Page 1 of Santa's Pucking Hat Trick

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RACHEL

The second I crossed the border into my hometown, I almost T-boned Santa Claus with my T-bird. Didn’t seem like a great sign for my return to good old rinky-dink Mistletoe. Not that I was one to look for or rely upon so-called signs from the universe.

“Holy fuck!” I shouted as I slammed on my precious car’s delicate brakes. Rhiannon—the name I’d chosen for my bright blue vintage Thunderbird when I finally saved up enough to buy her a couple years back—screeched and groaned and complained the whole way, but the car did stop before it slammed into the red-suited body that was so stupidly crossing the road without looking both ways. I laid on my horn, in part to vent my own frustration and calm the racing heartbeat assaulting my ears, and Santa stumbled against my bumper. He looked at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes and blinked too slowly.

Ofcoursehe was drunk. Typical for a dude who only worked one night a year, I guess.

I could hear the soft mumble of Kris Kringle yelling at me, see his fake white beard jostling along with his words. I honked again, a shorter burst this time that made him jump.

“Get out of the fucking road, asshole!” I yelled, and I must have been loud enough for him to hear me through the glass, because he slunk away on unsteady feet, seeming to disappear into the scraggly woods at the edge of town. Before I could even think about continuing my drive, a whole hoard of Santas seemed to appear at his back, following their inebriated companion like a load of baby ducklings. Made me wonder what the proper term would be for a group of Santa impersonators. A gift bag of Santas? A workshop? A carol of Clauses?

Home sweet home myass.

With another couple minutes of guiding my car down the familiar small-town streets of Mistletoe, I turned onto the road where I’d grown up, aptly named Comet Court after the reindeer everyone knew was Santa’s favorite. Though I hadn’t missed living in a Christmas-themed tourist trap of a small town for the years I’d been away at college—Michael always theorized that I was born without the Christmas spirit—I wasn’t enough of a Grinch to escape the wave of nostalgic warmth as I pulled into the driveway of my parents’ house.

The Henning house was already decked out for the town’s favorite holiday, even though it was far too early in fall for that to be appropriate, in my opinion. It wasn’t even Halloween, for Christ’s sake. The large brick house looked like a set straight out of a Christmas movie. Red and green candy canes lined the walkway up to the porch and a golden sleigh sat parked in the yard, overflowing with packages adorned in bows and shiny wrapping paper. My mother’s favorite huge, fake snow-covered wreath hung on the front door, which was appropriately painted a true Christmas evergreen at all times of year. Fall or not, ’twas the season as soon as Paula Henning deemed it so.

I parked my car and made it up to the door before I realized there were no other cars visible in the driveway or through the window of the garage. I was tired after the less-than-fun roadtrip, to be fair. When I checked for the spare key my parents kept under a stone Santa Claus by the porch, I saw a note attached to it.

At a friendly with the Santas. Come watch with us!

(p.s. Welcome home, Rach!)

It was in my mother’s handwriting, hilariously similar to my own, though perhaps neater. I sighed as I trudged back down to my car without bothering to unload all of my belongings from the trunk, knowing exactly where they were telling me to go.

The Skatin’ Santas was our town’s beloved minor-league hockey team, for which my brother Michael was a star player. This note meant that I was supposed to meet my family at the local ice center for a pre-season “friendly” game between the Santas and some other semi-local team. I’d gone to hundreds of hockey matches over the years, and I’d probably been tired of them after the first two. It was typical that I’d have to brave another Santas’ match before I could even unpack and settle into being back at home. I wasn’t about to unload my car of all the belongings I’d been too sentimental to part with before I left school by myself. That was what dads and brothers were for. So, to hockey central I went.

Michael had always been a budding hockey star, even before he’d started playing it for a living. As much as I loved my twin, as much as I rooted for him, there wasn’t a sporty bone in my body, so I’d always found it difficult to be as excited as I probably should be for his success. I would have been cool with never going to another hockey game in my life if he wasn’t on the team. The hockey overload was yet another thing I didn’t miss about being at home.

And yet, the next thing I knew, I was pulling up to the ice center I’d been dragged to over and over again through my entire childhood.Deep breaths, Rach. You can survive a little friendly.

It was easy to find my parents once I was inside the large building, since I’d been visiting this same local ice center for years. I knew they’d be at the main ice rink, since the center had more than one, and once I found the appropriately buzzing center of sports excitement, I knew just where in the stands to go to find my folks. They always sat in the same spot—as close to the rink, the plexiglass shields, as possible. On the home team side, of course. The Hennings were nothing if not a hockey family. That, and predictable.

My mom was wearing her oversized jersey with her son’s last name—well, hers and mine too—printed across her shoulder blades, and my dad was seated beside her in full red and green face paint, a Santa hat on his head and a foam finger on his hand. It was overboard for just a friendly match, but that level of enthusiasm was typical for my parents. It was endearing, really. When I approached them carefully from the side, trying to scooch in to sit beside them without distracting too much from the action on the ice, they noticed me immediately and their familiar, loving faces both lit up.

“Rachel! You’re home!” my mom exclaimed, jumping up to hug me by practically flinging herself over the arena chairs. She pulled me tight against her with a warmth that may have melted my cold heart just a little. I was definitely the family Scrooge, but I wasn’t a monster.

“In the flesh,” I said, laughing a little breathlessly. I pulled back and tugged one of her graying curls. “Your hair’s shorter. I like it.”

“Oh, thank you.” She waved off the compliment. “And look at you! My gorgeous girl, home at last. I’m so, so glad you’re back, honey.” She pulled me in for a second, tighter hug this time, her words rumbling through her chest to mine as she refused to let me go. “Oh, we’ve just missed you so much. And you didn’t evenwait for us back at the house! You came all the way out for Mike’s game.”

“I’m the best sister in the world,” I joked dryly, and Mom laughed.

“You’re the best daughter, that’s for sure.” She gave me another squeeze that nearly popped my eyes out of my head.

“Don’t hog her, Paula,” my dad grumbled as he came in to bombard me with a second hug. He looked the same as always, his silver hair cropped short and his face just as wearily kind as always. He worked too hard, but he loved running his Christmas tree farm too much to ever let it go. “It’s so good to see you, sweet girl.”

“You too,” I told him, and it was true. No matter how badly I’d wanted to get out of my small town for college, I’d never had a desire to get away from my family, despite their hockey obsession. Paula and Steve Henning were wonderful people, supportive parents who never let me or my brother doubt how strongly we were loved. Michael and I were some of the lucky ones.

“There any room for me to get in on this hug train?” Another familiar voice piped up from behind my dad, and when I looked around his shoulder excitedly, sure enough, my “aunt” Bria was standing there with a huge smile on her face. She was pulling me into a laughing bear hug in seconds, and I was startled into laughing again—the first positive surprise since I’d breached the borders of Mistletoe.

Bria was my parents’ best friend, an aunt in spirit rather than a biological one, but she felt like family, and that was all that mattered. Her caramel curls frizzed a little around her face, her olive skin lined with age, though she was quite a bit younger than my parents, and a tendency toward laughter that gave everyone else fits too. Her hazel eyes were smiling at me just as surely as her mouth was.

“Good to see you, kid,” she said, and when she used the diminutive nickname, it didn’t bother me at all. She’d called me that forever, so she was allowed. She clapped a hand on my back and turned with me to look out at the ice. “What a welcome party, huh?”

Bria was also one of the only people in this Podunk town who shared my disinterest in hockey. Her wry joke went unnoticed by my parents, who had been sucked back into the action on the ice already. I snorted as I followed Bria to take a seat in the stands a row behind my parents.

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