Page 25 of Single Dad's Christmas Cookie

“You didn’t know Grandmother was coming,” Amelia said.

“I found out when you found out, remember? Your daddy came in and told us.”

She nodded. She rubbed her little fist against her big, dark eyes and yawned. What time had they put her to bed last night?

“Go get dressed and come right back,” I told Amelia.

She nodded and plodded on very tired feet out of the kitchen.

By the time Amelia bounced back into the kitchen, she seemed like her old self, full of energy and giggles.

“Do you have any Christmas decorations we could add to these?” I asked, thinking that somewhere in an attic or storeroom, there had to be a collection of fancy glass ornaments and colorful twinkle lights that we could add to our collection.

Amelia shook her head. “We don’t decorate for Christmas.”

“You don’t? Do you mean you have people come in and do the decorating for you?” I asked, trying to get clarification.

“Grandmother does that. We do not.”

I noticed the pattern of her speech was very much like the first time I met her, and I recognized that was her grandmother’s influence.

“So you don’t have decorations around here?”

She pointed at the pile of what we had been working on. I realized that she might not even know whether they had decorations in storage. She was a kid. I should ask Bryan. Or, we could go buy some new ones.

“What should we decorate first?” I asked.

“Can we buy one of those giant blow up—” she started.

“Whoa, kid.” I put my hands up, stopping her. “I think we need to keep it a little more low-key than that. You said you don’t ever decorate at Christmas. If your daddy isn’t used to a lot of bright, colorful decorations around, we should probably start small, get him used to having pretty, sparkly things around.”

She gave me a thoughtful nod. “And if we overwhelm him and get things that are too loud and too bright, too colorful, he might become overstimulated,” she said understandingly.

She was a smart kid, and it was clear that she understood that sometimes things could be too much to deal with. But those were big words coming out of her mouth.

“Are those words Miss Brennan uses at school?” I asked.

Amelia nodded. “Charles can get overstimulated.” She pronounced each syllable very carefully. “We have to be careful with him.”

“Is that a little boy in your class?”

She nodded.

“We don’t want your father to become overstimulated, do we?”

She shook her head. “Charles is not happy when that happens. Nobody is happy when that happens,” she said with a little eye roll.

“We want to make sure your daddy is happy,” I said. “He doesn’t seem to like Christmas, does he?” I whispered conspiratorially. I was being nosy and wanted to know why they didn’t decorate.

Amelia shrugged. “That’s when my mother left us.”

“Oh, I understand.” I didn’t understand at all, but I wasn’t gonna push. I was willing to listen if she was going to talk. Immediately, I felt as if I had already crossed a line by pushing some kind of holiday agenda when it was obviously a sore spot for their family.

“Why don’t we go measure the stairs and see if we have enough popcorn garlands?” I suggested, grabbing a roll of ribbon and a pair of scissors.

“That sounds like a very good idea.”

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and handed Amelia the roll of ribbon. “Now you hold on to this and I’m going to go up the stairs, and we’ll see how far we go before the ribbon runs out.”

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