Noel slowly peeled back the foil wrapping and discovered a small wooden box featuring an ocean wave resin acrylic design handmade by their friend who owned Grace Bell Art.Cavin helped the kids inconspicuously buy the item at the farmers’ market, and when Noel lifted the top and pulled back the tissue paper stuffed inside, she discovered a large pile of wrinkled cash and one quarter.
“It’s 2,525.25,” Laney disclosed.
Levi then punched her in the arm.“You’re supposed to let her count it,” he reminded his cousin.
“That’s a whole lot of money to count,” Noel remarked as she looked at both of them before turning her eyes to Cavin.“Where did all this come from?”she asked, wondering if Cavin had something to do with it.
Cavin pointed to the kids.“Your little entrepreneurs.”
“We made it at the hot chocolate stand,” Levi announced proudly.
“It was Cavin’s idea to make all the numbers say twenty-five like Christmas,” Laney disclosed.“We even have a little bit of money left over to start the pet finding business.”
“You guys are the best,” Noel proclaimed, wrapping both of them with big hugs like the greatest gifts ever that they were to her.
Cavin and Noel opened a few small presents from each other that they picked out at the farmers’ market event including matching alpaca socks, a book cover journal from Beach Chicken Designs, and a kazoo from Junkman’s Crossroads.The kids snickered at many of the vendors’ names.Levi was the one who talked Cavin into getting his mom the instrument from the long-haired fellow playing a license plate guitar because he thought he looked like Jesus.
The gift that excited Cavin the most was one he and Noel discovered simultaneously in the Island Accents booth.The seller told them that his wife hand painted the two Santa hats that encompassed six panes of frosted glass on an antique wooden window.The piece exceeded their budget, but as fate would have it, the man secretly whispered into Cavin’s ear just before he and Noel walked out of the space, “My wife and I decided to give this artwork to the first couple we saw wearing Santa hats at the Christmas market.Come back for it when Noel isn’t around,” he added, “so you can give it to her for Christmas.”
Noel’s face lit up as she held the art at arm’s length with the Christmas tree in the background, and happy tears tickled her cheeks when she set it down and hugged Cavin.“How did you get this?”she asked.
Cavin told her the story, causing more tears of joy to flow from her eyes, and he couldn’t help but let the bottom fall out of his as well.
When the kids got bored watching the adults open presents, they ran off to play with Scout some more.
“Did you tell the kids that the candy shop was struggling?”Noel questioned, thinking back to the gift she opened from them and wanting to believe Cavin wouldn’t have betrayed her trust.
“Actually, they told me,” Cavin reported.
Noel didn’t hide her furrowed brow this time.“What?”she asked.“But I told you, just the other day.”
“They told me way before that,” Cavin shared.“But I was sworn to secrecy, so do not tell on me, please.”
“When did they tell you?”Noel asked.“How did they know?”
“One of them accidentally blurted it out the first day I bought hot chocolate from them at the stand,” Cavin explained.“That is why they came up with the idea in the first place.”
Noel covered her gaping mouth.“How did they know?”she asked again.
“They mentioned they overheard you and Mrs.Madelyn talking one day about the store struggling and possibly having to close it.”
“Oh no,” Noel sighed.“I feel terrible.”
A moment later the kids came running back over.
“Mommy, we have to take Scout to Rudy.”
“Yes, we do,” Noel agreed, almost forgetting the dog didn’t belong to them.
“I am going to miss him,” Laney shared.
“I know you will, sweetie, but Mr.Rudy will be very happy to have his dog back.”
“I imagine Rudy will let you all play with Scout often,” Cavin inserted.“Also surprising Rudy with Scout today will be the best Christmas gift.”
As expected, Rudy was tickled pink—or maybe red and green—to have Scout back, safe and secure on the boat.
“You kids just made this old man the happiest person alive,” Rudy declared as they oohed and aahed at his fancy boat that Levi and Laney decided looked more like a house on the inside.
