They were a good two hundred feet away from Santa when Davey suddenly darted from behind Jeff’s legs, squatted down, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
“I WANNA BUBBLE BABY!”
Jeff jumped. Literally. At least two inches. Maybe four.
When his feet hit the ground, the first thing he was aware of was the fifty or so people in their immediate vicinity who were staring at Davey.
Jeff looked over at the candy cane throne, two hundred feet away. Santa was staring. So were the elves. Not to mention the kid on Santa’s lap, and every kid in line, and evey kid in line’s parents.
Jeff’s face was burning red, but Brian hardly looked up from his drawing pad. And Davey…well, Davey looked quite pleased with himself. As though the next best thing to telling someone in person was to tell that person PLUS the 500 people standing between them.
Drawing pad and Pinky be damned, Jeff seized both boys’ hands and hurriedly dragged them away.
***
What he dragged them to was The Tree, the forty-foot centerpiece of the mall’s Christmas decorations. It stood in the middle of the outdoor atrium, poking its way up through three stories of shops. Twinkling lights wrapped every limb, and hundreds of homemade ornaments hung from its dark green boughs.
Every year, two dozen men would venture deep into the forests on the outskirts of town and find the biggest, the best, the most humongous tree they could. Every year, they would transport it under cover of night, so that the next morning the open-air mall would be filled with the scent of freshly cut pine.
And every year, all the grade school kids in town would make decorations in class. From kindergarten through third grade, a thousand little ornaments would come: macaroni angels. Hollow eggs painted like elves’ faces. Wise men made out of clothespins. Santas pieced together from bean bags. A tiny Baby Jesus in a cradle made from a walnut shell.
Kids from all faiths could be proud to display something they made. Every December, a ring of menorahs crafted by tiny hands circled the Christmas tree’s base, creating their own circle of holiday cheer.
In fact, it wasn’t just kids who got into it. Anyone could. Every year, local artists donated original pieces. Wireframe wreaths decked with semiprecious stones, wood carvings of nativities, and ceramic statues of Santa had their own circle near the menorahs. There was once even a lifesize reindeer sculpted out of matchsticks.<< previous page | next page >>
Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.
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