"Of Magic & Mistletoe", by Gratiana Lovelace (2020); (Completed)

Ch. 03: A snowy night with mistletoe

"Of Magic & Mistletoe", Ch. 03:  A snowy night with mistletoe, by Gratiana Lovelace, December 23, 2020 
(All rights reserved; An original story copyrighted by Gratiana Lovelace, 2020)
[(1) cover story]

Illustrations: I cast my stories as I write them, with Richard Armitage as Luke Wharton, Erin Krakow as Diana Groves, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Benjy Groves, Helen Hayes as Martha Lesley, Anna Knyazeva as Heidi Wharton, and others as noted in the references.

"Of Magic & Mistletoe", Ch. 03:  A snowy night with mistletoe

While spending an hour at the indoor mall's Christmas Village Tree barn shopping area Monday afternoon, December 20th, 2010, Martha finds the perfect small table top artificial tree and trimmings—her not spending more than twenty five dollars on it all, with Luke's help in finding the tree trimmings bargains that are marked down due to small flaws in shape, coloration, and broken bits. To Martha, these flaws merely betoken the wear and tear that any holiday trimmings baubles would be subjected to over time. Thus her new decorative purchases have the feeling of long treasured family mementos.

And for his part, 4 year old Benjy enjoys sharing his Mommy Diana with Luke's 4 year old daughter Heidi while making Christmas Tree ornaments from the fir tree scraps, loose beads, glitter glue, and ribbon. The children seem to get on well together, and the children steal glances back and forth with their parents—giving them a little wave.

And Diana and Luke look upon their children making ornaments together as a sweet Christmas tableau—while also stealing glances at each other. Martha just smiles through it all. There are possibilities between the two of them--Diana and Luke.  And Martha thinks that they make a handsome couple.

And poignantly, Heidi asks Diana if she may use one of the ornament ribbons to fix her hair that has come undone when she took her knit cap off. So Diana gamely helps the little girl by first using a comb from her purse to untangle Heidi's hair, then pulling the top half of her hair back to the crown of her head, then braids it to hold it together, with a rubber band and some pretty ribbon for decoration. Another idea Diana has is to use some of the festive ribbon to wrap around a thin child sized head band for Heidi—Diana simply lacks a head band at the moment.

Then Diana walks the children back over to where Martha and Luke are.

Luke: Embracing his daughter Heidi, Luke compliments her new hair braid. "You look pretty, Heidi Sweetheart!"

Heidi: "Thanks, Daddy! Benjy's Mommy fixed it for me." Heidi smiles and touches her hair cutely.

Luke: "Thank you, Diana!" He smiles warmly at her. "With Heidi's hair grown so long as a four year old, I need ideas on how to fix it for her." He smiles wryly as man who never thought to learn how to style girl's hair—but he will learn for his daughter.

Diana: "My pleasure. Heidi is a sweet little girl."

Benjy: "What about me, Mommy?" Benjy asks impishly.

Diana: "And you're my sweet little boy." She smiles and hugs her son. "How is your tree and trimmings purchase coming, Martha? We should probably get back home before the snow gets worse."

Martha: "All done and on budget thanks to Luke. But let's not jinx ourselves talking about bad weather. Ha ha ha!"

Diana: "Ha ha ha! True! We wouldn't want to get stuck here overnight."

Luke: "Not to worry, ladies. The mall has a generator that will keep the lights on and the heat flowing, should the power go out. It just lacks a cozy homey ambiance." He grins sheepishly, while looking at the Christmas Tree barn's decorative hay bales.