Page 58 of The Santa Rules
I grab a Santa hat with a bell on the end and place it on Hardy’s head. Which is not an easy feat given he’s so much taller than me.
“Maybe you could wear that later for round two?” I say against his ear.
“Is that the last item from your text thread? Santa okay finger pointing at sparkly nuts?”
I place a hand on my heart. “Ah, you remembered. And I totally plan to bang you in the whole suit, I’ve just had trouble finding one in your size.”
“Given the order of those texts, it would seem that Santa was pointing at the nuts, so I think you should wear the hat since I have the nuts.” He places the hat on my head.
“Oh, I’m down for that too. Just not in the chair. It needs to dry after we clean it.”
We stop in the cleaning aisle, deciding a bottle of upholstery cleaner will be our best bet, before heading to the toy aisle to grab the last of Avery’s gifts.
“What did Isaac say Avery wanted from Santa?” he asks, as I look through the figurines, a cute pigeon set catching my eye.
“Lemme pull up my text thread with him.” I scroll throughmy phone until I find my thread with Isaac. “She told Isaac she wants some kind of sparkly princess castle.”
“The ultimate sparkle princess palace with all the dolls you could ever want, batteries not included,” he says like he’s reciting straight from a commercial.
“That’s the one, I think. She was kinda cryptic with Isaac.”
“I think she has suspicions that I’m Santa and she’s being vague on purpose because Santa would just know what she was talking about. Also, I remember her asking Lydie for that and her telling Avery that it was too expensive.”
“So clearly Santa has to bring it if we want her to believe. Did you decide what Santa tier you want to do?”
“I honestly have no idea,” he says, scratching his neck.
“What did Lydie used to do? We could aim to make it similar.”
“She would pick a couple items off her list, but then she’d always throw in something extra, something Avery didn’t ask for specifically but would absolutely love. But it was never anything as big as what she’s asking for this year. Can I do that?”
“The beauty of The Santa Rules is you can change tiers at any time. You can do it if your kids are misbehaving, or if your financial situation changes, or your beliefs. Anything really. We could stick to something close to what Lydie did and slowly add to or subtract from it over time. But if Avery’s asking Santa for something big, you could put her on that tier for this year and then talk to her later if you decide you want Santa to bring smaller or cheaper items. Later you can reframe it to shift the focus off getting big ticket items.”
“Won’t that make her suspicious?”
“Not if you say something like, ‘We’re fortunate to be able to buy our own gifts for each other and we don’t need Santa to bring us as much, so we opted into a different tier.’ This way, Santa still brings a gift, but the emphasis isn’t on all the stuff Santa can bringher. You can frame it like Santa is really busy too, and the less he brings us, the quicker he can deliver all the presents, and we want to make sure everyone gets a gift to open on Christmas.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I wanted credit for the gifts I bought Isaac, but Jake would always throw money at him. We were on a high tier when we were married, but after the divorce, I had to explain that each parent can decide what they want Santa to bring into their own houses. Honestly, it saved my ass and bought me another year of him believing. And I used The Santa Rules to explain why his Christmas looked different at his dad’s. I just told him his dad was still learning how to use the app. And I moved to a different tier since my new house was smaller, and I didn’t have room for too much, since I knew his dad would still buy him tons of shit.”
Hardy locates the sparkly palace amid a sea of pink and adds it to the cart. “I think this is my only option this year, but I like what you said about focusing more on giving back to others and only getting something small from Santa.”
We walk through another aisle, and Hardy tosses a few blind bags into the cart.
“Oh, I love those! Really gets the blood flowing when you don’t know what’s inside. But once you rip that thing open and see that it’s the rare collectable you’re missing? BAM! Dopamine!”
He holds up the blind bag, a smirk curling one side of his face. “You mean thesekids’toys?”
“They bring me joy,” I say as he leans into me and I boop him on the nose.
His warm hand wraps around my waist as he leans in to kiss me. The feel of his lips on mine sends a wave of lust coursing through my body as I slide a hand up his chest to hold his face.
A throat clears behind us, and we break apart, moving outof the way for the impatient person walking by when I hear a familiar judgy, nasal voice.
“Bella? Funny seeing you here. With your student’s parent. Sucking face in the toy aisle.” Amber’s arms are crossed, an eyebrow raised as she looks me up and down, disdain dripping in her tone.
I feel Hardy’s body tense as he takes a step toward her, but I tug him back, stepping in front of him and pulling his arms around me like we’re posing for a prom photo.
