Page 8 of Christmas By Lamplight
Shannon looked around the store. “Maybe because, judging from our customer traffic, we’re practically invisible?” She let out a weak laugh. “He’s desperate to hide, and we’re desperate for people to notice we’re here. It’s kind of funny, but not really.”
Carrie looked through the display window toward the hospital. An idea was forming, still nebulous but growing clearer. “Shannon, what if we could fix both problems?”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking of our Secret Santa tradition. People love that sort of thing. Anonymous gifts. Acts of kindness.” Carrie pulled out her phone and started searching. “I mean, we’ve never done a charity event, but what if we did? What if we did something for the hospital?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe take our Secret Santa tradition to the children. Oh! Or we could donate books for people to read to the children. They could get sponsors, and the proceeds would go to the hospital. I don’t know. It’s an idea. I just think there must be something we could do.”
“‘A hundred thousand dollars’ worth of something? That’s a lot of reading.” Shannon had the same look on her face that she got when Carrie came up with impossible display window ideas.
“Maybe not a hundred thousand, but we could raise some money. It would help the children, and it would give us free publicity. Everyone wins.”
“And Tanner?”
“Doesn’t need to be involved. He’s just the guy upstairs with a tool belt. Who knows? This might even take the spotlight off his situation.”
Shannon studied her. “You’re trying to protect him.”
“I’m trying to help children and save our shop. If that also happens to take some pressure off a guy who got screwed by social media, then good.”
Over the next few days, the idea took shape. Carrie reached out to the hospital and proposed a partnership: “Christmas Stories by Lamplight Books.” Local volunteers would visit the pediatric wing to read to the children in person, with sponsors backing each reader. The children could write Secret Santa letters with their wishes—kept anonymous to protect privacy—and the hospital could share a general wish list on their blog. Community members could sign up to fulfill specific wishes. The event would culminate on December 22 with an evening story hour at the hospital, where Santa would read to all the children by lamplight and pass out the presents the children had wished for.
The hospital loved it. The local paper loved it. The story got picked up by the regional news.
What Carrie hadn’t expected was the feedback.
The messages started arriving as soon as the web page went live. People wanted to help. The nurses made it a project, giving the children special paper and envelopes decorated with snowflakes and reindeer. Before they hung the real letters to Santa with clothespins and twine at the hospital, Shannon scanned them and posted them online so people could sign up to contribute.
“Dear Santa,” wrote a seven-year-old named Hailey with careful, looping letters. “I wish I could go home and see my dog, Biscuit, on Christmas morning. He doesn’t understand why I’m gone. When you see him, can you tell him I miss him?”
“Dear Santa,” wrote a ten-year-old named Marco. “I wish my little sister could visit me. She’s too young to be in the hospital, but I miss her. Can you make her older just for one day?”
“Dear Santa,” wrote a five-year-old named Jade. “I wish the snow would come inside so I could touch it. I’ve been here since September, and I forgot what snow feels like.”
Carrie read them in the back room and had to sit down. Shannon found her there, letters spread across the desk, eyes damp.
“Shannon, these kids just want normal things—to see their pets, their siblings, and snow. And we’re selling books.”
“We’re raising money for their care. That’s not nothing.”
“But we could do more. We could—” Carrie looked at the letters again. “Not just deliver gifts but have Santa answer their letters during the event. It would make it more about them in a tangible sense. They don’t understand fundraising, but they’ll understand Santa.”
“Where are you going to find Santa on three days’ notice at this time of year?”
Carrie was already thinking about the man upstairs, the one with the voice that made people listen, the one who was hiding from the world. But maybe he would consider it if he could give some sick children some Christmas magic.
“I have an idea,” she said. “But you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
“Going to? No, I already think that. What’s the idea?”
“Tanner,” Carrie said. “We need Tanner to be Santa.”
Shannon’s face registered something between laughter and horror. “Tanner? Bad Santa?”
Tanner lay on the couch in his apartment, staring at the ceiling and listening to the old building settle around him.
