Page 21 of Snowed in at Santa's Lodge
“Yes. Let’s see what Santa left us.”
I heard the second he saw them. He was like a little kid, and I loved it. “A stocking! You got me a stocking.”
“It was my favorite part of Christmas morning growing up.”
“I never had a stocking before.” He snatched it, plopped on the floor, and started opening everything. “I needed one of these!” He held up the carpenter’s pencil.
I saw absolutely no scenario where that was true, but I was loving his enthusiasm. One thing after another, he opened, and he swore each one was exactly what he needed.
Then he pushed himself up and left without a word. When he came back, he had two gifts.
“This is for you, and this”—he handed the other one over—“Frosty, this is for you.”
He pulled the paper off, and there inside was a monster stuffy with a squeaker. It was pretty flat and worked well with Frosty’s small mouth. He snatched it and ran off.
“This one’s yours. I already opened my stocking, so don’t try to argue about it.” Which I was 100 percent about to.
I tore the paper off. Inside was a box, and when I opened it, I’d expected to see… I didn’t know what, but not what was there.
“How did you ever find this?”
“That’s a trade secret.”
I reached in and pulled out one of the very few missing pieces to the Christmas village. It looked practically new, even though the entire series had been discontinued decades earlier.
“I love it so much,” I said, and added it to the set.
“Wait, there’s more.”
I went to the box, peeled back the rest of the paper, and on the bottom was what appeared to be a card. When I opened it, there wasn’t a Christmas card inside. Instead, there was a copy of his resignation acceptance from his boss. And when I flipped it over, there was an acceptance letter for a remote position.
“I can’t believe this happened so fast. I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m pretty excited too. I need to go get my things. But what I thought was going to be the hard part was pretty easy. Now you open yours.”
He unwrapped it, and inside was a bird feeder, the kind that would sit on a window, and some decals to prevent the birds from actually hitting the window. Technically, I’d made it. But it was from a kit a local craftsman sold at the general store. Mostly I just assembled it.
“I love it.”
He crawled over me and hugged me so tight.
“Who would have thought, when I came here that day, we’d be spending Christmas together? Never been so glad that a weatherman messed up so royally.”
“Same, my love,” I said. “Same. Ready for a cheesy Christmas-movie marathon?”
“I was born ready.”
He saw half of one before falling asleep for his first nap.
Chapter Sixteen
Aspen
I was ginormous. No, scratch that. I was what ginormous wanted to be when they grew up.
It seemed like only yesterday, I was able to wear my jeans with a little rubber band trick around the waist, and now, I was barely able to get paternity pants on. The entire pregnancy had gone by so quickly.
Part of it was we’d been really busy. I started my new job, which was great. My boss was flexible. It was remote. I didn’t actually need to work that many hours to get what I needed done, and they didn’t care, as long as I showed up to all my meetings and everything was completed on time. I’d really lucked out with it.
