“Well, it’s really not for me. It’s for my dad and his store. He should really be doing all of this, since he owns the store. I guess I’m sort of standing in for him, since he can’t really do it.”
Her look morphed into concern. “Oh? Is he okay?”
“Yes. He’s fine. He’s just not that personable.”
Irene clapped her hands. “One more minute!”
“Guess we’d better get back to our tables.” Kristen rushed up to the sign-up sheet, and Mason headed back to his table.
Truth be told, he’d rather be talking to Kristen than making a wreath. Not that the enchanting older woman sitting next to him, Myrtle, wasn’t good company. He’d met her briefly when he and his father had been leaving the store the night before. She’d been walking a corgi and was kind enough to welcome them to the neighborhood then proceeded to try to convince them to adopt a cat. It was nice of her to invite him to sit next to her, though Mason suspected it was so she could work on him some more about the cat.
Mason took his seat and rearranged his items into piles. He noticed the evergreen boughs had an unusual number of dry brown needles. He was no expert on pine trees, but thanks to his job at the fertilizer company, he was pretty knowledgeable about plants, and this was not normal. Hadn’t someone said all the boughs had been donated by the tree farm?
He glanced over at Kristen and caught her looking back at him. Myrtle did too.
“Pretty, isn’t she? That’s Charlie and Dorothy’s girl. I heard she just broke off her engagement and moved back to stay in town.” She gave Mason a pointed look as if trying to play matchmaker.
Mason simply smiled and changed the subject. He pointed to her decorations: little paw-print cutouts, dog bone–shaped treats hanging from red ribbons, bells that looked as if they came from a cat collar, bows made out of ribbon leashes, and a big pile of pig’s ears. He had to admit that the last item didn’t look so great on the wreaths. “Looks like you’ve got an interesting collection there.”
“Gotta support my little ones. I know you and Kristen are tied for first, but I’m determined to get third place. I need the animal shelter to have an ad on those placemats so that I can help my little fur babies find forever homes.”
“That’s important.” Mason loved animals, though he couldn’t have one himself because of his travel schedule.
Irene signaled that it was time to get back to work, and Mason got started. He set aside more pine boughs, noticing that they got even drier toward the bottom of the pile.
He’d heard a few people around town mention they thought the tree farm would be selling trees by now. It was too early for people to buy trees for inside the house since Christmas was still a few weeks away, but many were already starting to decorate their porches. Real trees would last longer outside. He hoped something wasn’t wrong at the tree farm. Of course, if it were, that might mean more business for his father, but unlike his boss, Mason didn’t want to earn more business because of the hardship of another.
A clatter sounded beside him.
“Oh no!” Myrtle jumped up from her seat. Her decorations were scattered on the floor around her.
“Darn, this is going to slow me down.” She bent down, slowly using the chair for support, and scooped up one item.
Mason was on his feet before he even knew what he was doing. “You keep working on your wreath. Let me get these for you. I’ll be much faster.” He crawled around on the floor, gathering items and putting them up on the table while Myrtle kept working.
It took a few minutes, but he finally got her set up. When he got back to his own wreath, he saw Kristen rushing away from the table. There were only fifteen minutes left, and she was ahead of him by one wreath now.
He glanced over at Myrtle, who was trying to make up for lost time. Then he sat back in his chair. Would it really hurt so much if he didn’t win this one contest? He had already made several wreaths that held discount coupons for his father’s shop, and if he just slowed down a little bit, Kristen would win, and Myrtle might get second or third place. Some things were more important than winning.
Chapter 11
Dorothy glanced at the porch across the street. Kristen had told her about their neighbor’s intention to decorate the skating pond, which made it even more important for her to show him who had the real Christmas spirit in town. The man had gone way overboard in her opinion. Too much garland and too many colors. Did green and orange really go together? Someone should tell him that sometimes less is more. The artificial trees stuck out like a bikini in a snowstorm, and there were so many lights she had to squint to look in that direction at night.
No problem though; Dorothy had her own plan for decorating. And she was going to outdo Mr. Tinseltown.
“Come on, George. Want to help me decorate?” She picked up the package of icicle lights she’d ordered online. She probably could have bought them at Tinseltown, but there was no way she was going to do that. The lights were new this year and had extra-long strands of illuminated icicles. They looked amazing in the advertisement and would be a great way to add some “wow” to her porch without making it garishly overdone.
The best thing was that the porch across the street didn’t have lights anywhere near as interesting as these. She smiled as she opened the porch door and stepped out. George was a bit more hesitant, sticking one paw into the snowdrift that had blown up onto the porch overnight then jerking it up before finding a less snowy spot.
“Charlie always used to do this, but how exactly did he do it?” She looked up at the roof of the porch. Charlie had always strung the lights just along the top and wound them down the columns. But what had he strung them on? Were there holders up there? Nails?
George hopped up onto the banister and looked up as if searching for the same thing.
“Either way, I’m going to need the ladder.”
Luckily, it was just around the side of the house. Dorothy managed to carry it over and lean it against the porch. She tested it as she’d seen Charlie do many times and then stood back, wiping the snow off her gloves. Pride coursed through her, and she felt happily independent. “See, George, I can do this without any help.”
She climbed up the ladder with the string of lights in her hand.
