Chapter 1
My memories of Santa Claus are scant. For a few years when I was little, extra toys appeared on Christmas morning, and a couple of times, the cookies got eaten, too. I expect Mom and Dad took me to the mall or some such place to sit on the lap of the guy in the red suit, too. But my most vivid memory associated with Santa was finding my presents from Santa in my grandfather’s car one December. The magic ended there . . . at least as far as Santa was concerned.
But I’ve always loved Christmas. As a kid, I loved the church Christmas pageants and the Midnight Candlelight Service on Christmas Eve. I adored driving around and looking at the lights on all the houses, and the Grinch always made an appearance on an evening when I got to stay up late with a big, marshmallow-laden cup of hot cocoa and watch TV in my pajamas. But by far, my favorite part of Christmas was the people. Mom always had charity parties at our house, and Dad made sure his firm had a kid-friendly holiday gathering. I loved them all, even though I often sat in the corner and dipped in and out of my current book while people swirled around me. I was introverted as a kid, but I was also a lover of people, at least people watching.
Which is why when I learned that St. Marin’s had been without its decades-long tradition of having Santa greet children on Main Street, I agreed to host. Santa had been absent last year, and while I hadn’t known why our little business district had felt a bit wan, it now was clear that Santa’s absence was the cause. Apparently, the Chamber of Commerce had always set up Santa’s cottage in the old gas station that was now my bookstore, but they’d felt awkward about asking me if they could use the space when I’d taken it over a little over a year back. And apparently, the town couldn’t quite figure out what to do instead, so no Santa.
This year, though, an entire front corner of the bookstore was going to be Santa’s workshop, and he would be on hand every weekend in December to greet our youngest (and our most fun-loving older) guests and hear their Christmas wishes.
The trouble was that my staff and I were in a stalemate over what we should call the space where Santa would be. My assistant manager, Marcus, wanted to call it the Santa Zone because, as he said, it would be a tip of the hat to Frozone, his favorite character from The Incredibles movies. I liked that idea, especially because our Santa was going to be black, like the character voiced by Samuel L. Jackson in the movies, but it also reminded me of some sort of sports/arcade/game complex, and I really didn’t want to send the wrong signal about the kind of experience people were going to have.
Rocky, Marcus’ girlfriend and the café manager, had suggested Santa’s Village, but Marcus had quashed that idea because it felt confusing to him to have a village within a village, which is basically what our town is. I wouldn’t have thought of that dilemma myself, but once he said it, I couldn’t help going all meta and imagining Santa in some sort of Escher-like reality where a series of ever-smaller villages sat inside of each other infinitely.
My idea was to go with the classic cottage motif the town had always used, but Rocky and Marcus both said that didn’t work because he wasn’t really going to have a cottage per se. I briefly wondered about having our friend Woody, the woodsmith, make us a cottage to put in the front of the store, but the logistics of moving around something that big in our small shop made that a no-go. So we were stuck.
And on the Monday before Thanksgiving, we had just five days to decide on a name, make the signs, advertise, and decorate before Santa came for his first evening in the shop on Friday. The three of us were staring into space at one of the café tables, trying to come up with a solution, and it was looking more and more futile. The shop was opening in fifteen minutes, and I felt like we had to decide something this morning. We had to pick something, and we’d put it off for as long as we could.
“What if the sign just said, ‘Come see Santa?’” Marcus suggested. “Utilitarian but clear.”
Rocky sighed. “I guess that would work.” She looked at me forlornly.
I echoed her sigh and glanced out the window just in time to see our friend Elle Heron drive by with a child’s sled strapped to the top of her minivan. That’s when it hit me.
“Santa’s Sleigh.” I almost whispered.
“What?” Rocky said as she placed her light brown hand over mine. “What did you say?”
I looked from her to Marcus and back. “Santa’s Sleigh. What if we set Santa up in a sleigh instead of a chair? That way children could sit next to him if they didn’t want to sit on his lap.”
Rocky nodded. “Oh, I like that. We want to be sure to keep kids comfortable, and I’ve always wondered what telling children to sit on a strange man’s lap teaches them about their right to say no when it comes to their bodies.”
“I agree,” and felt my enthusiasm rising as I imagined a bright red sleigh and some Christmas trees around it with that fake snow that had glitter in it. I was just to the point of thinking about how we could string simple white lights around the sleigh to make it light up the store window at night when I caught the expression on Marcus’s face. “Oh no. You don’t like it?”
He met my gaze. “No, I love it, but I’m remembering this Hallmark movie where—”
“Did you say Hallmark Movie?” I smirked.
“Seriously, there’s nothing better to put you in the holiday spirit,” he said without a hint of irony. “Great décor, a guaranteed happy ending, and just enough drama to keep you interested.”
Rocky winked at me. “He’s the only black man I know who watches more of them than I do.”
“Forget the fact that he’s black. He’s the only man I know who watches them at all,” I laughed as Marcus rolled his eyes. “But you were saying something about a Hallmark movie?” I stuck my tongue out at him.
“I was saying that there’s this one movie where they have to find a sleigh for some event at an inn, I think, and they can’t find one. Those movies aren’t very realistic, but well, that part seems to me as true to life. Where are we going to get a sleigh?”
I felt my excitement deflate. “Good question.” I stood up. “Visit Santa it is,” I said as I headed toward the front of the store, flicked on the open sign, and turned the lock on the door. I tried to counter my disappointment with the excitement I felt about hosting Santa, period. But I was still thinking about the sleigh.
Just then, the bell over the front door rang, and Galen – my favorite customer – came in with his English bulldog, Mack. My hound, Mayhem, quickly jogged over, gave Mack the sniff of greeting, and promptly led him to the new couch-shaped dog bed in the fiction section. Galen was always getting doggy goodies because of his Instagram account that featured books and dogs. Apparently, he got so much that he couldn’t fit everything in his house, so he gave a lot of it away. For a while, I’d been a grateful beneficiary, but a couple of weeks ago, I’d had to tell him that we now had enough luxury dog beds to sleep a hundred dogs and that we had to keep some room for books.
“I was wondering when you’d hit saturation,” Galen said with a smile. “Good thing I already lined up my next recipients. Did you know that Cate is now allowing dogs at the co-op?”
My good friend Cate was a photographer and the owner of the amazing art co-op at the other end of Main Street. Her dog, Sasquatch, was another of Mayhem’s buds. “I didn’t know that. I thought she was worried about fur in the clay and the paint and such.”
“She was, but then Sasquatch was feeling sick one day and had to come to work with her. She put his doggy bed in the window, and their traffic doubled. So she polled the artists. Turns out, everyone was in favor.” Galen grinned as he looked over at Mayhem and Mack, who were butt to butt on their couch.
“I told her, but I guess she had to see for herself.” A good portion of our foot traffic came in because the dogs especially loved the sunshine in the front windows in the afternoon. “I’m glad you can pass along your goodies to someone else. You have a lot of space there, too.”
“Yep, one bed per artist and a few for the lobby, I figure.” Galen was staring over at Mack with such gentle adoration. Dog people were special, and not all of us carried our dogs in purses . . . although I couldn’t really resist those teacup chihuahuas that customers brought in from time to time.
“So what’s new around here? Anything you want me to Insta for the holidays?”
I groaned audibly and Galen raised his eyebrows. “We were just talking about that. Santa is going to be here for the weekends starting this Friday, but we haven’t figured out what to call his, well, place.” I sighed. “Cottage doesn’t work, and village feels weird. We talked about a sleigh, but then we couldn’t figure out how to get a sleigh—”
“I have a sleigh you can use.”
“So we’re going with a sign that says – wait, what?!” It took my brain a few seconds to stop my mouth. “Did you say you have a sleigh?”
“Yep. I put it in the front yard with a bunch of life-sized stuffed dogs to pull it, but I’m kind of tired of hauling the thing out, and last year, a squirrel made a nest in the Great Pyrenees belly. So I wasn’t planning on using it this year. It’s yours if you want it.”
I stared at Galen for a long moment, picturing the sleigh with a dog team pulling it and then the squirrel climbing out of a fake Great Pyr belly before I finally registered that he had just solved our problem. “Really?! That would be amazing. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Maybe Daniel can come by and get it?” Galen said.
“Sure. I mean I’ll ask, but I expect he’d be happy to. Will it fit in my truck?” I drove an old model Chevy, and I loved it. But it wasn’t one of these honking things that can carry two round bales of hay that some folks around here drove.
Galen smiled. “It’s actually on a trailer already. I keep it on there to make it easier to move in and out of the garage, and it’s not very heavy. So I think your girl could tow it over just fine.”
I shook my hips in a little happy dance. “You just saved Christmas, Galen.”
He blushed and said, “No, no . . . I’m just glad the sleigh is going to get used.”
I hugged him tightly, and his blush got deeper against his steel-gray hair. “Want to be an elf?” I asked with a wink.
He held one leg out suggestively and said, “I do look good in tights. But no thanks.” He winked back. “I will come by and take a few pics, though, if that’s okay.”
“More than okay. And your next stack of books is on me. Call it a rental fee.”
“Deal,” he said and held out his hand to shake. “Come by whenever for the sleigh. I’ll text you the address.”
“Perfect. Thank you again,” I said and squealed. “Santa’s Sleigh Ride is a go!”
By Wednesday night, Galen’s Instagram promotion, the really amazing window display that Marcus had created, and the sleigh itself had drummed up some big interest in Santa’s first night. Fortunately, my parents had offered to host Thanksgiving. Otherwise, Mart, Daniel, and I would probably have had a bag of Bugles, a can of spray cheese, and a bottle of wine for our meal. We were all slammed with holiday prep – Mart at the winery where she worked and Daniel with me at the store, where he was recruited to hang lights and help stock the shelves with the year’s hottest titles. Books had always been big sellers during the December holidays, and I wanted to be prepared for even more sales this year.
We had been closed for Thanksgiving, but we opened early on Friday morning with our Black Friday discount of buy three books in one genre get one free. The sale only lasted until ten a.m., and then we went to a straight ten percent off everything until Santa arrived at four p.m.
I’d taken a little inspiration from Galen and arranged an entourage of dogs to “pull” his sleigh for the first customers who arrived, and when a tiny girl with braids and beads in her hair came in the door, she screamed with delight as did her mother. “Doggies!” she said. “Black Santa!” was her mother’s joyful sentiment. We were off to a great start.
Soon, the line of folks with their kiddos was out the door, and I realized that I was going to have to serve as the elf and keep the line moving. If I could have, I would have let every child sit for as long – or as short – a time as they wanted, but it soon became clear I was going to have to set a time limit or plan to be here well past midnight. I enlisted Marcus’s help, and he drew a quick sign that said, “Santa’s legs get tired. Please limit your visits to two requests and three minutes each.” That helped some, but of course, some folks also needed to be ushered along with a gentle hand under the elbow.
Mayhem and Mac, our lead “rein-dogs” were holding steady at the front of the lines, but behind them, most of the other pooches, including Cate’s restless Schnauzer, Sasquatch, and Mack, were getting restless. So at six, I sent the pups on their way with bags of treats and my hearty thanks, and the sleigh went dogless for the rest of the evening.
Just before nine, we were getting ready to close up, and I was about to fall over from fatigue. Supervising a line of children was exhausting, but it was the persnickety attitudes of some of the parents that were really draining. I simply could not with the mother who insisted that her child go back to Santa because she has not requested the right American Girl doll, and the father who felt like his son shouldn’t ask for a teddy bear because it was too much of a sissy gift got a stern glare from me and a free copy of When The Bees Fly Home to help him and his gorgeous son explore those awful gender stereotypes.
The event had been great, but I was making a little list of things we needed – bottles of water for staff and people in line, a chair for the resident elf, more resident elves – when I saw that the last person in line was a grown man without any children. I kept an eye out, wondering if maybe the child in question was in the restroom, but when he finally made it to Santa, he was still alone. Alone and swaying on his feet.
I gave Marcus a quick wave, and he came over, seeing immediately the issue at hand, and helped me steady our final guest as he reached Santa. I looked at Damien, our Santa, with the obvious question in my eyes, and he took a deep breath before nodding. Then, this thin but very tall white man slumped down into Santa’s lap.
“What can Santa do for you this year, er, young man?” Damien boomed in his best Santa voice.
The guy in his lap was now leaning against Damien’s chest, and even when Damien jostled around, he didn’t move. I groaned, and Marcus and I each took one of the man’s arms and pulled him upright off of Damien’s lap. But the guy didn’t even attempt to hold his own weight. He went right past vertical and slammed into the table in front of him.
For a split second, I continued to think he was drunk until I realized that he hadn’t made even a grunt when his nose had smacked into the table top nor when his shoulder had slammed into the floor. “Oh no,” I said with horror.
Damien knelt down and put his fingers to the guy’s neck. When he wasn’t moonlighting as Santa, Damien was a volunteer firefighter and had some medical training. “No pulse,” he said. “Call 911.” Then, Damien flipped the guy onto his back and started chest compressions as Marcus moved to the man’s head, presumably to give him mouth-to-mouth.
For a second, I just stood there, staring, but then I jarred myself into action and dialed.
By the time the ambulance arrived, it was clear this guy wasn’t waking up. Someone had died, in Santa’s lap, in my bookstore, on the first day of the Christmas season.
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