I’m certainly not one of those kinds who deck the halls with holly or have mistletoe hanging for the unsuspecting visitor, who the hell decided that was a great branch to kiss under anyway?

I’m the ultimate unbeliever or whatever you call someone who doesn’t believe in Christmas.

I’m more the Ebenezer Scrooge type than Bob Cratchet, take my situation at the moment, it’s Christmas Eve at six-thirty, and my staff, which equates to all of one, Kellie Byzantium, works until I say the place closes. Interesting how the irony bears witness to the season of goodwill, my business is loaning money to the punters who would best be served in working harder than trying to spend more than they are worth. Although, I’d be out of business, and fortunately for me, greed and misfortune makes me money…a situation that wasn’t going to change in my lifetime knowing human nature.

Scanning my surroundings, I see my assistant talking pleasantly to a customer, probably the reason I hired her. No one else was going too under the circumstances; she didn’t have any references. Moreover, her diploma in high school, Domestic Science, wasn’t going to achieve for her the coveted role of cook in any decent restaurant or even low life diner any day of the week in this town.

“Ms. Franchisee, do you mind if I make a call home? I promised if I was going to be late…”

I looked over to the timid woman who asked me if she could make a phone call, wasn’t the first time either in the two years we had worked together. Perhaps it was time here and now to make a New Year’s resolution and make her pay for any personal calls…it was within my rights!

“Sure, don’t take more than a couple of minutes, customers might still call.”

I watched her smile pleasantly at me much as she would a customer; though I could guess she was thinking it way too late for any such thing. I gave her my usual bland stare, as I turned to the books…very good, very good indeed. I loved this time of year and not for the reason most do, it made me cart loads of money. Stupid people who spent more than they could afford because little Johnny or Missy wanted the latest gadget in the marketplace. Why couldn’t they say no? Kids did understand the word if parents chose to teach them.

A throat cleared in front of me and I looked up from my scrutiny of the ledger giving the person who had audaciously interrupted my favourite pastime, a hard stare, almost as glacial as the present season. As I noticed flecks of snow on the shabby coat of the woman who gave me a sparkling smile. Damn-it one of those kind, she probably didn’t have any collateral and in this place, no-one, and that was no-one, was given a loan unless it was covered with their mortgage or something equally as viable.

“Yes, what can I do for you?”

The woman merely continued to smile inanely. I had to consider that perhaps she was a street person finding shelter from the cold in the only place still open on the block. It happened, especially at this time of year when the temp could and often did drop to sub-zero.

Raising a disapproving eyebrow, thinking she was wasting my time, I tried again. If she didn’t answer this time I’d have my assistant escort her off the premises. “What do you want?”

My voice had risen an octave or two but I didn’t care, not even when I saw the tears welling up in the woman’s pale grey eyes. Yeah, yeah lady, go for it, water off a duck’s back in my game, doesn’t work, especially here!

I was about to ask her to leave…maybe asking was the wrong word I was gonna order her out…when my assistant returned obviously noting my tone of voice and what I was about to say. She’d experienced my disapproving ways before with customers, and expertly intervened. With a glowing smile, she steered the woman as far as possible away from me towards her part of the counter. Good, that’s what I pay her for, far better than making personal calls during office hours.

Ten minutes later the shabby woman was gone and I was out of pocket again! By the look of the small bundle of notes my assistant had counted out, to say I was suspicious would be right on the button. As I wandered over to my assistant she flipped over the ledger she had conscientiously been writing inside.

“What’s this?” my tone curt and quietly angry. Having worked with me for so long my assistant knew I wasn’t happy.

The timid voice answered, “She needed the money, and I think she’ll be good for it…after all it was only a hundred dollars and she promised to pay it back the first week of the New Year.”

I had worked in this business for twenty years and knew every scam and excuse there was and in all that time I’d never been duped by anyone. Mostly because I’d stuck to my rigid rules of no collateral, no loan, it was as simple as that. “And you believed her? I thought you knew the game plan working for me, it’s written in bold enough letters in front of you, or have you suddenly lost the ability to read?”

I was annoyed, who the hell gave this …this person I call an assistant the right to spend my money that way, she wasn’t the one paying for it if the woman didn’t pay back and looking at her shabby appearance as she left the store wasn’t likely too either. Only one thing for it, “Okay Ms. Goodwill to all folks in town, I’ll take it out of your salary if she doesn’t turn up first of the month.”

An audible gasp was heard from my assistant, as she paled significantly. “You can’t do that! I can’t afford to pay out that amount from my salary. Haven’t you heard that as a rule it’s the season of goodwill to all? And, most people at Christmas time appear to do that. Please Ms. Franchisee can’t I appeal to that part of your nature?”

I had to laugh at the comment, how foolish, or was it naïve, some people were and this assistant of mine took the biscuit for sure. I moved as close as possible to her as I spoke coldly, my pitch as freezing as the icicles forming on the window frame outside. “Of course you do know that for every rule there’s an exception, you’re looking at it! Fetch your coat I’ll see you tomorrow.”

This time my assistant went paler still. “Its Christmas day surely you’re not opening? I promised my family…”

My look was enough to shut up her emotional ramblings as I spoke softly but with infinite clarity. I wanted her to know my position without question. “You want this job? If the answer’s yes I’ll see you at… ten o’clock that will give you a couple of extra hours with the family. I think that’s generous don’t you? However, if the answer’s no, don’t bother entering this office again unless you need a loan.”

I’d seen that look before, once before a long time ago, it seemed like another lifetime and it had exactly the same impression on me this time around, absolutely nothing. I was immune to any entreaty to my heart. I considered myself one of those fortunate people who didn’t appear to have one and I was thankful for it. Who wanted to waste all that time and energy on trivial emotional crises that everyone I’d met in my life apparently suffered with.

“I’ll be here; may I ask you a favour Ms. Franchisee?” Here it was the pathetic request for up front salary, now where was she going to spend it at this time of night, most of the decent stores had closed by now.

“Hmm go ahead.” Yep, I was right, she wanted her salary. Lucky for her I had the means or she wouldn’t have had a cent, and would have to wait until tomorrow evening when her pay fell due.

Fifteen minutes later I was closing up, having locked away the ledgers and the residual funds of the business in the safe and began my regular routine of checking all the locks and switching off the lights, no point in leaving any burning it didn’t make sense and was a waste of money.

Giving the area one last survey, I turned to the door that led to my inner sanctum; at least it was the place I called home. The apartment above the shop, it made perfect sense to live on top of the business, after all this was my life.

I stopped dead in my tracks as I heard an unfamiliar clawing sound. Turning swiftly back towards the store, I glanced around towards the sound that had ceased leaving the place as silent as a graveyard. I shook my head in annoyance; I must be hearing things in my old age. I began to leave the area again, but just as I stepped through the inner door the noise started again. Swiftly I re-entered the room and this time switched on a light. Darn it! The damn light flickered and then the sound of the element blowing drenched me once more in darkness. What puzzled me was the sound had disappeared again, what is this, is my hearing was going now too? Maybe I should have had that check up way back…well ten years ago now.

I wasn’t one to be fearful, though in my business it paid to have a gun on the premises and I did, but it was now locked up in the safe. I had however, a small pistol upstairs in the night stand for my personal protection. Although I’d never had cause to use it, perhaps tonight I was going to see if those lessons I’d been talked into taking when I bought the gun several years before were worth the money. Now, I was debating if the wisest move was to call the cops and have them check outside the building…I pay my taxes on time so they owe me that much, I don’t usually complain. Shaking my head at the thought…it had been a busy day, Christmas Eve always was. I must be tired and need dinner, a long hot bath, my current crime novel to read followed by hot cocoa and a good night’s rest.

Once again leaving the area, I blocked out the scratching that assailed my ears and walked briskly up the stairs to my apartment. Ignoring the strange sound that followed me, I closed and bolted my door as sound proofing from anything below.

An hour later, having eaten my leftovers from the Chinese meal I’d indulged in the night before, I turned on the bath taps and walked over to the window, which looked out on the small park on the other side of the street. It was covered in snow and looked strange, in stark contrast to the normal green foliage that usually was my view. I tended to ignore the odd vagrant who settled for the night on the bench under the outside light. There had been so many over the years it was hardly a point of interest anymore, and pity hadn’t entered my vocabulary… if it had it was so alien I’d throw it out of my mind into the trash can much like most of my email. There was a form huddled there on the park bench though it was difficult to distinguish if it was a person or something left behind. The snow was covering the object as each fleck fell without opposition. Whoever, if it were a person, would probably end up freezing to death if they remained there for too much longer…though the chances were that the police as usual would move them on.

I moved away from the scene and turned up the heater in the room. As I did so, my eyes were caught by the lone Christmas card on the mantle. My assistant sent me one every year, why was a mystery I didn’t celebrate the holidays, not this one, not any. Picking it up, I glanced at the corny verse and the picture of the Santa climbing down the chimney loaded with presents. Then I looked at the small neat writing at the bottom of the card,

Merry Christmas Ms. Franchisee,

Best wishes for a prosperous New Year.

Kellie, Bobby and Mary Byzantium

Replacing the card on the mantle, I fleetingly wondered who Bobby and Mary were. I knew very little about my assistant’s background it hadn’t been a prerequisite of her qualifying for the job, although I vaguely remembered that the woman had said she was single. Ah well, today it didn’t seem to matter if people who had children were married or not. Probably the case here was that Mary was the kid and Bobby the husband

Later that evening after a long hot bath, I cooked up my cocoa - about the only thing I managed to do decently in the microwave - I was certainly not the domestic type. Settling into the luxury of a king size bed all on my own…it was about the closest to frivolous I’d ever been in my life when I purchased it; right now it was exactly what I needed.

Picking up the latest novel I’d borrowed from the local library I immersed myself in the book until I heard that sound again. It was so loud I almost jumped out of bed in shock. What the hell was that? It sounds as if it was here in the next room. Reaching inside the drawer to find my pistol, I gripped the handle and climbed out of bed, my feet cold on the wooden floorboards as my slipper-less feet hit the deck. Cautiously opening my bedroom door, I peered into the dim recess of the tiny hall, leading to the kitchen and the sitting room. The street lamp emitting a dull glow as the filtered light streamed weakly into the sitting room, once more the sound disappeared, could this be my penance for being what some, my assistant for one, saw as my Scrooge mean streak? Who believed in that stuff anyway, it was all fiction, Charles Dickens had a lot to answer for when he’d penned A Christmas Carol.

Switching on the light in the hall astonishingly the bulb also blew as it flickered with the element crackling as it broke. Damn she’d have to find a store that sold light bulbs tomorrow the way they were blowing in her building by the end of the night she’d have no lights left.

Checking all the rooms not that there was many, I finally decided that it was my tired imagination and that sleep was the best thing for me.

What I hadn’t bargained on was the outer door being forced ferociously as a couple of individuals in Santa masks burst into the corridor and before I could release the safety catch on my gun I was sinking to the floor as a gunshot ripped through my body, the searing pain making the scene surreal, as I was deposited in a kaleidoscope of distorted images before I passed out, the figures that had broken into my home talking between themselves, in a language I couldn’t decipher, yet I was sure it was English, it didn’t matter now I think I was dying and this was the end as the scene finally dimmed to complete blackness.

* * *

If I thought things were surreal before, I was kidding myself, because currently I was in a dream, it had to be because I was back in my childhood home and I hadn’t returned there since I was sixteen.

My eyes scanned the scenery, sure enough it was the house I’d grown up in a traditional wooden slat building, single storey, as mother had only been able to afford the small two-bedroom abode. My father having deserted her when I was five, or so she said, over the years she’d indoctrinated me or brainwashed, to believe that the only person in this world who would never let you down was yourself. I believed it too, so much so I built my life on that doctrine, even though my mother had shattered my image of her when I’d returned from school early. As it was a couple of days to Christmas and my lessons for that day were over, I found out she was having an affair with the local deputy. Apparently it had been going on for several years and now they wanted to get married. I was in a daze when she finally caught up with me in the neighbouring old homestead’s great barn. Several hours later I packed my bags and left in the dead of night, never to see her again, embarking on my own life and looking after number one...after all that’s what I’d been taught along with my hatred of the one person I loved and looked up too, my mother! She’d fallen off the pedestal and broken into little pieces before me, irreparable in my adolescent eyes.

Over the years I frankly had forgotten about her, I had gotten over the diehard hatred, as I grew older and more cynical it did leave however a hollow feeling that I filled with work. Why was I dreaming of this place it didn’t make sense…

My eyes caught a figure…no two, as I watched it was like turning back the clock it was me, as in, I must have been about ten at the time and that was my mother who had the most brilliant smile on her face, I did too the ten year old me that is …ah yes, but that was before I knew the truth my mother had been lying to me all those years. Still we looked happy, as I listened to the conversation as a silent bystander…

“Hazel, close your eyes love I have a surprise for you.”

“What is it Mom, what is it, I don’t want to shut my eyes please Mom.” The whiney voice penetrated my skull, hell I was a pain in the ass way back then, funny I never thought of myself as a selfish kid.

A tinkle of gentle laughter followed me, as in my younger self’s, demands, as a tender hand touched the brunette tresses and I was lightly scolded for my attitude.

“Hazel I told you that today was going to be special, and have I ever told you anything that wasn’t true?”

My younger self shook her tousled head. “Mom every day is special with you.”

I wanted to be sick and remove myself from this stupid sentimental dream, talk about naïve. Problem was I couldn’t, either my mind wouldn’t let me or something was holding me here against my will. Then a thought niggled away at me as I watched the scene progress maybe I wanted to stay.

The surprise had been a bike of my very own, every kid in the neighbourhood had a bike except for me. Though I’d never complained because I knew my mom couldn’t afford one, it was hard making ends meet on a pittance of a salary from the local shoe store.

I watched the scene as a lump formed in my throat, though how that happened beat me, I was in a dream…right there was no way this stuff could hurt me.

The scene changed dramatically it was snowing, very like today’s weather, as a teenager appeared out of the front door of the house. I knew immediately it was me, those goofy teeth that had to be braced for years, then that straggly hair that was a cross between a scarecrow and the worse bad hair day imaginable. Regardless of that ,I looked happy, weird but happy as I placed a decorative wreath on the door and scrambled around making a snowman. Then, the door opened and my mom joined me. She looked older, she never had looked older when I was growing up, yet as a spectator in my own memories I saw it as clear as day. She no longer had that fresh look about her, vitality, I guess you’d call it, she had aged and on reflection it was to be expected, no one stayed youthful forever not even people you loved.

As I watched the two figures make the snowman I wondered what life would have been like had I not run away from home, had she not betrayed me, or at least the principles that had become as much a part of me as taking a breath. No, this was a dream it had no relevance in my life, even if it was perhaps the last dream I would ever have!

A darkness that had nothing to do with the time of day appeared, as I watched another scene, this time it was the dark recesses of the great barn at the old homestead. I listened to the emotional outbursts of both parties as they battled wills to make each understand how the other felt.

“I don’t understand Mom, you said you hated men!”

A heavy sigh emerged from the huddled figure of the older woman who tried to move close to her only child, and was shunned viciously. “I can’t pretend that I may have given you that impression when you were younger Hazel, that I might not like men as much as other women did, however that was years ago darling. I was angry at your father leaving us, it took me a long time to forgive him.”

“Forgive him? I don’t understand what has my father to do with this, you’re sleeping with, with…that man!” The hurt, anger and pain evident in the words.

A gentle hand tried to placate me but I threw it off in a furious fit that had the older woman wincing at the pain inflicted. “Hazel listen to me, when you are older you will understand all this, things happen, we hurt each other sometimes more than we know, it can take time to discard that hurt, if I ever gave you the impression I hated men I’m sorry darling I don’t. I want you to understand how I feel about Ryan, I’m not getting any younger and…”

Don’t, don’t even say his name I hate him…I hate you!” The young woman left the building the heart rending sob that followed her completely ignored.

I watched all this...it was like one of those old movies you feel foolish about watching but couldn’t help it; this was very much like that, too much like that.

For the first time in my life I felt that perhaps I was wrong about certain things that had shaped my life….

* * *

“Ms. Franchisee, Hazel can you hear me?” A voice penetrated my memories or dreams, who cared they felt real, had been real maybe, perhaps they were the reality I’d refused to acknowledge for years refusing to be other than stubborn on the issue, a moot point of course now it was way too late to do anything about it.

I guess I mumbled because whoever it was appeared pleased by the response. Then several figures appeared before me swathed in white was I in …dare I say it heaven as my eyes with a powerful degree of protest finally opened and I realised it was a medical team at my bed, thank goodness.

“You were in a situation Ms. Franchisee, you’re out of danger now, is there anyone we can call for you?” A woman’s voice gentle caring finally made it through the fog of my scattered mind.

“No one…I have no one.” As I spoke the real me, the person I’d been hiding since I was sixteen, took over kicking my butt as only truth can…the truth that only you know about yourself and the truth that only you can answer.

“I don’t think that’s the case Ms. Franchisee, there’s a Ms. Byzantium waiting to see you if you want to see her?”

My assistant, what was she doing here, ah they must have called her when the store had been broken into, it was a case of there being no one else and she probably was worried about her job. Then again…, “please, yes I’d like to see her.”

And, there she was. She looked the same timid woman that worked for me, one that I was cruel to, and someone I disregarded as unimportant in my life. However at this crossroads in my existence, the moment of truth was here and she was looking down at me with an expression not of veiled happiness at my predicament, no, it wasn’t that expression at all…I’d seen it before long ago, she was worried about me! It was in her eyes, a reflection in many ways of the ghost of my mother’s feelings for me. As I stared up at her I was pathetically grateful she was here as I felt the tears begin to streak my face, and the most unexpected thing happened to me. Kellie Byzantium tenderly wiped them away, clutching my hand as she whispered over and over again that everything was going to work, all as it was meant to be.

My eyes closed then for the final time, for when I opened them again I was going to begin a new life, because right now, for the first time in many years, I felt secure and gloriously happy. The walls I’d built over the years had miraculously crashed down and I didn’t even care, or given them a second glance, at this moment I was moving on, finally I was letting the hurt leave me, my mother had been right it just takes time….

* * *

A year later

“You know we could have done this in town, it would have been so much easier for her.” The woman’s voice sounded nervous and I knew it would, as I stepped onto the decking of the old house, it hadn’t changed a bit…well it had but at this moment not for me.

I was about to knock when the door was flung open and I was face to face with someone who possibly hated me more than I had hated him, Ryan Macalister. He looked me over for a few moments as he’d done that first time, when we’d met six months ago, he hadn’t said much it had all been in his face, astonishment that one person could create so much havoc selfishly on other people’s lives and turn up out of the blue asking for it all to be forgiven over a beer. Funny thing was in a way it had, because he was getting exactly what he wanted at the end of the day, my mother. I returned his stare with a deep one of my own. He loved my mother deeply, so much so he’d waited for her, twenty-three years…he’d waited and now he was going to finally marry the woman he loved on Christmas Eve.

“Glad you made it Hazel, your mother’s inside, I’ll help with the bags.” He shook my hand in a formal fashion and walked down the steps towards my car.

Stepping inside I was greeted by an older version of myself, she looked good too, hadn’t aged a bit, okay I’m exaggerating but in my eyes these days she hadn’t. “You made it darling, I’m so pleased, how was the journey I thought the snow might prevent you getting here, how are you feeling?”

Questions, questions always questions, I didn’t mind one bit. In the year since the shooting in my apartment I’d laid claim to another life, some would say I’d been given another chance to start my life over, perhaps it was the dreams I’d had, or the fact that I’d cheated death by the skin of my teeth, or it was simply that someone actually wanted me too live. I tried not to analyze these things too much anymore it was just good to be alive and a changed woman.

“I wouldn’t let a snow storm stop me from being here for the ceremony and everything else is good Mom. Now what about you, are you nervous?” I watched my mother fluff around the cuffs on her shirt as she tried to reply.

“Not really, perhaps, sometimes I wonder if it’s going to happen finally.”

I was the reason for the long delay and also the reason why they were getting married today. My mother had called off her relationship with Ryan when I’d disappeared and over the years no matter how attentive he had been she had not relented, her one hope was that I would return and when I did it had to be on my terms. Twenty-two years later, I’d arrived back to salvage whatever I could if I was given the chance, we’d talked and talked lamenting the years we’d lost in each others lives, thankfully neither of us wallowed in any bitterness and I wouldn’t have blamed my Mom if she did feel that way about me, by the end of the conversation we had both worked out where it had all gone wrong, each to blame in their own way, each a victim and each a survivor with the help of others.

The door opened and in walked Ryan laden with some of the bags, as the door opened wider and two young children shrieked their delight at seeing my mother. I watched as one does when happiness invades a household, allowing the sense of rightness and the joy of living surround me, I’d forgotten that for years, not this year though oh no this year was different.

Ryan, my mother and the two children seemed lost in their own world, or was I…

“Merry Christmas love,” my heart rejoiced at those words as my gaze shifted to the eyes of the person who had saved me when I was alone or thought I was, gradually lifting my heart away from my enforced loneliness, helping me to understand by example what it meant to care about people and be part of a family again.

I switched my attention to the most important person in my life, though her children came close, along with my mother and dare I say it, Ryan, after all he had stuck around and even tried to find me all those years ago, never giving up and was relieved I’m sure in his own way when I finally showed up a few months after being allowed out of hospital. Nope, I was staring into the most beautiful face I’d ever encountered in my life, even if for a couple of years I never knew it.

“Merry Christmas right back at you darling, I see the twins are making up for my inadequacies,” I smiled as I spoke without bitterness of the arm that refused to function after the shooting, it could have been worse I might be dead. It did however make me less able than I once was, though it had worked to my good fortune, Kellie had been that more attentive and we fell helplessly in love. At least I did, I wasn’t sure of her at first, How could I? As I’d cradled her Christmas card close to my heart for weeks staring dazedly at the names emblazed on it, it had caused me many a heart searching at the time of what I had to do.

My timid assistant had become my world almost overnight, and I adored her, my shrink had the audacity to say it might be a false emotion a mixture of guilt and repressed emotions for all the years I’d refused to have love in my life. I wondered that too, which was why it took me several months, in fact the weekend that Kellie persuaded me to see my mother for the first time. I would only go if she came with me I needed her strength of character, she might sound timid but she had a heart of gold and the courage of a lioness. It was here I confessed my love for her, she told me she had loved me from the first moment she’d met me, which was why she’d remained at the job, because it certainly hadn’t been for my personality back then. In a way it was all a daydream from then on, I met her children Bobby and Mary who were seven years old, the father hadn’t ever been in the picture at all, it had been a drunken college fling that should never have been and ended up with her having to leave after the first year to bring up her children alone. I tried to equate how this woman in my arms could love me after the way I treated her, and then I looked around me and realised that Santa Claus really did exist, he had certainly arrived in my town last year, albeit in a rather gruesome way, and given me the best present of all, my ability to love and ask for forgiveness.

“Want to make a snowman?” that was me speaking. Even now I wonder about myself, could I still be in a dream world and one day I might wake up and it will be over. Then again, who cares, I love every minute and I’m making the most of whatever happiness life decides to bestow on me, and I can bestow on others while it lasts.

A tinkle of laughter greeted that question as Kellie reached up kissing me tenderly making my heart beat faster than ever, as I pulled her as close as possible indulging in the sheer magnificence of being in love and being loved. “I think we need to help your Mom, although the kids might share in your suggestion, perhaps Ryan will give you some help as well.”

Breathlessly caught in the magic only this softly spoken woman could wield on me, I agreed, snatching a lingering kiss of my own as we both held each other close; our physical attention focusing on the rest of the family, yet our souls revelled in the joy of the love we shared.

“Thank you.” My words were heartfelt gratitude for more things than I could ever speak of in a lifetime together as I held Kellie securely in my arms.

My Kellie looked into my eyes whispering words that would repair even the most disheartened soul, “I love you, no matter what, no matter where, and especially at Christmas. Santa gave you to me as a present, one I’ll cherish and love the rest of my life.”

* * *

There you go my Christmas tale…ah but you want to know what happened to the shabby woman well…that’s another story altogether…oh okay I’ll tell you, I’ve changed remember I’m not such a mean soul these days.

The woman turned out to be the wife of a disillusioned toyshop owner who was looking in all the unlikely places for someone who had the right heart to continue his business. They each searched the city on Christmas Eve for several years until finally they thought they wouldn’t ever find anyone, and guess what…the old woman ended up in my office weary of her journey but with hope still in her heart.

Kellie was the perfect person they’d been looking for and on the first of January according to my love, the shabby woman returned to the office though she wasn’t shabby any more she looked elegant and rich with the hundred dollars plus interest, in a limousine accompanied by her husband, who according to Kellie looked like Santa Claus he had the longest white beard she’d ever seen outside the fairy stories. They offered her the store and a lucrative deal. How could she not take it you ask, she did turn it down at the time, her reason, she loved me and they didn’t want me there. Not that I knew that at the time. Anyway, they never gave up and finally agreed I was a changed woman, and we sold up my business for Kellie to begin her new position as head of the largest toy store in town. I became the proud homemaker; I’ve learnt how to cook a decent meal, even with only one good arm to rely on, and I also help the homeless with my time in a soup kitchen every week. When Christmas arrives I personally pay for a sumptuous meal fit for royalty for them, a fitting payback in a way for all the times I was cruel to those folks.

Therefore you see Santa works in mysterious ways, who knows when, where and who he might decide to visit with a very personal present next, take care out there, have a marvellous safe and happy festive season.