Note: This story is either a sequel to or a retelling of an earlier story, Christmas in the Menagerie, but you definitely don’t need to read it first.
Sam Belden tilted his head slightly, to better view the girl at the other end of the row without it being obvious that he was staring. Something about her had caught his attention the moment she entered the lecture room and, no matter what the professor did or said, Sam’s eyes kept returning to her.
I’ve got to meet her somehow, he decided. But how?
He did not have an answer to that question, but in the end it didn’t matter. Their paths crossed without his having to engineer a meeting. Before he knew what was happening, he was friends with the pretty girl from the other end of the row. And even up close, she still had that attraction for him. He wasn’t sure whether Saskia felt the same way about him, but he wanted to be near her as much as he could.
He bided his time.
The weeks flew by and, sooner than he expected, it was time for Sam to leave for the first Christmas break of his college career. As much as he’d been enjoying the freedom, the chance to do new things, the opportunities, he was more than ready for the break. He packed his bag and strolled out of his dorm, whistling a jaunty tune.
As he crossed the foyer, a movement caught his eye.
“Saskia?”
She shrank back around the corner, but Sam was not so easily put off.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head, but didn’t answer. From here, he could see that she was crying.
“What’s wrong?” he repeated, in a softer voice.
Her eyes closed and her lips pressed together, as she tried to stop the tears.
“Is there something I can do to help?”
Again, she shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Then, can you at least tell me what’s wrong?”
“No one wants me,” she blurted, then burst into tears. “I have nowhere to go.”
Sam pushed back the instinct to fold her into a hug. They weren’t on those kinds of terms – yet, he added to himself. Instead, he gently touched her arm.
“I’m really sorry,” he told her. “And I wish–”
He broke off as a memory surfaced. Once, when he was little, they had the most magical Christmas at his aunt and uncle’s house. He wanted to smile, just thinking about that year and the wonderful time he’d had there. It hadn’t been important before now, but he now remembered that one of his uncles had brought along an unannounced guest.
“Come with me,” he offered, as a beautiful idea bloomed in his mind. “My family won’t mind and I can promise you won’t be lonely or bored.”
“I couldn’t,” she answered, shaking her head.
“Yes, you could.” A thought occurred to him. “No strings attached. Just a family Christmas.”
“You can’t just bring along an extra guest,” she argued. “At least you’d need to call and ask, wouldn’t you?”
“It’ll be fine,” he answered. “Come on. Do you have a bag packed? Let’s go and get it and I’ll tell you all about my family on the way.”
“After it’s too late for me to back out?” she asked, with just a glint of humour.
“And I’ll tell you about the time my uncle invited someone along in exactly the same sort of situation as you, and didn’t call first.” He smiled. “That was a great Christmas. It’s probably the best one I remember.”
Saskia took a deep breath. “Okay. I guess I could go with you. But I’d feel a lot better if you called and asked, first.”
Sam nodded. “In that case, you get your bag and I’ll make that call. Don’t be too long; I want to get there before midnight and it’s a few hours’ drive from here.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t call first?”
“I’m sure.” He grinned. “It’ll be fine. I promise my family won’t mind.”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I’ll be as quick as I can, and I’ll meet you back here.”
He let her go and pulled out his phone.
“Has your car broken down in the middle of nowhere?” his aunt’s voice greeted him, sounding cheerful.
“No,” he replied. “I haven’t quite left, yet.”
“You’re going to be late?”
“Maybe.” He took a breath. “Say, Aunt Trixie, is it okay if I bring an extra guest?”
“You’ve already promised that it’s okay, haven’t you?” she asked. “Male or female?”
“Female.” He hurried to add, “But not my girlfriend.”
“The same age as you?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’m on it,” she answered. “See you in a few hours.”
“Thanks. See you then.”
He breathed a silent sigh of relief and settled to wait.
Ten minutes later, Saskia returned, carrying a bag.
“Ready?” he asked. “I called my aunt and it’s all set.”
“Your aunt?” she answered, stopping short. “I thought…”
“She’s got a huge place and she’s really fun,” he explained. “She doesn’t mind at all.”
“If you’re sure…”
He grinned. “I’m really sure. Let’s go.”
She followed him out to his assigned parking space and they set off.
“So, whose house are we going to?” she asked, once they were on the road. “And who else will be there?”
“This year, we’re having Christmas with my Dad’s family, and it’s his sister who’s hosting.” He paused a moment, trying to think of the best way to describe everyone. “My Dad has an older brother, a sister who’s only a year younger than Dad, and another much younger brother. They’re all married and have kids and all the kids are younger than me. And there’ll be my Dad’s parents, too. And maybe some of my Mom’s brothers and sisters; I haven’t heard what they’re doing. Oh, and maybe one of my parents’ friends and his family. No one tells me these things and we’ll have to wait and see when we get there.”
“That sounds like a lot of people.”
He shrugged and smiled across at her. “It’ll be fun. They live on a farm and have animals everywhere.” A sudden thought intruded. “You’re not allergic, or anything, are you?’
She shook her head. “No.”
“That’s a relief,” he replied. “I’d feel really bad if you spent the whole time sneezing or something.”
“If that was something that would bother me, I would have asked,” she pointed out.
Sam nodded and they lapsed into silence for a few minutes.
“I didn’t explain why I had nowhere to go,” Saskia mentioned, at last.
“You don’t have to.” Sam kept his eyes on the road and his voice light. “You’re welcome, no matter what the reason.”
“I’d like to tell you.” She breathed a sigh. “Your family sounds so normal compared to mine.”
He laughed. “You haven’t met them, yet.”
“True. But you didn’t mention any step- or half-relatives. And you seemed to be suggesting that both sides of your family get along with each other.”
“They do,” he admitted. “And there hasn’t been a lot of divorcing and remarrying going on, so the other thing is true, too.”
“Well, my parents weren’t ever married to each other,” Saskia told him. “They’ve been handing me back and forth since they split when I was two, and they’ve both married other people and had other children since. I usually spend Christmas with whoever has custody of me at the time, but I’ve never felt welcome.”
“And now you’re at college and you’re not living with either of them, so you’re stuck,” he deduced. “That sucks.”
She nodded. “I thought - until today, when I called her to say when I was arriving – that I was going to Mom’s. She told me there had been a change of plans and I was going to Dad’s. But I called him and he’s travelling and wouldn’t tell me where. He might have been lying, of course, but the bottom line is, neither of them wants me.”
Sam spent a moment trying to phrase ‘I want you’, without it taking on an altogether different meaning, but soon gave up. “I’ve got more than enough family to go around,” he settled on saying instead. “And I may be biased, because it’s where I spent the best Christmas of my life, but I think we’ll have a good time at Aunt Trixie’s.”
“Tell me about your best Christmas. You’ve mentioned it twice, now.”
He paused a moment to gather his thoughts. “I think I was about five,” he began. “My sister Emily would have been about two and we were the only kids so far. Up until then, my grandparents had always hosted, I think.” He frowned. “I’m not really sure what happened to stop that, but somehow the whole of my Dad’s family ended up at Aunt Trixie and Uncle Jim’s house, in the middle of a huge renovation, and I think there was only one bathroom for I don’t know how many people and we had to use lots of blankets because it wasn’t warm enough in all the rooms.”
“Doesn’t sound all that great, so far,” she commented. “When does it start getting good?”
He laughed. “As a kid, it was a completely magical Christmas. For one thing, everything was new and exciting because it was one of the first few times I’d been to their house since they bought it. My Dad made it seem like we were on an adventure, roughing it in difficult terrain. And then there were the animals. Outside, Aunt Trixie had a pet pig and a whole lot of goats. And it was fun to go around and feed all the animals, and pat them, and ask my Dad if we could take them home. But inside was a whole other level. There were cats and dogs and rabbits everywhere.”
“Is their place still like that?” she asked, sounding a little worried. “I mean, I’m not allergic to pets, but I don’t really want pet hair in all my food.”
“I don’t remember that ever being a problem,” he answered with a laugh. “And, for the most part, no. The pig is gone. The rabbits are gone. Most of the goats are gone. There are horses and chickens and dogs and a couple of cats, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some new animals since I was last there, but nothing like that first visit. That time was over the top crazy with animals and I loved it.”
“What else?” she prompted. “Or was the animal thing enough?”
“No, there were lots of other things.” He thought for a minute. “Of course, there was loads of food, and Aunt Trixie is really fun and made sure I was always entertained. But the most magical thing of all was when I found proof that Santa Claus had been there.”
“Proof,” she repeated, with laughter in her voice. “Is this like the cookies with a bite taken out of them kind of proof?”
“Way better than that,” he replied. “So much better. It wasn’t anything that any adult planted, or anything that I’d had a hand in myself – you know, like food for the reindeer. This was proof positive, in my five-year-old mind, and it had me believing in Santa for ages afterwards.”
“Are you going to tell me what it was?” she asked.
“I’m trying to build suspense.” He frowned. “Actually, I should have told this story after you met my family.”
“It’s too late to stop now. I’m curious.”
Sam considered, for a moment, whether to leave the story for later, but decided he’d gone too far. “It happened on Christmas morning,” he told her. “There we all were, gathered around the Christmas tree, when I spotted my piece of proof. It was hanging there on the tree, right at my eye level, and I was so excited that I think I started shouting.”
Saskia laughed. “You still have that habit.”
“For that,” he quipped, “I won’t tell you what I found until we get there.”
“But–” she began, then broke off. “Fine. Tell me when we get there.”
Sam glanced across at her, confused. Saskia sat beside him in perfect calmness, not showing the slightest annoyance at his tactic.
“You were supposed to be upset with me for saying that,” he grumbled.
“Was I?” She smiled. “Does it work on your sister?”
“Like a charm,” he replied. A moment later, he added, “Can I tell the rest of my story?”
“It’s your car,” she pointed out. “I’m kind of a captive audience.”
He nodded, and picked up the tale. “As I was saying, I saw my piece of proof there, right in front of my eyes, caught in the needles of the Christmas tree, and I just had to shout out about it. And even my family had to admit that it was compelling, when they saw it.”
“What did they see?”
Sam paused for a dramatic moment. “A genuine Santa beard hair.”
“A what?”
“A hair from Santa’s beard, right there on the tree.”
“Some kind of animal hair?” she guessed.
“Nope. This was fine and silky and it curled in a spiral.” He nodded to himself. “I was so certain it came from Santa’s beard.”
“So you mean, someone wore a fake Santa beard and a hair came off it?”
He shook his head vigorously. “No, this was a real hair. Even as a kid, I could tell the difference and I knew this was the real thing.” He sighed. “Of course, when I was a bit older, it did occur to me that maybe the reason no one wanted to discuss my discovery with me, and the reason the adults looked like they wanted to laugh is that Aunt Trixie has curly, blonde hair.”
“Not such great proof, after all,” she answered, with a laugh.
Sam shook his head. “No. But when I was five, it was amazing. I was even more amazed a day or two later when it mysteriously disappeared from the safe place I’d put it, and my Dad told me it must be part of Santa’s magic.”
“And that’s what made that the best Christmas ever?”
“It was the sum total of all the parts, not any one thing by itself,” he answered. “All my family were there, and we were happy, in spite of the house being a mess, and all the other things that weren’t quite right. And one of the rabbits bit me and I couldn’t tell anyone because I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch that one.”
“The rabbit bit you. And this is a happy memory, somehow?”
He nodded. “It was kind of funny, actually. Aunt Trixie called her Fluffy and she really liked this rabbit, but she was the only person who did. Uncle Jim despised her and called her Fang. Everyone warned me that she bit, but of course I didn’t listen. And then, when she did bite me, I couldn’t complain about it, because then I would have gotten in trouble for touching Fluffy when I’d been told not to.”
“A lot of things about you are starting to make more sense,” she noted.
“Is that a good thing?” he asked, suddenly feeling nervous about this whole situation. It had dawned upon him that this might be the end of his hopes, rather than the beginning.
“I’ll let you know when you get me safely back at the end of the break,” she replied.
“I’m not sure I have that much patience.”
She laughed. “Maybe it’s time you learned some.”
Later, when they arrived at the Frayne house, Saskia lingered behind near the car as Sam strode towards the door, eager to join the fun that they could hear from the moment they stepped out into the cold night air. He stopped a few steps away, when he realised she wasn’t beside him.
“It’ll be okay,” he assured her, in a low voice. “Just come inside, where it’s warm.”
“Okay, I guess.” She shivered. “Let’s get this over with.”
The door opened, just as they reached it, and his Aunt Trixie urged them inside.
“This is Saskia,” Sam explained.
“Call me Trixie,” his aunt answered. “It’s good to have you. I’ll show you up to your room. Sam, you’re sleeping in the barn.”
Sam almost believed her, but then he caught the glint of mischief in her eyes. “The barn?” he asked. “That’s great. I was expecting the doghouse.”
“I wouldn’t evict the poor dogs.” She took Saskia’s bag from her hand and gestured for her to follow. “Where would they sleep if I did that?”
“In the house, where they always sleep,” his Uncle Jim replied, joining them. “Sam, you’re in Alex’s room with the bigger boys, as per usual.”
“Or, if you want some peace, you can take me up on the barn offer.”
Sam laughed. “Peace? Here? No way.”
A crowd of his cousins rushed past at that moment and scooped Sam up, laughing and talking all at once. He lost sight of Saskia as she turned the corner of the staircase and let himself be a part of the crazy fun his family had going.
They didn’t meet again for about twenty minutes, when he discovered her chatting to his aunt on his mother’s side, Charlotte Lynch.
“Sam,” she greeted. “So, you are here after all. I thought you’d abandoned your guest to her fate.”
“Uh, sorry, Aunt Charlotte,” he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just that the cousins…”
She laughed. “Don’t you know when someone is teasing you?”
“Apparently, not.”
“I’ve just finished explaining who everyone is and how we’re all related,” she continued, ignoring his embarrassment. “And, once your sister gets here, the three of us are going to be quite busy, so you’ll be free to run around with the boys, if that’s what you want to do.”
Sam stared at her. “I’m sorry. I think I missed something there. Who is going to be busy?”
“Saskia and Emily and I,” his aunt replied, with a faint smile on her lips. “We are, after all, the only single ladies in the whole party.” She turned to Saskia and explained, “My twin sister has gone off and gotten married and had a baby, which leaves me as the last one in my generation to settle down. But there’s such a big age gap between Sam’s mother and me that I feel closer to his generation than my own. And anyway, age is just a state of mind.”
“Is your sister here?” Saskia asked, glancing around. “I don’t remember…”
Charlotte shook her head. “She’s gone to her new in-laws’ place. Which is why I decided to come here instead of my parents’ place. It would have felt strange there, but here there will be so many people around and so much going on that I won’t have time to feel sorry for myself.”
“That sounds good,” the other girl answered. “That’s what I need, too.”
Charlotte reached over and briefly squeezed her hand. “We’ll get through this. It’s going to be okay.”
Sam stood by in silence, not knowing what to say. But he noted, with relief, the hope in Saskia’s face.
A hand landed on Sam’s shoulder, as he sat at the breakfast table the next morning, which was Christmas Eve.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” a voice murmured in his ear.
He looked up with a start and saw his Uncle Bobby grinning down at him.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered, after pausing to swallow.
Bobby shook his head and took a seat on the other side of the table. He began to pile food on his plate, while casting Sam a glance every so often. Without being able to help it, Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“I heard that young Sam is following my example,” Bobby mentioned to his sister, as she passed by.
Trixie laughed. “No, he isn’t. He called first. It’s completely different.”
“Not completely,” Bobby argued.
But Trixie shook her head. “And we’re not hosting for the very first time, at the last minute, in the middle of a huge, messy renovation, while Moms was sick. Face it, Bobby: Sam is way more considerate than you are, and he always will be.”
Bobby frowned. “I still think–”
“You’re not picking on my boy, are you Bobby?” Sam’s father asked, using the tone that Sam dreaded most.
“Come off it, Mart. I think he’s big enough to look after himself now.” Bobby grinned. “You don’t have to keep defending him. He’s fine.”
“I’m not sure why you even want to pick on him,” Trixie added, as she dropped another platter of food onto the table for the next wave of guests. “Is this because you’ve been left unattended? Do I have to go find your wife so she can keep you in line?”
“Unattended!” Bobby half-rose from his chair, but Trixie had left the room. “What does she mean, unattended? I don’t need to be supervised.”
“You sure about that?” Mart wondered. He looked at someone behind Sam. “Morning. You must be Saskia. I’m Sam’s father. Take a seat.”
Sam cast his uncle a brief pleading look, then turned to greet her, too.
“Help yourself to breakfast, before Bobby eats it all,” Sam’s Dad suggested. “Can I pass you anything?”
“No appreciation,” Bobby muttered, on the other side of the table. “No appreciation, at all.”
“Is this a private pity party, or can anyone join in?” Sam’s Aunt Charlotte asked, seating herself next to Bobby and opposite Saskia.
“That depends on whether you’re going to treat me like a child,” Bobby answered her.
She smirked. “Unlikely, considering you’re older than me. But if that’s what you want, I’ll do my best.”
Shaking his head in disgust, Bobby turned his attention to his breakfast while Charlotte struck up a conversation with Saskia.
“How late did you get in last night?” Sam’s father asked him.
Sam shook his head. “Not sure. But not very late. Pretty much everyone was still awake. How about you?”
“We got in this morning, a little over an hour ago. When you see your mother, don’t tell her she looks tired.”
“You didn’t need to tell him that,” Sam’s mother chided, leaning over to kiss Sam’s cheek. “It’s so good to see you, Sam.”
“You too, Mom,” he answered. “This is my friend, Saskia. I kind of invited her for Christmas.”
Diana nodded. “Your aunt mentioned it to me.”
“Not me,” his Aunt Charlotte clarified, while her sister exchanged greetings with Saskia. “I assume she means Trixie.”
“What have I done, now?” their hostess asked. “Pull up a seat, everyone, if you can find one.”
Another wave of breakfast-seekers crowded in and Sam decided to make a retreat.
“Tell Saskia I’ll be in the living room,” he asked his Aunt Charlotte as he gave his chair to his Grandpa Belden.
She nodded and waved him away. “We’ll take good care of her. I promise.”
“So, this is where you are,” Sam noted, much later in the day. “I’ve barely seen you since breakfast and I hardly got to talk to you then.”
Saskia looked up from the book she’d been reading and smiled. “You family’s been keeping me busy.”
“Am I interrupting?”
She shook her head and put the book down on a small table beside her. She was curled up in a corner of the shabby sofa in the room that Trixie called the den, with a big, ginger cat dozing in her lap. Sam sat down on the armchair opposite and put his feet up on the coffee table in front of him.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m glad I agreed to come with you,” she told him, a few moments later. “I didn’t really believe you when you said I’d be welcomed, but I have been.”
He nodded, not knowing quite what to say.
“And what we’ve been doing today… well, it’s been fun,” she continued. “I’ve never been to a cookie-baking day before. My family don’t do things like that.”
“I’ve always thought it was unfair that I wasn’t allowed in,” Sam answered. “Why should girls get to be there and not boys?”
She scratched between the cat’s ears, not looking at Sam. “I’m told that’s your fault.”
“What?”
“Something about a batch of dough that mysteriously disappeared, and a dog with an upset stomach.”
Sam frowned for a long moment, then let out a groan. “Oh. That. I’d forgotten about that.”
“Are you going to fill me in? Because that was about all of the story that anyone could tell me, other than that you were the culprit.”
“I didn’t think anyone knew.” He shook his head. “I mean, when I was a kid, I didn’t think anyone knew, but obviously they guessed it was me who took it and the dog who ate it. But no one ever asked me about it, or punished me for it, so I forgot all about it until just now.”
She laughed. “I think your punishment was being banished from the kitchen during baking days forever after.”
“You’re probably right.” He settled a bit more comfortably. “Where did you get that cat? He looks just what I need right now.”
“He came to me. And don’t change the subject.”
Sam scrubbed a hand across his face. “Okay. Fine. See, the thing is, I used to like stealing bits of the dough and eating them. But my Mom told me that day that I wasn’t to eat any more and I didn’t like that idea. So, when an opportunity came up, I took a lump of dough wrapped in plastic and hid it under my bed, thinking that I’d be able to retrieve it later. Only, one of the dogs must have found it there and eaten it. And, knowing what dogs are like, it probably ate the plastic, too, which would probably be why it was sick, but I didn’t know that part until just now.”
“Was this the same year as your best Christmas ever?”
He thought for a minute then shook his head. “It must have been a year or two later than that, I think.”
She looked away. “If I’d ruined a whole batch of cookie dough and made a family pet sick, I’d probably have been thrown out of the house and told never to come back. But your family look back on that as if it was funny.”
“I’m lucky to have my family,” he replied.
Saskia nodded. “Yeah. You really are.”
Even more people turned up through the day, until by dinner time the house was filled to overflowing. Saskia spent a portion of the evening squeezed between Sam’s Aunt Honey and his sister Emily. Sam sat opposite, but the level of noise in the room meant that they could hardly hear each other and it was easier to conduct conversations on their own sides of the heavy-laden table.
“Are you really only going to be here for tonight, Aunt Honey?” Emily asked, across Saskia.
The older woman nodded. “We’re here until after dinner and then we’re going to spend tomorrow with my parents. But we’ll be back again in a few days, and I’m pretty sure you’ll still be here then.”
Emily’s expression brightened. “Oh, great. I hadn’t heard that part. How long are you staying, Saskia?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Sam didn’t say.”
Emily smiled. “That’s just like Sam. I bet he just dragged you away, without telling you anything about where you were going, or how long you’d be there, or what you’d need when you got here.”
“The important thing is that he brought you,” Sam’s aunt put in. “However long you’re here, you’ll be most welcome, and Trixie will look after you.”
“I’ve felt very welcome,” Saskia replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this welcome anywhere before in my whole life.”
Honey smiled. “That’s a talent that the Beldens have, and one of the reasons I’ve always been so glad that I married into their family, which is my family now, too.” She glanced along the table. “There’s more than one person at this table right now who started out feeling like they didn’t belong anywhere, but found that they did belong here.”
Saskia looked across at Sam, wondering if he could hear what they were talking about, but he seemed intent on his conversation with his Uncles Brian and Dan.
“I’m still a little bit disappointed that we won’t have all the cousins together on Christmas morning,” Emily commented, returning to her previous train of thought. “That hardly ever happens, now.”
“The more of you there are, and the older you all get, the harder it gets to make that happen,” Honey pointed out. “But you’ll get some time together if I have anything to say about it, because family is important.”
Saskia nodded, but didn’t say anything.
Late morning on Christmas morning, Trixie shooed all of the men and kids outside, with instructions to the men to work off some of the kids’ excess energy. Sam and Emily somehow ended up in the group with the kids, while Saskia got grouped with the women.
“We’ve got things to do to get lunch on the table,” Trixie pointed out to the men, as she herded them to the door, “and it’s time all of you did some work to help.”
In a few minutes, the door closed behind them all and the house seemed a lot more quiet.
“So, what do you need us to do?” Sam’s mother asked.
Trixie just grinned. “Hardly anything. I just thought it was time that the kids had some outside time, and that we got a bit of peace. Most of you can go into the living room, if you want.”
“We really should help you,” one of the other women objected.
Trixie shook her head. “This is my Christmas present to you. Go and sit down and enjoy fifteen minutes where you don’t have to keep an eye on your kids.”
“Are you sure?” the other woman asked.
“Definitely,” Trixie answered, gently grasping her arm with one hand and grabbing Saskia with the other. “Both of you go and do something else. I’ve got everything under control in the kitchen, especially since there’s other people who won’t let me evict them and there’s only so much room in here.”
Saskia noticed that both Sam’s mother and his paternal grandmother were already busy at work. Reluctantly, she and the other woman retreated to the living room.
“You know, this is actually kind of nice,” the other woman noted a few minutes later, as they sat in front of the Christmas tree, with its riot of specialty light. “Trixie was right; it is good to have a couple of kid-free minutes.” She glanced across at Saskia. “I’m not sure we’ve actually met. My name is Shelby and I’m married to Sam’s Uncle Bobby.”
“I met him at breakfast yesterday,” Saskia remembered.
“And by all accounts he was a bit of a pain,” Shelby added, with a laugh. “He seems to think that Sam bringing you at the last minute somehow cancels out his bringing me, completely unannounced.”
“That was you?” Saskia frowned a moment. “I thought…”
“Oh, we were just friends at the time,” Shelby answered. “And if you’d asked me then, that’s all we would ever be. But somehow, that Christmas opened my eyes to the things that I was missing in my life. It took another year or two, but eventually one thing led to another and here we are.”
“Being here has opened my eyes, too. My family isn’t like this. At all.”
Shelby shook her head. “Mine, either. In fact, I’ve spent all my Christmases since that first one with the Beldens. That one Christmas spoiled me forever and I can’t go back to the way things were before.”
“Sam told me that was his all-time best Christmas.”
Shelby laughed. “I’m not surprised. Those kids had a wonderful time here. I felt so jealous. I’d never had a Christmas like that before in my life.” She let out a contented sigh. “But I’ve always given my own kids that kind of Christmas and it’s been almost as good to watch them experience it as if I could go back and be a kid here myself. Almost.”
Their eyes met and an understanding passed between them.
“Maybe I’ll see you here again next year,” Shelby suggested, smiling.
Saskia nodded. “I think I’d like that.”
“No strings attached,” Shelby added. “You don’t have to follow my exact path. There’s more than one way to join this family.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied. “But your way might be nice, too.”
Shelby turned her gaze to the blinking lights on the tree and just smiled.
The End
Merry Christmas, Jix!
Author’s notes: This story is based off an earlier Secret Santa story, originally written for Robin. That story is about ten years old, but this one is set about thirteen years later.
A very big thank you to Mary N. (Dianafan), for editing this story (and many others before it) and encouraging me.
Please note: Trixie Belden is a registered trademark of Random House Publishing. This site is in no way associated with Random House and no profit is being made from these pages.