The front door opened, and Ashley reached up, straightening the collar of the white button down with dark blue pinstripes she chose to wear that morning. “I’ll send Mr. Beckett in, then I’ll do a brownie run.” She moved to the hall but looked back through the door before walking to her desk. “Thank you again for Saturday night,” she said, struggling to make eye contact. “And for the Christmas stuff.”
Theo opened her mouth to respond, but Ashley disappeared before she was able.
Jordan hauled the six-and-a-half-foot Balsam fir up the stairs while Theo and Ashley gathered the boxes of lights and ornaments from the back of the Jeep. Indigo surveyed the upper meeting room deciding where she thought the best spot for the tree would be, while Jupiter ran up and down the stairs trying to keep track of all the humans.
“He’s not used to having the gate open,” Theo remarked, trying to see over the boxes she carried in her arms.
“I can smell the pizza from here,” Ashley said, navigating the stairs. “I’m starving.”
“There are only a couple more boxes. One more trip ought to do it.”
“This is kinda like fairytale stuff, you know?”
“What is?” Theo asked.
“Jordan owning a Christmas tree farm. It doesn’t sound real. I mean, of course there are Christmas tree farms, right? But how many people actually live near one? A lot of people get their trees from the grocery store, or maybe from a lot somewhere. The trees come from a farm, but the people buying them probably don’t really think about that.”
“You’re probably right,” Theo agreed.
“You know what most people do? They buy a fake tree that lasts for more than a decade. I kinda get it, I guess, especially the pre-lit ones. You put an app on your phone, and you can do all sorts of things with the lights. Colors, patterns, blinking …” she paused. “The Christmas tree farm thing … if it isn’t from a fairytale, it’s at least from a Hallmark holiday movie.”
The two of them reached the landing and Jupiter ran up behind them. Jordan reached out and grabbed the uppermost box from the stack Theo carried.
“Did I just hear you talking about pre-lit trees?”
“I’ve never bought one,” Ashley told him, “but I can see the appeal.”
“Blasphemy,” Jordan said with a shake of his head. “It’s not Christmas if you don’t have to untangle knotted strings of lights. And fake trees. Blech. They smell like plastic.” He took a deep breath in. “Nothing smells as good as a freshly cut pine.”
Ashley laughed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Where’s it going, blue bird?”
“Right here!” Indigo ran to the front of the room. There was a big plate glass window that looked much like the window on the lower floor. “That way everyone outside can see how pretty it is.”
“Let me do some rearranging,” Jordan said, moving the couch that normally sat in front of the window. When he was finished organizing the furniture, he lifted the big tree, stand and all, and set it down several feet away from the glass. “We’ll need space to put the lights on,” he explained when Indigo tilted her head at him.
“Oh!” she exclaimed with a grin. “That makes sense.”
When the last of the decorations had been brought inside, the four of them sat at the large table usually reserved for Friday morning office meetings and filled their bellies with pizza and garlic knots.
When dinner was done, Jordan began layering the dense, fragrant limbs of the tree with lights, moving around in circles and adding several strings until the whole thing was covered.
“Are there any holes?” he asked, stepping back to survey his work. All of them studied the tree.
“Right there,” Theo said, stepping up to rearrange some of the branches.
“I think it looks pretty good from here,” Ashley offered.
“What do you think, Indie?”
“Good job, Jordan,” she praised him.
“Absolutely,” Theo agreed, wrapping her arm around Jordan’s waist. He pulled her in and gave her a kiss.
“Thanks,” he said, reaching down to put a big hand on top of Indigo’s head. “I’ll push it back and we can do ornaments.”
“I can’t believe all of these.”
Theo turned and saw Ashley looking into one of the many boxes they’d brought in.
“There are a lot of decorations, that’s for sure.”
“Do you remember all of them from year to year?”
“Well,” Theo said, pulling a smaller box out and setting it on the table. “I haven’t actually seen a lot of these things since I was a senior in high school. Glory is ninety-five years old, and some of these things were around before she was born.”
“That’s amazing.” Ashley pulled a large piece of fabric from a box. It was wrapped in plastic, and when she unfolded it, she realized it was a square quilt.
“We can hang that over there if you want,” Theo pointed to the wall on the other side of the room. “My great-grandmother made that. Her name was Josephine Pearl Fletcher before she got married. Glory is named after her.”
“Josephine Gloria Murphy.” Ashley looked over at Jordan.
“I don’t know much about Glory. I certainly didn’t know her name was Josephine. Very pretty.”
“She’s a great lady. Isn’t she, Indigo Blue?”
