Page 11 of Cozy Hometown Christmas
Kent looked skeptical. “I’ve arranged them alphabetically so I can find things easily.”
“Exactly! You’re thinking about how to find things, but what you should be thinking about is how to sell things.”
Mason was happy to see understanding dawn on his father’s face. Kent had owned several businesses before but never a retail store. He just needed to change his thinking a little bit.
Mason was on a roll. “I think we should decorate some of the trees too. Show the customers how great they can look. Maybe even wrap some empty boxes and put them underneath the trees.”
“Empty boxes?” Kent looked skeptical.
“Yeah, make them see how it will look in their house with the gifts underneath.” Mason looked around some more. “How about setting up a toy train underneath the tree and maybe getting a fake fireplace?”
“You mean like a room setting.”
“Exactly.” Mason was glad his dad was getting the idea. More than anything, he wanted his dad’s store to succeed.
“We can use this garland and these lights.” Mason walked around the store, picking out items. “And these ornaments.”
“Okay. Which tree do you think we should decorate?”
Mason surveyed the selection. The blue spruce was pretty, the Scotch pine was tall, but the one that stood out to him the most was the all-white one. “This one.”
Kent nodded, and they pulled the tree out to a prominent spot in the store and got to work.
“Remember decorating the tree with your mother? She was always so particular.” Kent carefully placed the lights around the tree then handed the string to Mason, who was on the other side.
Mason glanced at his father, surprised at the lack of bitterness in his tone.
Mason had been a grown man when his mother left, but it had still felt weird. Of course, he was still close to her now—and he supposed her new husband was an okay guy, even if he was a wife stealer—but he’d always been upset at the way she’d treated his dad. Kent had been angry and bitter with good cause, but now it seemed as if he was truly moving on, keeping the good memories and letting go of the anger.
“So how did it go down at the town hall with that Irene lady?” Kent opened the box of ornaments and stood back with a frosted blue star in his hand, his eyes searching the tree for the perfect spot.
Mason blew out a breath so hard that the tinsel on the tree flickered. “Well, it turns out it’s not going to be as easy as we thought to decorate the skating pond.”
Kent placed the ornament on the tree and looked at him. “Why not?”
“You know the family across the street that has the Christmas tree farm?”
“Yeah. Haven’t met them though. She seems a bit standoffish.” Kent picked another ornament out of the box.
“As you know, they’ve been decorating the skating pond every year. The husband died, and now the daughter has taken over. I think maybe it put Irene in a little bit of a spot when I asked about decorating it. I’m not sure she expected the daughter to apply this year.” Mason glanced uneasily out the window.
“That’s too bad. But it is a coveted job. Irene said they put up a big sign with the name of the business that decorated it. That would give Tinseltown a huge boost and give us a chance to show off how great our products are.” Kent reached up to place the round purple glass ornament at the top of the tree then stood back.
“Irene suggested a contest.” Mason took a star-shaped ornament out of the box and placed it on one of the lower branches, twisting it so it faced the right way.
“A contest? That sounds like fun. You should be good at figuring out how to decorate it. Seems sort of similar to setting up booths at the trade shows.”
Mason chuckled. “Well, I don’t think setting up fertilizer booths is quite the same as decorating a skating pond, but I think I can handle it.” Mason already had some cool ideas about what to do at the pond. And his father was right: it would be a great opportunity to show off how realistic their trees looked. But still… he glanced out the window again.
“Great! I’m really counting on you to wow them.”
Well, that settled it. His dad was counting on him, and he had to take care of his father first. He didn’t even know the Woodwards, and if they had been in business in town for generations, missing out on the prestige of decorating the skating pond probably wouldn’t hurt them much. They already had a clientele, whereas his father would have to work harder to become established.
“Irene mentioned some other activities that the businesses get involved in. There’s a wreath-making contest tomorrow. We can put a business card in the wreaths we make. I guess they hang them around town, and the winner gets some special advertising or something,” Mason said.
“We should try to participate in all of them.” Kent glanced hopefully at Mason, who nodded. He knew his father wanted him to be the one to do that.
His phone blared, and he took it out of his pocket. “It’s Ginger. I guess I’ll take this.”
