Page 11 of The Grumpiest Elf

I drift slowly from booth to booth, looking over the ornaments and gift ideas, hoping something will jump out at me for my mom. I’m hoping I can find something to help round out her condo. She got all the essentials right away—dishes, furniture, linens—but is taking her time with artwork and general decor, so there are still several blank walls. She only has one thing on the walls I recognize—a painting she fell in love with when we went to Victoria, BC the summer before my older sister Brooke went to college. Right now the Christmas decorations are making the space seem less bare, but once January hits and the tree comes down, she’ll need something to warm up the space.

There’s a sign vendor that has some fun stuff, but those kinds of things aren’t really Mom’s style. She likes clean, classic lines and rich colors, and her taste in artwork runs bolder than I realized. I think she toned that down before in deference to my dad.

My jaw clenches at the thought of Dylan asking me to “tone it down” for him. Maybe I shouldn’t anymore. Maybe I should just be my usual self, and he can suck it.

Or maybe I can just continue to largely ignore him. That seems the easiest and most likely scenario. It’s not like I’ll have to interact with him regularly after ChristmasFest is over. Our time together will end soon enough.

But I won’t end up in a relationship with someone like that, that’s for sure. I don’t want to find myself thirty years from now waking up and realizing that I haven’t been allowed to be myself for years.

With that in mind, I step back from the farmhouse decor stand in front of me with its beige and brown color scheme—though to be fair, it has pops of red in trucks and plaids in deference to Christmas—and scan the space to see if anything looks like it might be up Mom’s alley. With Santa’s Workshop tucked away in the back, it’s hard to see much when I’m at work, but I thought I’d seen something …

There!

Yes. It’s a little out of the way too, but there’s a booth with swirly, colorful ornaments on a slowly rotating rack to catch the attention of shoppers, but it’s the wall of artwork that I’m most interested in. But when I get close and I see the price of the large centerpiece print hanging on the wall, my breath catches. It’s not unreasonable, but it’s definitely out of my budget.

My hesitation must show on my face, because the woman running the booth says, “I also have prints over here.” She touches a basket off to the side, and I give her a grateful smile.

“Oh, perfect.” It might not be the large centerpiece display, but a print in a nice frame, a mat around it to make it bigger … that could work. It could add to Mom’s gallery wall. There’s not much there now, though Mom picked up some Christmassy fabric and put those in frames and embroidery hoops to add to the few photos of Brooke and me she has up, and I know she’d like something fun to replace the fabric placeholders once it’s time to put away the holiday decor.

I flip through all the prints of the abstract work once, then I go through it again more slowly, stopping to study the ones that caught my eye the first time through. I narrow it to three, studying each one and imagining it in Mom’s living room. Finally, I pick one out—it’s a study of blues and greens that swirl together in a soothing and interesting way with a little pop of orange here and there that keeps it interesting. I think Mom’ll love it.

The artist appears to be about my Mom’s age, and she gives me a warm smile, putting on a pair of reading glasses as she picks up her phone to process the order. “Oh, good choice. This is one of my favorites.”

We chitchat for a moment as I pay, and I accept the bag she offers me to carry my purchase and head back into the fray.

I’m close enough to Santa’s Workshop that it catches my eye, and I head that direction, not really sure why or what I’m hoping to find there.

To my surprise, Dylan’s working the camera while Nora does the computer and line management. When I work with Dylan, he always has me taking the pictures.

“Hey!” Nora says when she spots me, her voice full of genuine warmth. “What are you doing here? It’s your day off!”

Chuckling, I step closer so we don’t have to shout over the families waiting to see Santa. “I just couldn’t stay away.”

She bats her eyes and clasps her hands over her chest. “Awww. You just love us so much you can’t get enough, huh?”

“Something like that,” I say with a grin.

She spots the bag in my hand. “Oooh. What’d you get? Anything good?”

I sneak past the line and sidle up next to her, showing her the print.

“Nora,” Dylan snaps, and I look up to see him glaring at us. “Customers!”

She casts me an exasperated look. “I was watching for them,” she mutters under her breath for my ears. “They’re still collecting their kid from Santa. Sheesh.”

Biting my lip to cover my amusement, I step away so Nora can show the family the pictures and print out the one they pick, efficiently and cheerfully finishing the interaction by handing them their photos in an envelope printed with the website and code where they can access the rest and sending them off with a wave and, “Merry Christmas!”

Dylan makes a production of rearranging the basket of stuffed animals he has at his disposal for the little kids, but he obviously won’t need them for the older elementary aged kids talking to Santa right now. “Got too bored on your night off, huh?” he asks, his usual grumpiness making it sound more like an accusation than a genuine question.

“Are you here to suck the Christmas cheer out of all these kids and their families?” I cross my arms and cock a hip. “Are you really an eldritch creature, and this is how you stay young and beautiful?”

That surprises a laugh out of him, and he straightens. “Young and beautiful, huh?”

My cheeks heat, and I roll my eyes to cover it. “Thatiswhat ancient joy-sucking eldritch monsters usually want, isn’t it?”

His half grin is almost disarming. “I wouldn’t know.” He glances at the kids talking to Santa. “Duty calls.”

As he’s turning, I quip, “Gotta suck as much joy as possible, am I right? You have to get enough to keep you going for eleven months, after all.”

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