The two women shared a fond look, and Mabel’s chest squeezed with happiness at having her granddaughter here and conspiring with her. She was about to reach out and give her a hug when Vanessa heard her phone buzz, and grabbed it off of the countertop. She glanced at the screen and immediately brightened.
“It’s from Henry,” she said, reading quickly. “He needs my okay on some aspect of the Christmas light installation at the house. I think he wants to add more lights to the front yard display.”
“More lights?” Mabel asked with amusement. “How many lights does one house need?”
“It’s Birch Street.” Vanessa shrugged. “And according to Henry, there’s no such thing as too many Christmas lights, as long as they’re arranged well.” She was already reaching for her scarf and bag. “He’s determined to make this the most spectacular holiday display the neighborhood has ever seen, ever since I asked for his help. I think it’s his way of making sure our first Christmas in the house is special.”
Mabel thought of what Henry had said about the Christmas tree and his wife’s passing, and felt her chest tighten. She was sure he was putting his all into Vanessa and Jackson’s house as a way of dealing with his feelings about the holiday, and she was glad that Vanessa had asked him to help.
“You hurry up and get over there, then,” Mabel said. “I’ll finish closing up. And I’ll keep brainstorming ideas for Operation Christmas Valentine.”
“Good.” Vanessa grinned. “By the time Christmas rolls around, those two won’t know what hit them.”
And with that, she hurried out to her car, excited to see what kind of Christmas magic was happening at her own home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vanessa turned into her driveway and immediately had to catch her breath. Her gorgeous Victorian home had been transformed into something that belonged on the cover of a holiday decorating magazine. Warm white lights outlined every window, wrapped around the porch columns, and outlined the roofline in perfect, even strands. More of the same were wrapped around the trees framing the house, and garlands wreathed the porch railings, each one dotted with more tiny white lights.
But it was the front yard that truly took her breath away. The lawn had been bare that morning, but Henry had completely transformed it. A family of illuminated deer grazed peacefully near the old oak tree, while candy cane path markers that glittered lined the walkway from the driveway to the front steps. In the hedges out front, Henry had arranged more of the white lights into snowflake shapes, as if they’d fallen onto the greenery.
Henry was standing out front, near an assortment of boxes and half-put together fixtures that looked like they might be reindeer. Vanessa hopped out of the car, snow crunching under her feet as she got closer and saw the photo of what it would look like when it was finished—the most magnificent reindeerdisplay she’d ever seen. The finished product would be eight life-sized reindeer arranged in formation as if they were preparing for takeoff, each one crafted from what looked like hundreds of tiny lights, with a curtain of lights draped above them.
“Henry,” she called out as she approached, excitement coloring every word. “This is absolutely incredible. I knew you said you had some ideas, but this is beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s even better than what we talked about.’’
A pleased flush colored Henry’s cheeks. “I’m glad you like it. Although I do need your input on the placement of this reindeer setup. I can move it closer to the house, or maybe angle it differently. We could put it out to one side of the lawn, to spread things out a bit—” He shrugged, gesturing to different spots. “What do you think?”
Vanessa paused, considering as she looked around. He was right; they didn’t want any one spot to be too crowded. And it was ahugedisplay. The reindeer were set up so that it looked as if they were launching into flight, all of their poses dynamic.
“What if we moved them slightly to the right?” she suggested, gesturing toward a spot further off to the side from the framing tree on the right side of the house’s porch. “Just a few feet, so they’re not competing with the deer family, and they take up that blank spot there.”
“Perfect!” Vanessa said excitedly, jumping in to help as Henry started to finish assembling the display. Each reindeer was apparently constructed on a portable base that allowed for repositioning, although Vanessa could see that each one was still quite heavy. She handed him any tools that he needed, and helped him to rearrange them carefully so that they didn’t break any of the delicate pieces.
It was almost finished when Vanessa stepped back, took in the whole thing, and bit her lip, wondering if she’d made the right choice after all.
“Actually—” She frowned, second-guessing it. “Maybe they were better where they were originally. But I don’t want you to go to all this trouble just to move them back. I’m just not sure?—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Henry said firmly, as he started to move the reindeer back to the original setup closer to the porch. “It needs to be perfect, right? Your Christmas display should be exactly what you want it to be.”
As soon as the reindeer were closer to the porch, Vanessa found herself wavering again. “You know what, though? I think maybe they need to be angled slightly more toward the street. So people driving by can see them better.”
Henry paused in his work, straightened up, and surveyed the display thoughtfully. “I think you might be right. It’ll look less like they’re flying toward the house then too.”
Without a single complaint, he started to readjust the angle of each reindeer, going through the display to tweak it to Vanessa’s suggestion. She felt a flutter of guilt over being so indecisive as she watched him work, chewing on her lower lip. “I think—no.” She shook her head. “This is fine. I’m being ridiculous. You don’t have to keep moving them around just because I can’t make up my mind.”
“Actually, there’s one more element I’d like your approval on,” Henry said, completely ignoring her protest as he finished adjusting the last reindeer. He walked over to a large tarp-covered shape near the garage that Vanessa hadn’t noticed before. “I wasn’t sure if this would be too much, but I thought it might be a nice finishing touch.”
He pulled away the tarp to reveal a beautifully crafted sleigh, complete with curved runners and an elegant bench seat, all outlined in the same warm white lights as the reindeer. It was clearly designed to be set up behind the reindeer team, completing the scene of Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve. It was, Vanessa thought, possibly anactualfunctioning sleigh.
She really was going to have the best Christmas decorations on Birch Street now.
“Oh my goodness,” Vanessa breathed, walking closer to examine the intricate details. “Henry, this is absolutely gorgeous. Did you make this yourself?”
“Jackson helped,” Henry said with a smile. “And George worked on this with me, back when it was just a project I was fiddling around with. I didn’t really have a purpose for it, and I thought this would be perfect, after I found those reindeer. I thought it might be nice to have the complete scene. But if you think it’s too much, we can skip it.”
“Too much?” Vanessa stared at him in disbelief. “Henry, this is the most beautiful Christmas display I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you put all this work into making our house look like something out of a fairy tale.”
“Well,” Henry said, his voice taking on a gruffness that Vanessa was beginning to recognize as his way of deflecting emotion, “it seemed like the right thing to do. Your first Christmas in the house should be special.”
