1
LYDIA
Happiness couldn’t begin to describe the way I felt. It was December 1, the day I could officially take down our Thanksgiving and fall decorations and replace them with everything Christmas.
“If I had my way,” Violet called out as she dragged the last of our Christmas decorations out of the storage room, “I would’ve had our Christmas stuff up a month ago.”
Laughing, I tossed the last of our pumpkin decor into the Thanksgiving box and sealed it up. “No arguments there. Unfortunately, we need to keep our parents’ tradition alive and stick to the seasons.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my sister unpack the Christmas decorations, wishing I’d see a smile on her face. It was obvious she was still heartbroken over the breakup with her boyfriend. That was why we spent Thanksgiving in Charleston with our parents at our aunt and uncle’s house. We went out on the boat every day and I kept Violet busy by taking her shopping and walking around Waterfront Park. It seemed to keep her mind off things for a while, but the second we arrived back home, I could see the sadness creep back onto her face.
At least she had me. We could both be single this holiday season together.
I picked up the box of pumpkins and set it in the storage room, which was now mostly empty since Violet had taken out all the Christmas decorations. “Silent Night” started to play over the speakers, and it made me smile. I could listen to Christmas music every day and never get tired of it.
I walked over to Violet and stared down at the dozen boxes filled to the brim with ornaments, Santa Clauses, snowmen, and various Christmas figurines.
Laughing, I shook my head. “You know this is going to take us all day, right?”
Violet smiled and tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She’d inherited her chocolate-colored locks from our mother, while I got my blonde curls from our father. But we both had greenish-golden eyes that were a combination of our parents.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed and then shrugged. “But it’s not like I don’t have the time.”
I draped an arm over her shoulder, and she leaned into me. “I promised myself I wouldn’t say anything, but you deserve so much better than Steven. He’s an idiot.”
Violet chuckled and hugged me. “Yes, he is. I hate it took me two years to see it.”
Me too. Steven had surprised us all when he told Violet he’d met someone else. However, there was also a part of me wasn’t surprised at all; he was very flirtatious with other women. Violet took the news hard and I made sure to be there by her side, even though I really wanted to give Steven a piece of my mind. Having the person you love say they wanted to be with someone else couldn’t be easy. I know Violet felt betrayed, but I never saw their relationship lasting. Of course, I never planned on telling her that.
I squeezed Violet once more before letting go. “Hey, it’s Christmas. We can’t be sad right now. We have the gallery to decorate, cookies to bake, and a million town events to attend.”
Violet nodded and lifted her chin. “You’re right. I’m not going to let anything else get me down.” She pulled out a crystal snowman figurine from one of the decoration boxes, and set it on the table underneath a mountainy snowscape painting that was my favorite in the entire gallery. “All right, sis, let’s get this place holidayed up. I’m tired of all the pumpkins.”
I winked at her. “Yes boss.”
When Violet and I took over the art gallery from our parents, our mother made us promise we’d give the fall season its time in the shop. She knew we’d rather have Christmas decorations up all year round. But fall was our mother’s favorite time of the year, so we had no choice but to drown ourselves in pumpkins for a short while, even though our quaint little downtown always got decorated for Christmas right before Thanksgiving. It was a good thing my family and I were out of town during that time, or I might have given in and decorated early.
My mother’s fall decorations had been up since September, which was an adequate amount of time, especially since they stayed up a lot longer than our Christmas decor would. We only had one month of Christmas, and that wasn’t enough.
Violet and I went through all the boxes, and it took a few hours to get the gallery just the way we wanted. With twinkling lights all around the room, I was starting to believe we had more in our store than on Main Street. But the lights worked well with the paintings on the walls. My parents had opened the Blue Ridge Gallery during their first year of marriage. All that used to be in the store were paintings from local artists. Now, the gallery has grown exponentially. Not only do we have paintings from local artists, but we also have photographs from talented photographers, handmaid clothing that could put any famousdesigner to shame, and many other goodies from our townsfolk like homemade soaps, jellies, pickled veggies, and cakes.
When I graduated from college and took over my part of the gallery, the food products were the first things I wanted to add. It was hard not to buy it all for myself when new bakery items were being dropped off.
Violet finished up with our snow village by the front window while I piled all the empty boxes into the storage room.
“Hey, Lydia!” she shouted. I stuck my head out of the storage room. Violet had her lips pursed, staring at the village. She pointed to a small empty spot by the lit-up church. “I think we should add another building here.”
I closed the storage room and joined her. “What are you thinking?”
She gave me a sly smile. “Well, I was walking by Betty’s Christmas store last week and she was having a sale on different snowy village houses.” Her eyes lit up and she bounced on her feet. “There was a Griswold Holiday House. Do you know how epic it would be to add to our collection?”
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacationwas the best holiday movie ever. I couldn’t begin to count how many times we’d watched it over the years.
“If you want it, let’s get it before it gets gone,” I said, feeling the excitement well up in my chest. I couldn’t wait to have it in our snow village. However, when I pulled out my phone to glance at the time, it was too late; Betty’s shop had closed ten minutes ago. “Looks like you’ll have to wait for tomorrow. Just get there right when Betty opens the door.”
Violet blew out a huff of air. “Well, that sucks. Somebody will be having a bad day if they try to buy it before me.”
That made me giggle. “Yeah, I’ve learned not to get in your way when you want something. My big toe is still not right afteryou stomped on it, trying to get the last of Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies when you were eight years old.”
