12 Days 'til Christmas ✓

chapter one

o n e

*

There's nothing quite like Christmas. Not to me. No other holiday comes close to the festive spirit that fills my heart the moment the season begins, when the weather turns and the days get shorter. My mood doesn't sink with the early-setting sun – it soars with the crisp air and the red-breasted robins, with the stars and angels atop rich green pine trees. There's an extra spring in my step the day that the shops put up their Christmas displays, extra bounce in my walk when the town's lights are switched on and a festive fayre marks the change from autumnal colours to wintry reds and blues and greens.

I have to make the season last as long as I can, delving into my celebrations as soon as Bonfire Night is out of the way, and keeping it going long after the first of January. I'm always the last to take down the fairy lights strung up outside my house; I don't get rid of the tree until there are more pine needles on the floor than on its branches. Religion may not be my thing, but my nativity scene remains on my counter long after I've added baby Jesus to the manger.

Just thinking about it all is enough to fill my body with a warm glow that radiates out from my chest, a happy heat spreading from my head to my toes as I walk down the high street. The lights were switched on two weeks ago and now, the sun long gone by five o'clock, they illuminate the night with their bright white sparkle: looping lengths of LEDs spell out MERRY CHRISTMAS SAINT WENDELIN. I admire whoever made that, but with the glow of the lights and the sheer number of letters, it looks more like it says MERRY CHRISTMAS SAUT WUDFIN.

Nearly every store on the high street is already shut, the day coming to an end the moment the clock strikes five, but I can rely on my favourite coffee shop to keep its doors open until seven. Figuratively, anyway, seeing as it's below freezing and the bitter wind is making my eyes water. Even with a thick coat as my third – no, fourth – layer, and the woolliest scarf I could find looped three times around my neck, not to mention slipper socks inside my fur-lined boots, I can feel the spiteful chill so acutely that it seems like it has a vendetta against me.

Whoever said fat people don't feel the cold is a damn liar: I may be well-insulated, as one ex put it, but I have more skin to feel the cold and I am really feeling it right now. My cheeks are stinging where my scarf has slipped down to my chin, my fingers slowly numbing through my insufficient gloves, and it's almost cold enough for me to rethink winter being my favourite season.

Almost. But not quite. My appreciation rushes back when I push open the door to Java Tea, my favourite cafe since I discovered it three years ago. I didn't even realise it was a pun until my fifteenth-or-so visit, when I met the owner, Julio, for the first time, and learnt that much like his name, the J in Java is pronounced like an H.

It's quiet inside. It often is. Saint Wendelin may be a relatively small town, but it has a Costa and a Caffe Nero – no Starbucks yet – and between them, they have a near monopoly over people's coffee desires. Not mine, though, or the handful of other regulars I spot. There's something special about Java Tea. Something I can't put my finger on. Whatever it is, it's kept me coming back for years. Once you go Java, you never go back. Between the season and vibe-appropriate music and the array of comfortable chairs and sofas that encourage a long stay, the cafe feels like home.

Right now, the Lea Michele version of Silent Night is playing through the overhead speakers, at the perfect volume. Loud enough to be heard, but no so loud that it dominates conversational efforts. All of the playlists are put together by the staff here, carefully curated for the best cafe environment, and I'm fairly confident that this playlist must be the work of Gloria, Julio's wife. She's mad about all things Christmas and all things musical theatre: this song has Gloria written all over it.