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I woke up with the old excitement filling my bones and a smile on my face. It was only a few days until Christmas, and everything was getting more festive around the bed and breakfast. And to top it off, Holly was the one in the lead of almost all of it.
It was difficult for her, I could tell. The Christmas spirit wasn’t natural to her, and she didn’t have much experience with it, but she was giving it one hell of a try. While it took extra work for her, it was more meaningful in a way because of it. She was clearly working against years of thinking one way and trying to open herself up to something new. And that something new was bringing her joy when she let it.
The house was absolutely covered in decorations for one thing. There were garlands wrapped around the railing of the stairs and lights along the steps themselves. Peppermint candles burned in most of the open spaces, and where they weren’t gingerbread ones were. That was when there wasn’t the smell of something freshly baking, usually because I had tossed it in.
Music was generally playing downstairs during the daytime and evening hours. Soft, low-volume sounds of Christmas carols—almost all the upbeat ones and a handful of the slower ones—filled the place with sound. Guests could be seen tapping their feet or humming along with the songs as they went about their day, and I even caught Holly singing under her breath a few times.
Snowfall outside, warm wonderful smells inside. It was Christmas in Snowflake Hollow.
The excitement was building in me like a little kid. I loved all of this, more than I could express to Holly or anyone else. It filled me with a kind of positive energy that could have moved the Statue of Liberty around New York City if I had some of that pink Ghostbusters’ goo.
I loved all of it. The silly, cheesy nature of the holiday movies, the overload of peppermint and sugar cookies, the sappy songs about going home... all of it was like nectar to me. It reminded me of better times, of more innocent moments of my life when nothing mattered in the world other than how much fun I was going to have the next day.
Days when I didn’t worry as much about my mother.
I went over to see her a few times, and we were calling each other fairly frequently. There was some guilt about how I had wrapped myself up with Holly and was spending so much time helping her out and doing things at the bed and breakfast, but Mom was always so supportive. She would wave it off and tell me I needed to focus on me. She wasn’t going anywhere yet.
I hated when she said ‘yet’. I knew she didn’t mean it that way, but every time she did it, it was a reminder that her time on Earth had a clock that was ticking down. And that there wasn’t a lot of that time left. But she tried to keep me focused on positive things: I was there, and she loved seeing me, and that I was having fun being back home for a little while.
I hadn’t told her much about Holly, but what I had I got the impression she knew how to read in to. She was my mother, after all, and knew more than anyone else what made me tick. When I talked about Holly I tried to keep things vague and distant, but I knew she saw the excitement in my eyes and heard it in my voice. There was no avoiding it.
We would also talk about Christmases when I was a kid. Times where she would come outside with me and we would build a snowman and go sledding. We laughed about the time I slid down a hill too fast and ended up crashing into a cheap playhouse, smashing it to bits. I spent the rest of the winter rebuilding that thing for the neighbors so their granddaughter had her place back. I wasn’t entirely sure she even knew what happened to it, but I did it for her anyway.
Snow days were the best back then, and I was determined to have it be just as good for the kids staying at the bed and breakfast now. I would wake up early and go outside, grabbing sleds and shovels, and head out to the open fields to run free with the other kids in the neighborhood. After our sledding adventure, I had pulled the sleds away from the garage and stuffed them under the porch. I hoped they would be visible enough that anyone wanting to use them could see them.
Our snowman was going strong outside, too. The long scarf had blown in the wind and nearly come off a few times, but the other guests would always help fix him, too. Someone had added a top hat, from where I didn’t know, and the stick we had stuck in to be his arm was replaced with a thicker one that had branches sticking out that looked like he was waving jauntily.
The text message that came in as I was getting dressed only added to the excitement. An idea had formed immediately, and I knew just what I wanted to do today. If there was anything that could push Holly over the edge into full-on Christmas nerd, this might be it. I just hoped she would go with me on it. I knew there was still lots to do around the place, and keeping up with the guests was her top priority, but I felt like my plan would be super rewarding for both of us.
I opened the top drawer of the dresser in my room and smiled. I put on the silly Christmas tree socks that were lying on top and laughed at how wonderfully silly they looked. I had bought them on a lark last year when I saw them in a store a few days after Christmas. Thankfully, I had remembered to throw them into my bag and bring them with me. Finally, I slipped on sneakers and went downstairs. Usually, first thing in the morning, I could be found with my slippers still on, but this time I wanted to be ready to move. I didn’t want to give Holly any excuse not to get going, including me needing a few minutes to get ready.
The lights were on downstairs, and the aroma of coffee filled the dining room area, though I didn’t hear the shuffling of anyone down there. Usually, only the elderly guests were up before I went down to make the pots of coffee, but apparently someone beat me down there, even if they weren’t milling around. As I rounded the corner of the kitchen, I saw who it was.
Holly was sitting in the floor of the kitchen, her legs crossed at the ankles but her legs bowed. A large mixing bowl was between her thighs and a heavy wooden spoon stuck inside. She looked like she was staring down into the bowl, looking for the answers to the universe. I stared at her for a moment before she seemed to notice I was there and looked up only briefly.
The bowl was full of dough. Big, thick, heavy dough. The oven beeped, indicating it had preheated to a pre-determined temperature, and I looked questioningly from it to Holly. What in the heck was she up to? Usually she waited for me before she tried anything with the oven.
“What exactly is going on here?” I asked, pulling a mug down and grabbing the pot of coffee.
“Me and the dough are coming to an understanding,” she said.
I laughed at that and reached down to kiss her on the top of her head before sitting in one of the chairs by the kitchen table.
“Why do you and the dough have to come to an understanding, sitting in the floor of the kitchen?” I asked.
“Because I was mixing it,” she said. “And I couldn’t get a good enough grip on it. So, I tried holding it tight to my chest, but that didn’t really work either. Then I figured I could keep it between my thighs, but there wasn’t enough room on the chair, so...”
“So, you ended up on the floor,” I said.
“Yup,” she said. “I ended up on the floor. Nice socks, by the way.”
I beamed.
“Thank you. They have little bells on them.”
“I can see that. And hear it,” she said. “You jangled all the way down the stairs.”
“At least I didn’t surprise you,” I said.
“True,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to get startled and throw my dough on the floor or anything. We just need to get to a good place with each other and have some understanding about not being burned to bejesus.”
“Well, maybe you should put the dough in the fridge to think for a little while and make something simpler for breakfast,” I said. “Like waffles. Or cereal.”
“That sounds like we have a Christmas activity scheduled for the day,” she said.
I grinned.
“You don’t have to say it like that,” I said. “Besides, it’s not a Christmas activity, per se. It’s a Christmas mission.”
“Like the military?” she asked. “I don’t know if I have enough Christmas spirit to invade another town or anything. Also, that seems to be slightly against the spirit of the holiday, I would think.”
“Not quite like the military,” I said. “But an important mission nonetheless.”
“All right, I’ll bite,” she said. “What is it we need to do? And please tell me it doesn’t involve wearing fatigues.”
“No fatigues,” I said. “Unless maybe you want to for some reason. But I think you could get by with anything.”
“Good,” she said.
“Do you remember that mailbox I put up outside the Children’s Hospital?” I asked.
“The day we went to the market? Yeah, why?” she asked.
“Well, I just got a message from one of the people working over there.”
“Oh no, is something wrong with the mailbox? Did some stupid kids hit it with a bat or something?” she asked, a concerned expression on her face.
“No,” I said, taking a deep sip of my coffee and shaking my head. “That’s not something that happens much in Snowflake Hollow. No, the mailbox is fine.”
“Then what about it?” she asked.
“Apparently, some of the little patients up there and their siblings took the mailbox to heart. There are a bunch of letters to Santa inside.”
“Really?” she asked
I nodded.
“They messaged me this morning and asked what I thought they should do with them.”
