the christmas pact
one
NOELLE
Noelle Allred heldher cell phone to her ear, veering to the other edge of the sidewalk as she walked under a mechanical lift that held a man in its basket, draping Christmas lights from one side of Main Street in her hometown of Mountain Springs, Colorado, to the other. She could hear her sister, Hope, on the other end of the line, telling her four-year-old son that he couldn’t tie his two-year-old brother to the dog so he could ride him like a horse without falling off. And that they couldn’t do it, even if the brother and the dog both acted like they wanted to.
Snow was softly falling from the morning sky, promising to make the lights extra beautiful when they turned them on for the first time tonight. It was something that Noelle used to love, but not anymore. She adjusted her hood so the flakes wouldn’t land on her hair, melt, then dry weird on the way to work and make it look like she’d just woken up and hadn’t even glanced in the mirror before heading to work.
She shivered and pulled her coat a little tighter.
“I’m back,” Hope said, a little breathless. “I had to play the ‘Santa’s watching’ card, and I’m not proud of it. But I also thinkwe avoided a possible concussion in Porter’s near future, so I’m working on being okay with it. Back to tonight—what time are you planning to be at Downtown Park for the tree lighting?”
Noelle adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and braced herself for her sister’s response. “I’m not going.”
“What?! Why not? You’ve never skipped. Not even for those four years when you were in student housing. How can you not come tonight?”
She took a deep breath and glanced at the shops on Main Street, which all seemed to be trying to outdo each other with their Christmas decorations and window displays. Then she immediately dropped her eyes to the snow falling onto the sidewalk in front of her. “It just doesn’t feel right to go with Gran-gran gone.” The pain of her loss stabbed her in the heart again, like when the grief had been brand new. She stopped to lean against a building for a minute and just looked up at the snow falling.
Hope was quiet for a long moment, then whispered, “I miss her, too.”
Noelle’s family was big on Christmas. Actually, that was an understatement. If Christmas was a TV screen, it was the JumboTron at Ball Arena in Denver to her family. If it was a trickle of water spilling over rocks, it was her family’s Niagra Falls. If it was a figurine for most families, it was the Statue of Liberty to hers.
And Gran-gran had been the leader of it all.
Noelle didn’t say anything more, so Hope filled the silence. “I know it felt that way last year, but that was because she’d just barely passed away. I think it’ll be different this year.”
But Hope hadn’t been as close to Gran-gran as Noelle had been. None of them had been as close. This year felt like it’d be worse in part because she hadn’t just passed away. They weren’t busy planning a funeral this year, going through all Gran-gran’sthings, and deciding what to do with them. This year would feel like a regular Christmas, but it’d be missing the most essential ingredient.
“I don’t think it will,” Noelle said, making herself keep walking toward the bus stop just in front of Downtown Park, a block further down the street. “So I’m just going to skip Christmas this year.”
“Skip it? I don’t understand.”
“You know...” Noelle said, waving her hand around, trying to encapsulate everything, but realized the motion was pointing out all the decorations on Main Street. “I’m just going to pretend like Christmas doesn’t exist.”
“You can’t just skip it.”
“Yep, that’s what I’m doing. I am officially done with Christmas. This is no longer the Christmas season; it’s simply the winter season. Look—I’ve got snow all around me just to remind me that’s all it is. I’m going to avert my eyes from anything remotely Christmassy.” She cupped her hand beside her eye to block out the view.
“Excuse me!” someone called out. Noelle jumped and took a step back as four guys—who had been blocked from her view by the hood of her coat even before she had blocked them even more with her hand—crossed just in front of her, carrying a workshop table for Santa’s village that was being set up in Downtown Park for the start of the Christmas festivities tonight.
So much for averting her eyes from all things Christmas.
“There’s no way that you, the biggest Christmas lover of all, is done with it.”
“No, I am.”
She reached the bus stop, which gave her a view of the park that was even worse than her view had been walking down Main Street. A couple of people were working to install the false sides to the big gazebo to make it look like a giant gingerbread house.They would be serving hot cocoa inside during the festivities tonight and at a few other events during the month.
A life-size manger scene was set up on its right, complete with the stable, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, a donkey, a handful of sheep, and a shepherd.
To the left of the gazebo, several volunteers were working on getting Santa’s village set up, which was a massive undertaking. The village had half a dozen elf houses, red and white-striped street signs, Santa’s sleigh, several reindeer, stacks of wrapped presents, and a big outdoor workshop where a dozen elves worked to make toys.
A few more volunteers worked to set up the train tracks and the small working train that would carry the little kids in a circle around the entire workshop. Lighted arches led the way to where the train could be boarded.
And a couple people were stringing thousands of lights on the massive pine tree that stood in the middle of it all. There was so much activity and movement in the park that it kept involuntarily pulling her attention to it. Looking the other direction only meant that she’d be watching people wrap the street lamps on Main Street in garlands.
And not only that, but the bus was late—probably because of the snow. Noelle couldn’t exactly keep her eyes closed and still watch out for the bus, so she caught loads of Christmas happenings. No amount of averting her eyes and using her hand as a blinder could keep it all out. And even though her hood was nice and fluffy, it didn’t keep out the Christmas music playing for the workers setting everything up.
