‘MUMMA?’
‘Yes, darling?’
‘There’s boots. Like Dadda’s.’ Three-year-old Maggie was very excited, leaning forward so that it was impossible for her father to do up the buckle of her car seat harness. ‘Look...’
Tilly looked. She didn’t need her daughter to be pointing at the roof of the old villa to know that Harry had done what he’d sworn he’d never do. He’d climbed up onto the roof and put Santa’s legs into the chimney with his feet sticking out. And wee Maggie thought it was as hilarious as Tilly had when she’d been a small child. She was beside herself with mirth as Harry finally did up the buckle.
‘He’s up-down, Dadda. He’s stuck...’
‘Your Mammy’s good at being upside down too, sweetheart. But she didn’t get stuck, thank goodness...’ He winked at Tilly, reaching out to take the plastic container full of cheese rolls—their contribution to the Craig’s Gully Christmas Eve community barbecue—from her hands.
‘I’d get stuck now,’ she said. ‘I might get stuck even if I’m not up-down.’
Harry eyed the impressive bump of her belly and his smile widened. ‘You might, to be fair... I know I said I wanted six kids, but they don’t have to all come at once.’
‘It’s only twins.’
Harry held the door open so that Tilly could climb into the truck. Then he leaned in to kiss her. ‘I’m just going to check on...you know...’
‘I know...’
‘Where’s Dadda gone?’
‘He’ll be back in a minute, darling. Shall we listen to a song while we wait?’ Tilly opened her Christmas folder and put the music through the car’s speakers. A New Zealand version of a carol that was a family favourite, that had one of the three Kings of the Orient in a tractor and another in a car.
She watched Harry disappear into the barn. He’d be checking that her father had finished getting into the Father Christmas suit and that Lizzie was all set to drive him down to the town square. Tilly smiled. Her father had grown a beard himself in the last couple of years, so he was beginning to look rather like Father Christmas even without the costume.
A perfect grandfather.
And an amazing father, as always. His wedding gift to Harry and Tilly, only six months after he’d first met his potential son-in-law that Christmas, had been to sign over the old family homestead to them. He needed a smaller place in town, he’d said. A place that Lizzie could help him choose because it looked like they were set to keep each other company for the rest of their lives.
That first year had been so busy for all of them with a wedding to plan and living and work arrangements to update. It had only got busier since then but none of them were complaining. Tilly hadn’t ended up taking over the family practice from her father, but who would have guessed that a job in the emergency department of their local hospital would have opened up? Or that Harry would embrace getting the qualifications to become a GP and to join a bigger practice that gave him time to be a popular local doctor, a very hands-on father and even a member of the mountain search and rescue team?
With the support team, including Jim and Lizzie and offers of local help streaming in ever since the news of the twins’ arrival had spread like wildfire, Tilly knew exactly how lucky she was to have the career she loved so much and now the joy of a family she’d never dreamed of having.
The chorus of the song was coming on again and Maggie was singing along about the king on his scooter...tooting his hooter...with far more enthusiasm than tunefulness. A glance in the rear-view mirror showed Tilly that her father, in the Santa suit, was climbing into Lizzie’s car and Harry was carefully closing the door of the barn behind them. Maggie might realise that it was her grandpa who was hearing her secret wish for Christmas this year, but she would have no idea that the magic had already happened.
Pudding was being hidden in the barn until tomorrow morning. How lucky was it that Jason’s children had outgrown the bombproof little palomino pony just as Maggie was ready for more than simply sitting on Spud, who was still enjoying life but really only wanted to stand in the shade of the nearest tree.
Tilly could do with the shade of a tree to sit under right now. It was going to be another hot Christmas Day tomorrow and maybe they could take Maggie to the lake in the afternoon for a swim. After they’d done the whole traditional Christmas dinner thing, of course. Lizzie was coming early to help with all the cooking, but Tilly and Harry had already prepared their favourite part of the feast and the baking dish filled with potato gratin was in the fridge, all ready for the oven.
She could see Harry striding back towards the car now. He was close enough for Tilly to see the way he looked up at the roof of the house and she could see the grin that advertised how pleased he was with reinstating another Christmas tradition. Her love for the man she had married was a huge squeeze around her heart that never failed to take her breath away.
He’d be sneaking off to climb the roof and put the Santa legs in the chimney every year from now on, wouldn’t he?
For ever.
Tilly was smiling at Harry as he climbed into the driving seat. A misty kind of smile that came from a place of pure joy.
How lucky was she that for ever was such a long time?