Last Christmas (Book 1 in the Christmas Series)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"So, what is the plan with this?" I asked, holding up a strip of tinsel and draping it around my shoulders as though it was a scarf.

"We don't really have a plan, it's more of throwing everything around the house and hoping for the best," Granny said, inspecting a bauble against the light.

With Christmas only two weeks ago, Grandpa decided it was time to decorate the house ready for the big day itself. He had instructed Granny and me to get the decorations from the attic, an easy enough task, whilst he drove to a Christmas tree farm to get the crowning jewel of our living room. Granny had used her Magic to get the decorations down from the attic the moment Grandpa had left meaning we had a little while to kill before Grandpa got back with the tree. To fill the time, we examined the contents of the boxes, checking for damage and trying to decide what we were going to do with them.

Just looking at the boxes was overwhelming enough for me. I never participated in decorating at home and often find ways to escape to the workshop or to my room, so I didn't have to get involved. Nick always got overly enthusiastic, wanting to have everything everywhere, leaving no place safe from decorations. It was like Christmas had vomited all over the house. The lights, the tinsel, the garland, all of it layered the house. Only my room was a safe haven from the chaos throughout the house. Even the workshop was difficult to stomach once the Christmas period officially hit. It was all so chaotic and hectic that I wanted out if that was even possible.

"So you just do what Nick does and throw it all up? No colour scheme, no plan, nothing?"

"Pretty much. You know your Grandpa, he's never been one for organisation. Perhaps you could come up with a plan? Maybe the house could look more like a wonderland than a train wreck."

"Really? You'd trust me to do that?"

"Yeah. You'd have a harder time convincing your Grandpa, though. He loves a bit of chaos, organised or otherwise."

"That I can do. He'll see my ways soon enough."

Granny responded with a chuckle and went back to rooting around in the boxes, pulling out garlands and those weird metallic bells that get pinned to the ceiling. When it came to decorating, we always went for the normal way of decorating. Using step ladders, push pins, balancing precariously on the sofa belting out Christmas music. Back home you had to use Magic for a lot of it, like the star trick. There were somethings you couldn't do without it, but Granny and Grandpa had a different tradition. One year, Nick and I stayed with Granny and Grandpa and helped them decorate the normal of putting up decorations appealed to me more than the Magical element to it.

I examined the stuff from afar, noting the different colours we had, the different decorations and in my mind, I created a colour scheme. Most people often associated Christmas was greens and reds, the typical seasonal colours, but when I looked at the pile of decorations I noted that the colours we had in vast supply were blues and silvers. To me, they were Christmas colours. They showed the ice, the snow, the signs of Winter that are so annoying, people often overlook them. The weather outside might have been dark and dingy, but Winter could be so much more than that and that was what I was going to show with the decoration.

As we waited for Grandpa, I started to sort the decorations into piles by colour, ignoring those that didn't fit my scheme by discarding them into boxes. By the time Grandpa returned, everything had been sorted by colour and I was ready to turn the house into a Winter wonderland rather than a mess of light. Perhaps decorating the house could be fun rather than the horror I had always thought it was.

"Who's ready for a tree?" Papa said, dragging a wrapped-up pine tree into the living room, needles dropping onto the floor despite its tight packaging.