Page 36 of The Twelve Months of Christmas
“I think Santa should be in the movie,” said Sunny. “After all, it is Christmas in February. Travis can be Santa. You have that great roofline over your front porch. We can get him to stand up there and wave at everyone as they arrive.”
“Oh, I like that,” said Arianna.
“And then he can come in and make a guest appearance in the movie.”
“Who’s gonna write this movie?” Molly asked. “I don’t even like writing emails.”
“The kids. We can help them,” Sunny said.
Arianna tried to imagine Sunny’s stinker of a stepdaughter on board with that and failed. But the other kids could get a kick out of it. Molly’s granddaughter was a ham. So was Sophie. They’d get into it.
“I think that sounds like a great idea,” she said.
“I think the chocolate sounds like a great idea,” said Molly with a smile. She picked up her shake. “Here’s to Christmas in February.”
“Yes,” echoed the other two.
But there was that old saying about the best laid plans of mice and men again. What mice had to do with anything Arianna was never able to figure out. But she sure understood the underlying principle. Sunny called the morning of the party to report that they’d lost Santa.
“Where’d he go?” asked Arianna.
“To bed. He’s got a nasty cold. I’ve dosed him with meds and he’s now snoring away.”
“Well, darn,” Arianna said. “I was looking forward to having Santa on my roof.”
“Too bad we don’t have another man to sucker into playing Santa.”
Wait a minute. “Who says we need a man?” Arianna dropped her voice and offered a “Ho, ho, ho.”
“You?”
“Why not? Get over here before the party and pad me into the suit. I’ve got a ladder. I can climb up on my roof.”
“You couldn’t get me on a roof if you offered me a million bucks and a lifetime supply of Godiva,” said Sunny.
“Nothing to it,” said Arianna.
Sunny dutifully came over early to drop off the Santa suit and pillow padding before heading back home for the kids. “Maybe we should bag the Santa thing. It’s supposed to rain again later and that’ll make everything slick. You could fall off your roof.”
“We have to have Santa,” Arianna said.
“No, we don’t.”
She waved away her friend’s concern. “Yes, we do, and I’ll be fine.”
“I hope so. I don’t want it on my conscience if you fall and break your neck.”
“I won’t.”
“You are sooo brave.”
Arianna laughed and said, “That’s me.”
Hardly, she thought when she was donning the Santa costume. She’d felt anything but brave after Wyatt moved out, then after her divorce became final and that double-income budget dropped down to one. Every night she’d lain awake, worry keeping her tossing and turning. What if the house didn’t sell? How would she make the mortgage? What if Sophie blamed her for Daddy moving out? Her mother kept things stable for Sophie, while Arianna wobbled on a tightrope above despair, not bothering to get out of her pajamas on her days off and watching reality TV shows. That beat her own reality hands down.
But this was a new year. She wasn’t staying down. She had her health website up and running. It was getting a lot of hits, and, hopefully, she’d soon have advertisers. She was coping with Wyatt’s deadbeat-dad phase (please let it be a phase). She was creating good memories for her daughter, getting a life. And climbing up on a roof dressed as Santa.
So maybe she was becoming brave. Maybe she wasn’t letting silly things like fear of rejection and fear of failure influence her decisions anymore. Just because her marriage hadn’t worked out, it didn’t mean she couldn’t make the rest of her life work.
