess I’m a bit of a nerd because I do enjoy research, and if I come across a particularly interesting snippet, it makes my day. Whether I can use it or not in a book becomes another matter altogether.

I'm fortunate to live in Alberta, Canada. Touring the Rockies, visiting small towns and their museums, and going to rodeos have all helped with my Western settings. It's said a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have many photographs of mountains and rivers, open prairie and dusty badlands. I've interviewed cowboys and stock contractors and once spent a day on a working ranch where the owner was quite shocked to hear that I had never seen a moose. "There was one down in the muskeg this morning," he said. So off we went in a well-worn pick-up truck to find the moose. After driving around for an hour, there was no sign of said moose, so we looked at some of his stock and went back to the ranch house for coffee.

Most authors are people watchers, but in addition to watching, I like talking to them, too. You never know what might come up in conversation. Someone might throw away a line that you know you just have to fit into your dialogue somewhere, as in Legacy of Love, where one cowboy asks, "Are you being straight with me?" and the answer is "straighter than a yard of pump water." Writing is a joy and a challenge, sometimes a frustration, but never, ever, boring as all the elements that make a story come together in the melting pot of this author's mind. Oh, and the new book? Look out for Loving Georgia Caldwell coming this fall.

Victoria Chatham

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Releasing and Promoting a Book by Victoria Chatham

AVAILABLE HERE

A major part of releasing a book is to promote it and then promote it more. I was happy to recently showcase Brides of Banff Springs and the Canadian Historical Brides Collection at Olds Municipal Library. When I contacted the Librarian about a booking, she was excited to offer me a date, which we arranged over the phone. We decided to have a meet and greet in the afternoon for people who might not be able to attend the evening reading and book signing session. This worked out very well as a lovely lady called Catherine came to meet me and told me that her mother had been the head housekeeper at Banff Springs Hotel. It was her job to open it up every spring along with the hotels at Lake Louise and Fairmount. I can't even begin to imagine how big a job that would have been. This lady also met King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the late Queen's mother) when they visited Canada in 1939 and received a commemorative silver powder compact. I would love to have seen it, but I understood why Catherine wanted to keep it safe at home. Another young lady, who had already read the book, said her first job was in housekeeping at the hotel, and she could easily identify with Tilly, the heroine.

My table for the afternoon session was just inside the main entrance, so it was easy to talk to people as they came and went. Just in case a little extra is needed, a bowl of candies or quality chocolate is a good way to get people talking, and many admired the gift basket. The framed poster listing all the Historical Bride books also drew a lot of attention, with many visitors saying they did not know much of Canada's early history.

Nicole Peers, the Librarian, was not sure of numbers for the evening reading, but as people began to arrive, she quickly found more chairs to seat them. Before I started the reading, I presented Nicole with the gift basket, a thank-you to her and the staff for hosting me.

 

My author tagline is History, Mystery, and Love, so I picked three appropriate passages and read a bit of the history of Banff, the beginning of the mystery concerning the ghost bride and finally, the scene where the hero asks the heroine to marry him. The audience response was encouraging, with still more people wanting to talk afterwards about their experiences with Banff, having lived or worked there or been constant visitors. The funding from the Government of Canada helped make this a fun, exciting evening. Nicole said it was one of the best author evenings the Library had hosted, and I was only too happy to have been a part of it.

The first two images are from the author's collection.

The last two images are courtesy of  Ayesha Clough, Red Barn Books.

Victoria Chatham

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Seasons and Stories by Victoria Chatham

 

COMING IN JUNE

It is now officially Spring 2022. In my part of the world, it still doesn’t feel like it. I envy friends in England who have posted pictures of gardens full of colour, from gorgeous golden daffodils to blue grape hyacinths and multi-coloured primulas. I wonder how many authors use not just the weather the seasons in creating their settings.

April has a hopeful sense of the summer to come, but Charles Dickens writes: Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade, which speaks to the duality in this more than any other season of the year.

Writers look for ways to enhance the drama in their plots and the nuances of their characters, either physically or metaphorically. Just as we sometimes use the weather to create a mood or direct the way a scene goes, we can use the seasons in both our settings and in our characters’ perspectives.

I have certainly used the seasons in my books. My character, Emmaline, is abducted on a perfect September afternoon in my first Regency romance. By the time she is rescued and returns home, it is a whole month later, and the trees in the estate park have already turned colour.

In the second Regency, a lot of the book takes place at sea and in Jamaica, but Juliana calculates that she left England in January, and it’s now September. The seasons are not plot lines in either book, but more indicate the timeline.

In One for the Money, Janet Evanovich uses the season to describe Stephanie Plum’s New Jersey ‘hood: During summer months, the air sat still and gauzy, leaden with humidity, saturated with hydrocarbons. It shimmered over hot cement and melted road tar.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling writes of fall: Autumn seemed to arrive early that year. The morning of the first of September was crisp and golden as an apple.

In the movie The Winter Guest, set in northern Scotland, the husband of Emma Thompson’s character Frances dies suddenly, leaving Frances distraught. Her mother (in real life and in the movie), played by Phyllida Law, comes to stay with her. The film opens with a shot of the mother walking across frozen fields and with the camera later panning across a frozen sea. Set in any other season but winter, I’m not sure that Frances’ grief would have seemed so soul-deep. The bleakness of the setting seemed to represent the bleakness in her soul and vice versa.

Just as light and shade, time of day, rain or sunshine influence the moods we try to create for our characters, so can the season lead our readers through the seasons of our stories.

Victoria Chatham

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For the Love of Reading by Eileen O'Finlan

 

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Click here to visit Eileen O'Finlan's website

Every loyal member of Goodreads knows they are encouraged to set a reading challenge for themselves at the beginning of each year. The challenge is to set a goal for the number of books to be read by the end of the year. Members can keep track by adding each new book they begin to their homepage and marking it completed when finished. The website keeps count of the total as well as tracking how many books the reader is ahead of or behind schedule.

I am a voracious reader, but before I started using Goodreads regularly I had no idea how many books I read in a year other than "a lot." January 1, 2021 was the first time I set a goal. Having no clue about the amount of books I could complete by December 31st I chose a random number - 60. I figured it was possible for me to read that many books in a year and I was curious to see how many I actually do read.

I noticed that many GR members had set goals of 100 or more, but though I'm an avid reader, I am not a fast reader and figured I wouldn't be able to finish that many. I enjoy reading far too much to speed through a book. I prefer to savor them. I was pleasantly surprised then, when I surpassed my goal of 60 books long before the end of the year. My final total was 83.

This year I've set my sights higher. My goal is 90. As of right now, I've completed four books and am two books behind schedule. No worries, though. I was many more books behind schedule at the start of last year and look where I wound up! Reaching 90 books just means I read a few more this year than last year. I refuse to speed up my reading just to reach this goal, though. Reading is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. It is not meant to be rushed. At least not for me.

I do tend to be competitive with myself, however so I know I'm going to want to hit that 90 book goal. Fortunately, there are no restrictions on what I read so if I fall too far behind by the end of the year - hello children's picture books! But I'm hoping I won't need to do that.

A Short Story for Christmas by Victoria Chatham

 

All That Other Stuff

Ellie Harding rested her chin on her hand and stared out of the window across the valley, relaxing as she always did at the sight of the tall spire of the parish church surrounded by cozy-looking cottages nestling under their Cotswold stone roofs.

Her daughter-in-law, Lori, came in from the garden balancing a wicker laundry basket on her hip.

“I will be glad when Christmas is over.” Lori heaved a dramatic sigh. “It’s nothing but rush and fuss, and no one is ever satisfied. One week left, and I still have to mail cards, shop, clean and for what? Just one day. And as for peace and goodwill, hark at that lot.”

Sounds of discontent burst from the living room where twelve-year-old Matthew and eight-year-old twins, Molly and Hannah, were arguing over television programs.

“And not only that,” Lori continued, “David is due home from Singapore on December 22^nd, and,” she paused for breath, “Mother and Dad are arriving the same day.”

“As David has been away for almost six months, isn’t that a bit inconsiderate of them?” Ellie murmured. She tried to keep the tone of censure out of her voice, but her brow puckered as an additional thought sprang to her mind. “I thought your parents were spending Christmas in Germany with your Aunt Sophie.”

Lori snapped a tea towel, making it sound like a flag in a strong wind. She folded it in half, smoothed it out with the flat of her hand, folded it again and added it to the growing pile of clean laundry on the kitchen counter.

“They were, but Mother fell out with Aunt Sophie over goodness-knows-what and decided she and Dad would come here,” Lori explained. “Oh, Ellie, what am I going to do?”

“We’ll have a cup of tea, dear.” Ellie, a staunch supporter of that particular beverage’s restorative properties, thoughtfully put the kettle on. As it came to the boil, her eyes began to sparkle with mischief.

“Park everybody,” she said suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Lori asked, plainly puzzled.

“I’ll take the children,” Ellie said. “That should give you time for everything you need to do. Book your parents into a hotel and yourself and David into another. That will give you one day to yourselves, and then on Christmas Eve, you can all come to my house.”

Lori’s eyes opened wide. “But I couldn’t⸺.”

“Yes, you could. Don’t think about it, dear, just do it.”

Between them, Ellie and Lori helped the children pack and loaded them and their backpacks into Ellie’s battered blue Audi. Matthew sat silently beside her on the drive out of town, plainly not in agreement with the plan.

“What are we going to do at your house, Gran?” Molly asked. “You don’t even have a TV.”

“I’m sure we can find something to do,” Ellie replied, keeping her eyes on the narrow, two-lane road where she had to stop for a flock of sheep passing from one pasture to another.

“We could do a nativity play,” Hannah said as she watched the woolly bodies crowd either side of the car.

“There’s only three of us, and we already did that at school.” Matthew sounded glum at the prospect.

“Yes, but did you design and make your costumes?” Ellie asked.

“Well, no,” Matthew admitted. “We just used the ones from last year.”

“Ooh, Gran, can I make a crown with sparkles on it?” Despite being restrained by her seat belt, Hannah bounced on the back seat with excitement.

“I’m sure we could arrange that, dear. You three will be the Wise Men, and everyone else can be shepherds.”

“And you have to be the angel, Gran,” chorused Molly and Hannah.

“Can we invite friends from school?” Matthew asked.

“I don’t see why not.” Ellie drove through her gateway, minus its gate, and pulled up in front of a solidly built ivy-covered stone house. “Who would you like to invite?”

“Well, Jamal, because he was new to our school this term and doesn’t know many kids yet and Oliver because he doesn’t have a dad.”

“And can we invite other people too?” the twins asked in unison.

“Yes, you can,” Ellie assured them. “Two friends each. The more the merrier, don’t you think?”

“Then I’ll ask Yasmeen and Adeera,” Hanah said. “I hope their parents will let them come.”

“Yes, and Susan Howell and Dawn Fry,” Molly added. Hannah nodded her agreement.

Ellie parked the car, and the children poured out of it and in through the front door. They hung their coats on pegs in the hallway and deposited their backpacks at the foot of the stairs.

“We’ll have hot chocolate with marshmallows,” Ellis said as she headed to the large kitchen at the back of the house. “While I make it, you can start designing your costumes.”

She took sheets of paper and coloured pencils from a drawer and put them in the table’s centre. In no time, the girls sketched outfits for the shepherds while Matthew, now warming up to the idea, designed crowns for the Three Wise Men.

Over the next two days, Ellie produced lengths of fabric, sheets of art paper, fancy buttons, glue and glitters, rolls of florists wire and strands of ribbon. On a brisk afternoon walk, with a light wind gusting from the south-west blowing the clouds inland over the hills, they collected sheep’s wool from the barbed wire fencing around their field.

“This will make the beards for the Wise Men,” Ellie said as she held out a plastic bag for the children to fill with wool.

“How?” asked Matthew.

“We’ll cut lengths of cotton fabric and stick the wool to it, leaving a gap for your mouths,” Ellie said. “Then we’ll cut lengths of elastic so that it fits your heads, sew the ends to each side of the fabric, and you can just slip them on.”

“That sounds pretty easy,” Matthew said. “I say, Gran, can I be in charge of the costumes?”

“You certainly can, dear,” Ellie agreed.

Her angel wings fitting filled an entire afternoon with the children measuring wire and fabric and calculating the best way to affix them to Ellie’s back.

“Donny Williams sat on Carrie Davis’s wings in class and broke them,” Hannah told her.

“Yes, and she cried,” Molly added.

“Well, after all this work, we’ll have to make sure we hang my wings where no one can sit on them,” Ellie said.

Together they draped and stitched fabric and, once all the costumes were made, Ellie sat the children around the table again and helped them write their invitations. Molly and Hannah decorated theirs with sparkles, both sure the recipients would be pleased with them.

The invitations were hand-delivered and, when Christmas Eve finally arrived, so did the rest of the family and all the guests, including Yasmeen and Adeera’s parents. After a happy and noisy reunion with their father, Matthew, Molly, and Hannah helped everyone into their costumes. Ellie couldn’t help but notice that Lori’s parents, Margaret and Richard, looked somewhat bemused to find themselves clad in tunics made from old bedsheets and cinched around the waist with frayed scarlet cords from thrift store velvet curtains. When everyone was dressed, Ellie clapped her hands, which made her wings wobble frantically.

“Quiet everyone,” she said. “Now, who can tell me what the Three Wise Men did?”

“Oh, Gran, I know, I know!” Hannah’s hand shot up as if she were answering questions in school. “They followed the star.”

“Indeed, they did.” Ellie nodded sagely. “Now, come this way.”

She took everyone outside and then clapped her hands again. From the dark at the bottom of the garden, a bright white light appeared amongst the old and gnarled apple trees. Its silvery glow illuminated the whole area. She watched the children’s eyes open wide in wonder and smiled as they stopped, in total astonishment, at the edge of the lawn.

There, its legs folded neatly beneath it, sat a camel. It turned its head towards them and looked at them from liquid-dark eyes from beneath long lashes. A small tubby man, sporting a large moustache and wearing a red fez, stood beside it.

“This is Fred,” Ellie said. “And this,” she patted the camel’s sinuously graceful neck, “is Harun.”

Margaret sniffed. “Don’t expect me to get on that filthy beast.”

Ellie hid a smile as she heard Richard say, “Don’t worry, Mags, only the Wise Men rode camels. You’re a shepherd. Here, hang onto your crook.”

Fred helped the children onto the saddle, showing them where to put their feet and where to hold on as Harun stood up. His spongy feet made no sound as he lurched and swayed across the winter-damp grass.

“Mother, how on earth did you manage that?” David asked as he caught up with her.

Ellie patted the hand he slipped into the crook of her elbow.

“Oh, a phone call here and a favour there,” she said casually. She clapped her hands once more, and the light in the trees winked out before appearing again further away in the paddock next to her garden.

“It’s over Mr. Donovan’s stable now.” Molly couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice as she pointed over a gate set in the hedge.

Mr. Donovan, as bent and twisted as Ellie’s old apple trees, smiled at them as he opened the gate and ushered them all through it. The little procession, at last, came to a halt outside the stable. Harun obligingly collapsed his legs, and Molly, Hannah, and Matthew all but fell off him in their eagerness for what they might see. They pulled their friends forward with them, and all peered in at the stable door.

The sweet smell of hay assaulted their nostrils, and they heard the rustling of straw as they looked in on a cow contentedly chewing her cud, a donkey who flicked his long, fuzzy ears at them, and a ewe with twin lambs. A young woman wearing a blue robe smiled a welcome and invited them to sit on some straw bales placed in readiness for the visitors. Beside her, a tall, bearded man wearing a brown cloak welcomed everyone. Between them, laid in a wooden crib, a baby kicked its feet and gurgled happily.

“Oh, Gran, this is magic,” Molly whispered. She went to the crib and knelt beside it, staring down at the baby as if she couldn’t quite believe it was there. Hannah, Matthew, and their friends were more interested in the animals.

“Well, Ellie, I think you have surpassed yourself,” Richard said, still looking around and taking in every little detail with an expression of wonderment on his face. Even Margaret seemed suitably impressed.

“This is so cool, Gran.” Hannah looked up from the lamb she cuddled while Matthew and Jamal petted the donkey.

Matthew’s eyes opened wide as a thought struck him. “Christmas isn’t about what things we get, or what food we have. It’s all that other stuff, isn’t it, Gran?” His pre-teen voice had a croak in it.

Ellie nodded, adding softly, “That’s right, Matthew. It’s all that other stuff. Christmas is for loving and caring, sharing and,” she looked at Lori, “peace and goodwill.”

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​Victoria Chatham

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