Page 7 of Christmas Wishes
A large, three story log cabin in the North Pole, the house was always filled with warmth and purpose. Happiness. Joy. Fun.
Christmas was serious business in the Claus household, but it was also fun business. At least, it was supposed to be.
The cabin was surrounded by a forest that shouldn’t be able to grow and survive in the frozen wilderness. Then again, nothing should. But… Magic.
Rand looked from his father to his traitor of a best friend. Not that Tomas had needed to tell Santa Claus anything. The overgrown elf already knew everything. But the glare Rand leveled at Tomas made him feel slightly better about the whole situation.
“Father…” Rand sighed. He didn’t want to have this conversation, but he knew it was impossible to avoid. His disbeliefs were too strong to be ignored. “It’s not about the sleigh team and I never said I didn’t want to lead them.”
“Oh? Then tell me what it is about.”
As if the elf didn’t already know. And that’s what he was. An elf. It took years, centuries for it to happen, for a reindeer shifter with magic blood, with Father Christmas’ blood, to undergo genetic changes at a certain age, to become Santa Claus. That same blood flowed through Rand’s veins. That same blood would take him from reindeer to Santa in a few hundred years. It was a responsibility he didn’t know he could live up to. “Beliefs,” he said, owning up to what was bothering him. He couldn’t lie to his father. “If what we do here is worth it. If what we do here makes any difference at all in the world outside these snow covered mountains.”
Santa settled into his favorite black velvet armchair, his eyes fixed on Rand’s face. “You really think it doesn’t?”
“No. I don’t. I mean… I used to believe, but I see the wishes, read the letters, hear what they ask for. I’ve seen the way they treat one another, the way they lie to get what they want. Humanity pretends one month out of the year that they haven’t been horrible the other eleven. There is so much negative. It drowns out any positives and I don’t know that any of it is worth saving.”
“We have to hope humanity wakes up, son. We have to hope they’ll see a way beyond their selfish nature and begin to love with their hearts, not with their eyes.”
“In the four hundred years I’ve been alive, that hasn’t happened. What’s to say it’ll happen in another four hundred?”
“Nothing,” his father said simply. “But that’s what hope is, Rand. That’s what believing is.”
“I don’t,” he grated, his jaw tight with frustration. He let out a breath and slumped back on the sofa. “I don’t know that I can believe like that. I don’t… know. Are there that many good souls? Are there that many selfless hearts to make a difference? Everyone is out for something.”
“You paint a broad picture with a tiny brush. You’re not seeing the details, the small gestures that are made from one human being toward another. That’s where the magic is, those small, infinitesimal moments.”
Rand couldn’t think of anything more to say and he didn’t want to continue arguing with his father. He could appreciate the older elf’s point of view. He’d been on the other side of the mountains far more than Rand had. Maybe he’d seen enough of those small one on one encounters to still believe with all his heart everything that Rand now doubted.
“I saw Blix today,” Santa commented.
That caught Rand’s attention and he sat up. “Where did you see her?”
“She was on her way to the paddocks. Perhaps to see you. Or Tomas. She was lost in thought and very nearly ran straight into me.”
Rand chuckled at the memory of his time with the she-elf in the bakery earlier. “That’s Blix.” What could she have been going to him about? Or Tomas? Of course, her seeing Tomas made more sense as he was her brother-in-law. But Rand couldn’t help but hope that he was the reason, instead.
“She’s a pretty little elf. Excellent with cookies, too. And that shop of hers? It was the right thing to do, granting that wish.”
“She is and yes, I agree. The bakery is truly where she shines brightest.” Rand thought she was more than pretty and though small in stature she may be, she was curved and rounded in all the right places.
“Have you considered…?”
Father Christmas was giving dating advice? It was both endearing and strange. He’d never commented on Rand’s choice of elf before. “Yes, Father, I have. A lot. And if she wasn’t so skittish around me all the time, I might do more than consider.”
“Your mother was a lot like that, too, once upon a time.”
“I was a lot like what?”
Rand looked up as his mother entered the great room with a tray of cookies and cocoa.
“Skittish.”
She glanced at her husband with an artfully raised brow. “Skittish was I?”
“As I recall.”
“Is that why I had to ask you on a date?”
