Real Santa Chapter 36 (18 days until XMAS)

SNOW WAS FALLING hard now and blanketed the countryside

like the white wool of a Christmas tree skirt. George stared at the

chimney of white frost. Sven and Yergen waved to him with their

rappelling ropes, hanging off both sides of the chimney like they were

standing on the ground. That he was going to go down a chimney

seemed unbelievable to George, and he blamed it squarely on Francis

Pharcellus Church.

Church was the correspondent who had written back to Virginia

O’Hanlon in 1897 and said there really was a Santa Claus. The

editorial he wrote was on Megan’s wall, and they read it together

every year. George had read it alone this year and wondered what

made a man write such a letter. He had researched Francis Pharcellus

Church and found out he was a Civil War correspondent who had

seen humans at their absolute worse. He had taken that damaged

faith in man and given another view of the world. He had pointed

out that the joy of the world is mostly unseen. His was an extremely

religious age which would soon give away to the modernism of the

twentieth century. But this war-weary man gave a spiritual platform

to the Dutch legend of Sinterklaas brought over in the seventeenth

century and Americanized by Clement Moore’s poem ’Twas the

Night Before Christmas, where reindeer were added and the method

of entry became the chimney.

George could feel Church’s pain as he wrote, “Yes, Virginia, there

is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and devotion exist, and

you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and

joy.” He could see the man in his study by gaslight, with his fountain

pen, giving meaning to a world gone mad. “Virginia, your little friends

are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical

age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing

can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds,

Virginia, whether they be men or children, are little.”

And there was the rub. This is what gave George courage to go

the distance and put his marriage and his financial health on the

line. This man who had seen the absolute worst of human beings had

been able to summon up a belief there was something better in the

universe. And George knew his pain. He had felt the pain when he

lost his son and daughter to the carnage of his first marriage.

And as he sat facing a ramp to a roof behind nine reindeer being

slowly covered with snow, he thought about what Church had wrote:

“There would be not childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to

make tolerable this existence.” That is what he failed to give Jeremy and

Jamie—the childlike faith and poetry every parent should give their

children. He had snatched away their childhood under the guise of

making a buck, and he would not commit this carnage twice. Megan

would have a childhood, and if he fell off the chimney or the roof,

then it was worth the risk.

What had Church said in the end of his editorial, a man who had

seen the hell of our bloodiest war. ”You may tear apart the baby’s rattle

and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the

unseen world which not the strongest man that ever lived could tear

apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that

veil and view and picture that supernal beauty and glory beyond …”

George looked at the monitor showing his sleeping daughter. It

was fifteen minutes to midnight, and he was about to push that veil

aside for her. He only wished Jeremy and Jamie were here. He would

love to push that veil aside for them too.
MOVIE RIGHTS SOLD TO MODERN FAMILY
REAL SANTA HOLIDAY SALE

Chapter 14 REal santa ( A chapter a day until Christmas)

 

 

  EVERY TWELFTH MONTH he came to her classroom and

raised hell. The big man with the white beard and ridiculous suit

interrupted Mrs. Worthington’s carefully planned schedule with his

 HO HO HOs and MERRY CHRISTMAS! He threw the class into a


tizzy with his promise of gifts and goodies, and the children couldn’t

concentrate on anything except Christmas and Santa, Santa, Santa!


By the end, Mrs. Worthington felt like the Grinch in the famous Dr.

Seuss story, holding her head, screaming out in agony, finally, Oh the


noise, the noise, the noise!
And now that maniac Kronenfeldt, who Mrs. Worthington seriously

believed had several screws loose …now his daughter had

brought the class to a screeching halt with all the kids laughing. Mrs.

Worthington wanted to help her, but what Megan had just promised

to the class was a bomb waiting to go off. And it had started out so

well.

They had been moving along nicely all morning, slipping into

science. It was when they were talking about the giant iceberg that

had broken off from Iceland that Megan raised her hand and brought

the class to a halt.

“But Mrs.Worthington, you said the climate was too inhospitable

for Santa. If global warming is heating up the poles and the ice is

melting, wouldn’t that be better for Santa and the elves?”

The class had turned as one to Mrs. Worthington.

“Well, global warming is a theory, Megan,” she began, judiciously,

“the way Santa is a theory.’’

The kids broke into campfires of chatter.

“Children! Children! Please!”

“But Mrs. Worthington , you said it was too inhospitable for

Santa and his elves, and now it’s warming up. Wouldn’t that make it

a more viable climate?”

Megan sat with her hands clasped. And there was that hope in her

eyes. Mrs. Worthington knew she should just give Megan the bone

and move on, but Megan’s psycho father telling her not to mess with

 

Santa had really racked her off. Why shouldn’t she debunk Santa? The

myth antagonized her every year and ruined the last weeks of her

year. Why shouldn’t she poke a few holes in the old guy’s red suit?

“Megan, as I said before, the North Pole is a hostile climate. Think

about it. Let’s keep science in mind, children. Santa Claus would need

very expensive equipment to survive in those conditions, and global

warming is a theory that some people believe and others don’t.”

“My father said it’s big business ruining the planet, and that only

morons don’t believe in global warming.”

The class turned as if at a tennis match, and it was Mrs. Worthington’s

serve. She smiled icily.

“Your father is wrong, Megan. Global warming has not been

 

proven, and there are natural cycles the earth goes through that could

explain the melting of the icebergs.”

Megan frowned. “Then if it has warmed up, maybe Santa had a

chance to build a factory to build the toys.”

Mrs. Worthington rubbed her brow.

“Santa Claus has nothing to do with our discussion, Megan! Santa

Claus is a myth! Myths cannot be proven! They are generally not true,

and I don’t want any of your parents coming in here and saying that

I said there wasn’t a Santa Claus! The idea of Santa Claus is a myth,

children and, at best, a theory … like global warming.”

The children stared at the teacher breathing hard. Mrs. Worthington

had hoped they could return to the subject at hand, but the

silence, the round eyes, the quivering lips, told her the jolly man in

the suit was coming for his due.

“Well, I am going to prove there is a Santa once and for all. My

father is going to let me use his video camera and stay up all night

and videotape Santa, and then I’ll put it on YouTube and bring it to

class, and I can prove to the world there really is a Santa Claus!”

The class erupted into a riot with voices on top of each other.

This was the equivalent of splitting the atom for children. They said

it could be done, but no one had ever seen an atom or Santa. Proof

was what Megan Kronenfeldt was offering.

“Children. Quiet! Please!””

The voices came down, and Mrs. Worthington stared at the child

in the middle row. “Your father approved of this plan, Megan?”

“Yes. He’s going to let me use the video camera.”

The man had rocks for brains. What parent would set themselves

up for something like this? Already there were snickers around the

room.

“You’re lying. Your parents won’t let you do that,” Johnny Brandis

said from the front row, turning his head toward the back to face

Megan.

The other kids began to nod knowingly.

“Johnny that will be enough!”

“All you’re going to see are your parents putting the presents

under the tree,” Jackie Spagelli scoffed.

The cat was out of the bag. The room broke down into factions of

those who believed it was parents and those who didn’t. At the center

was Megan Kronenfeldt, who everyone had decided was telling a lie.

“Children, I have had enough of this!”

And that’s where they had come to. Megan’s eyes had welled up,

and she was staring at the top of her desk. Mrs. Worthington was

never very good in these moments. Other teachers could handle

children crying. She had never been able to cry as a child with her

father, and she had to resist telling kids to buck up.

“Megan, we believe you,” Mrs. Worthington said, glaring at the

other children, daring anyone to snicker.

Megan shook her head and wiped her eyes. “No, you don’t.” She

lifted her head and turned and faced the class. “I’m going to prove to

all of you that there is a Santa Claus,” she declared. “My dad says there

is one, and I’m going to bring you the proof. I’m going to videotape

Santa and prove it to the world!” 
Mrs. Worthington popped the two aspirin by her desk, drinking

the dry capsules down with water. She looked at Megan Kronenfeldt,

staring defiantly at the class.

“Oh, shit,” Mrs. Worthington said.

Order Real Santa  
   

Chapter 7 Real Santa (A Chapter a Day Until XMAS)

GEORGE GRUNTED AND picked at his beard, tapping on his

computer, his calculator, scribbling notes to himself, balling up the

paper, and littering the floor with snowballs. He ate Hershey’s Kisses

as he worked. He had started with the glass bowl, then he just

grabbed the bag from the pantry. Snow blew outside the kitchen

window, showing a man under a yellow light with a grey beard and

spectacles low on his nose. Some would say he looked like Santa

Claus doing his taxes.

George sat back in his chair and stared at the screen of his laptop.

He chewed the inside of his mouth. It might all work without too

much alteration, depending on where the roof joists were reinforced.

He could get up in the attic and check on that. The load-bearing wall

should handle the weight, which he put at about three thousand

pounds, give or take a little. Now of course—

“George?”

He turned and looked at his wife, clutching her robe. “Oh, hi.”

Mary frowned.

“What are you doing up? It’s nearly four in the morning.”

“Is it?” George looked at his watch. “I guess time got away from

me.”

His wife walked up and stared at the paper all over the table.

“What are you working on?”

George paused. Mary was already fingering his drawings, trying

to understand the pictures of reindeer and sleds next to calculations

of payload and stress, with the blueprints of the house showing joist

locations, the exact run of the roof, the pitch—the critical data for a

man trying to place nine reindeer and a sled.

Mary picked up one of the drawings, her eyes bunching. “What

are you doing, George?”

He breathed heavily and set his pencil down. “Megan doesn’t

believe in Santa unless she can see proof that he exists.”

“Okay.”

“She is going to stay up all night to videotape him when he comes.

If he doesn’t come, then she’ll know he isn’t for real.”

Mary waved him away. “Kids say things like that all the time.”

He paused. “I lied to you when I told you how Jeremy found out

there wasn’t a Santa. I told you it was my wife who told him, but it

wasn’t. He came to me and asked me how Santa Claus could do it.

He asked how Santa could deliver all those presents in one night to

kids all over the world. And I said, let’s figure it out.”

Mary nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“So I took out my calculator and started figuring out miles per

hour and payload, and basically I came up with a sled weighing three

hundred and fifty-three thousand tons, traveling at six hundred and

fifty miles per second, creates an enormous amount of air resistance

in the form of friction. So I explained that with this heat, the reindeer

will be much the same as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.

The lead reindeer would have to absorb fourteen quintillion

joules of energy. Per second. Each!”

Mary shook her head. “George, you’re losing me.”

He breathed heavy, shaking his head.

“Then I told my son that in short, the first pair of flying reindeer

would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the next

pair of flying reindeer. This would create a deafening sonic boom in

their wake, and the entire reindeer team would be vaporized in less

than five seconds. Santa meanwhile would be subjected to g-forces

equivalent to seventeen thousand times greater than the force

of earth’s gravity. A two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Santa would be

pinned to the back of the sled by more than four million pounds of

force and would spontaneously combust. In short, he would be fried

beyond all recognition.”

Mary stared at him. “You told your son that?”

George nodded. “He was nine.”

“Oh, George!”

“I know. I thought in the name of science and deductive reasoning

it was better to work it out with him.” He looked at Mary. “You know

what’s worse? I almost did it again with Megan.”

Mary stared down for a moment.

“I’m sure Jeremy didn’t follow all those calculations.”

“No, but he remembered that I told him that Santa would spontaneously

combust. It was horrible. He has held that against me ever

since.” George nodded to the table. “I’m fifty years old. I probably just

destroyed my career, and I have two kids who hate me and one who

still believes in me.”

“They don’t hate you.”

“Oh, yes they do,” he replied, nodding. “I don’t blame them. I

was always working when they were growing up. I was always lost

in my own world.”

Mary took his hand. “You were a good father.”

“That’s not what they would say. Anyway, I determined I wasn’t

going to let the same thing happen to Megan. I want her to have

dreams. I want her to have a great childhood. I want her to believe

in Santa until she’s ready to give it up. I don’t want the world to take

it from her. Not yet.”

Mary stared at her husband. “So what are you saying?”

George looked at his computer and the pages of calculations. “I’m

saying I’m going to be the Real Santa. She said she wants to see Santa

land on the roof, go up the chimney and down it, deliver the presents,

and go back up the chimney and fly away on his sled. That’s what

she wants to see, and I’m going to make sure she sees a real Santa.”

Mary didn’t move. She stared at the man with his arms crossed.

“But how will you do that?”

“Well, I’ve worked out a lot of it. I was thinking Dean could help

me with the special effects. Obviously, the only real way to pull it off

would be a relativity cloud, but since we don’t have the technology

to produce that, I will have to settle for smoke and mirrors.”

George spun around his laptop. “I initially thought getting the

reindeer on the roof would be the hardest part. But it really is just a

matter of preparation. I’ll have a ramp built here. The reindeer can

be herded up onto the roof and put into line. Fortunately the pitch of

the roof is so slight the reindeer will be able to stand. It is a question

of how much the roof can take. I’m thinking three thousand pounds

at a minimum with the sled and payload. Obviously the sled will have

to be custom, and I’m thinking it will run on rails much the same

way a train does and—”

“George!”

He looked at his wife, who was now standing.

“Tell me you aren’t really thinking of being the Real Santa!”

He shrugged. “Who else? There will be a certain amount of risk,

and I couldn’t ask anyone else to do it. Scaling a chimney in the middle

of the night could be considered hazardous work by some, but with

proper precautions, I think the risk will be minimal.”

Mary felt her face growing warm. “You are kidding.”

“No.” George picked at his beard. “No. I’m going to do this. I want

to keep my little girl’s dreams intact, and this is the only way. For one

night I will be the Real Santa, and Megan will be able to videotape it,

and if she puts it out on the net, who knows, maybe other kids who

have doubts will see it.”

“But kids just stop believing, George … it’s inevitable.”

He looked at up at his wife.

“I’ve been an engineer who has built bridges and screwed up his

family. That’s all I can say for my life so far. Here is my chance to do

something good. I want to do something I can believe in, Mary. I

want to do this for Megan. I don’t want her to be knocked down by

the Mrs. Worthingtons of the world.”

His wife sat back down at the table.

“But … won’t this be expensive?”

George shifted in his chair.

“There will be costs. But it shouldn’t be too bad. Basically I’m

going to rent some reindeer for a night and hopefully a sled, and then

I’m going to put them on the roof and go up the chimney and down

it. There will be alterations to the chimney and ramps will have to

be built to get the reindeer up and down, but after that I don’t see a

lot of costs.” 

Mary looked at her husband.

“There are only eleven days to Christmas.”

He nodded grimly and looked at her. “I need to talk to Dean for

the technical problems. Can you call him for me?”

Mary sat quiet at the table. She remembered the night she walked

home from the library and saw an old woman walking alone with

a cane. At that moment, Mary had seen herself, and she wondered

what would she have to show for her life. She had registered on three

dating sites the next day and ended up marrying into a family of eccentric

Swiss men who engineered cannons for armies and bridges

spanning rivers all over the world.

She looked at her husband and nodded.

“I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Real Santa...Starred Review Booklist

The author marries the everyday dramas found in the novels of Tom Perrotta and Nick Hornby to the high camp of Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry. Adults looking for a funny holiday-themed tale that doesn't lose its sense of wonder in the face of realism will find a treat here. A lovingly crafted comedy about the madness that fatherhood inspires."
                                                                                              Kirkus Reviews


Best-selling author Hazelgrove (e.g., Ripples; Tobacco Sticks) captures the human need to believe in something good.  This book will satisfy readers looking for a happy Christmas story.-- Library Journal


"Hazelgrove's lively improbable narrative will appeal to the readers in the mood for holiday fiction."
                                                                                              Publishers Weekly


   

Real Santa Chapter 2 (A Chapter a Day Until Christmas)

                                                       2

 

 

                                               The Gift

 

 

 MEGAN’S FATHER STARED at the man behind the glass desk.

“What are you saying, Mike?”

Mike Soros leaned toward his laptop, an antique sextant, a cell

phone, a modular sleek office phone, and the picture of his three kids

and trophy wife. He flashed a smile of bleached teeth. “What Jim

and I are saying is that maybe we would all be better off if a change

occurred.”

“A change?”

Mike clasped his hands. “We have been friends a long time,

George. We go way back. We sailed together. We have had dinner

parties together—your kids my kids, your wife, my wife.”

“We established we are friends, Mike. Get to the point.”

Mike smiled. George should have known something was brewing

when both partners came in wearing suits. Mike’s suit looked like

something James Bond would wear, while Jim sported the used-car

variety, complete with epaulets of dust on the shoulders. Suits meant

they were either pitching a client or someone was getting canned.

“I’m just not sure the fit has been there between you and S& G.”

“What? My work hasn’t been up to your standards?”

Mike chuckled and looked at Jim. “Nobody is questioning your

work, George … it’s more, well, your approach. S&G is going through

a lot of changes in these lean times, and we really now have to be a

lean, mean cyber-fighting machine.’’

George saw Clive Randall look in through the glass wall. The

whole damn office was glass conference rooms. Clive and George

locked eyes. Clive’s twenty-nine-year-old blushing expression told

him all he wanted to know. His hire had raised suspicions. Why hire

someone when business was in the toilet, unless of course someone

was getting fired?

“I can sue you, Mike.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You obviously hired that little shit Clive to take my spot, and it

is a clear case of age discrimination.”

Jim and Mike exchanged glances, then Mike smiled.

“We are the same age, buddy!”

“No, I’m fifty. You are forty-nine. ”

Mike laughed. “C’mon, big fella. This is not about age. Hell, you

are a young man!”

George saw himself in the glass, a man with a bushy grey beard

and thinning grey hair in a checkered shirt and khakis. He didn’t feel

like a young man. He felt like an old man getting his ass handed to him.

“If you fire me, then I will sue.”

Mike leaned back with his hands clasped. “Well, there have been

some issues with your work.”

“Name it.”

“The bike bridge over Breckham Road.”

George shifted. “Alright. What about it?”

Mike dropped the Byronic pose and came forward. “What about

it? What about the million-dollar price tag? What about the railroad

bridge you built that had the mayor calling and asking what the hell

we were doing putting a railroad bridge through the middle of town?”

“I did it to specs, anticipating stressors for the next one hundred

years. There could well be railroad traffic one day going across that

bridge.”

“It was supposed to be a bicycle path, not a bridge over the Erie

Canal!”

George smoothed his beard. “I designed the bridge with a single

span so—”

“That girder looks hideous, George! Do you know other firms

come and look at that thing and laugh their ass off?”

 

“No.”

Mike looked down and breathed heavily. “Look. I didn’t want

it to come to this, but you just don’t play ball. You fight us on every

design. You think you know better, and maybe you do, but I need a

team that can play ball together. You are a one-man show, George.

You probably should have your own firm again.”

“I did that once before. I don’t have that kind of capital.”

“Then I am sure you will find a position very quickly.”

George snorted. “Give me a break. We are in a depression, Mike!”

His employer shook his head. “There you go again. This is a recession

that is ending. But you call it a depression. Maybe you are in

a depression, did you ever think of that?”

“No.”

“The point is, you just have to contradict everyone, George.”

“That’s not true.”

“Really? Then why aren’t you working on the bridge over the

Crimson River anymore?”

“Because Frank Gifford doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the

ground when it comes to design,” George muttered.

Mike laughed again, shaking his head. “You see. You are your

own worst enemy! Frank offered to leave the project, but I said no

way, because I know he will get it done while you sit there and fight

over some design flaw that only matters to you.”

Jim cleared his throat. “All we are saying is that we think you

would be happier somewhere else. Our image is changing, and I don’t

think you are going to … well, change with us. You are the old-time

engineer, and that is good, but we need a different image now.”

He turned and looked at the older heavyset man.

“An image?”

Jim rolled his shoulders. “Yes, we are becoming, like Mike said, a

lean, mean cyber-fighting machine.”

George held up his phone. “I have a BlackBerry.”

Mike stared at him.

“Do you remember when we went sailing?” Mike asked.

“Of course.”

“And do you remember we were up in the harbor and we had to

pull the boat out?” 

George felt his skin warming. “Yes. Get to the point.”

“And the man who owned that forty-five-foot sailboat said the

wind is so strong that you have to really give it a lot of power or you

will be blown back into the dock?”

“And?”

“And you said, ‘No.’ You said that the wind would pull the boat

forward and you didn’t think giving it a lot of power was a good idea.”

George cleared his throat. “What is your point, Mike?”

His boss leaned over his desk. “My point is that wasn’t your boat.

We were renting the man’s boat for a day, and he told you how to get

out of the dock and you wouldn’t listen to the owner. You had to do

it your way and what happened then?”

George frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“What happened when you tried to take the boat out of the harbor?”

George paused, feeling his pants bunching up his crack. “The

boat hit the dock,” he murmured.

“And what happened?”

“It wasn’t my fault that bumper wheel didn’t hold,” he protested.

“What happened, George?”

He looked down at the glass desk, pulling on his beard.

“Tore a gash in the side of the boat.”

Mike held up his hand.

“You see. We own this firm, Jim and I. We are the owners of this

boat, and we can’t afford you to tear a gash in the side of our boat.”

George stared at him.

“So what … you are firing me twelve days before Christmas?”

Mike dipped his head, opening his hands. “I would look at it like

a gift. You get to spend more time with your family over the holidays,

and you can hit the ground running in the New Year. I envy you really.

We’ll be slaving away right up to Christmas Eve, and you’ll get some

quality time with your family.”

George stared at the owner of S&G Engineering.

“Oh, really, Mike? Then why don’t you go home for the holidays,

and I’ll stay here and work.”

Mike smiled tightly. “Because I’m the owner.”

“No, really, Mike. If I’m so lucky, I’ll stay here and you and Jim

can go home and be Mr. Mom. Go ahead. I’ll cover you.”
 

Mike paused, two pink blushes on his cheek.

“You know, I did you a favor by hiring you, George. I knew your

history. I knew you had bounced around from firm to firm for this very

reason. But I was willing to take a chance because we were friends.”

“You were a man short, and you got me for a song,” George scoffed.

Mike rolled his shoulders. “If that’s the way you want to see it.”

“That’s the way it was, Mike.”

Mike made a sound through his teeth.

“This is probably why you and Cynthia didn’t make it. You just

can’t get along with people.”

“She ran off with her high school boyfriend after she connected

on Facebook,” George replied dully. “It had nothing to do with me.”

“But why was she interested in a high school boyfriend?”

“Recyclables.”

“What?”

“Recyclables. She said I didn’t clean the recyclables enough before

I put them in the container.”

“And you think that’s why she left you?”

George shrugged again. “It became an issue. She started leaving

them on the front steps when I came home from work.”

Mike snorted. “I don’t think that is why she left you.”

“You seem to have all the answers, Mike. Why don’t you ask her?”

“And your relationship with your kids is not so great either.”

“As if it’s any of your business, but Megan and I are fine.”

“I meant your other kids.”

George shrugged. “Jeremy and Jamie are adults now.”

Mike laughed lightly. “Right. Well, listen. We are willing to be

fair. I’ll give you a month’s severance.”

“Woof woof.”

Mike stared at him. “I’m sorry …”

George put out his tongue, panting quickly.

“Woof woof.”

“I’m sorry. Are you barking at me?”

“Dogs always bark when you throw them a bone, Mike.”

Mike shook his head, throwing up his hands. “Fine. You get a

month’s severance. We’d like you to have your desk cleaned out by

the end of the day.”

George panted again with his big tongue toward Mike.

“Woof woof.”

Mike stood up and nodded coldly. “I think this meeting is at an

end.”

George turned around, grabbing the arms of the shiny chair. He

pushed up his rear to Mike and howled, “ARROOOOOOOH!”

“What are you doing?”

George stuck his rear up higher and wiggled it around.

 

“ARRRRRRRRROOOOH!”

“STOP IT!”

The entire office had stopped to watch an engineer shaking his

ass in the air. George raised his head and howled again.

Mike turned bright red and pointed to the door.

“GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!”

George shook his ass again.

 

“ARRRRRRROOOOOH!”

 

 

Order Real Santa

 

"If someone doesn't make a movie out of this book, there is something wrong with the world."

   Starred Review Booklist

"The author marries the everyday dramas found in the novels of Tom Perrotta and Nick Hornby to the high camp of Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry.It's not as frenetic as Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel or as maudlin as all those holiday staples (read: A Christmas Story), but adults looking for a funny holiday-themed tale that doesn't lose its sense of wonder in the face of realism will find a treat here. A lovingly crafted comedy about the madness that fatherhood inspires."
                                                                                              Kirkus Reviews

"Hazelgrove's lively improbable narrative will appeal to the readers in the mood for holiday fiction."
                                                                                              Publishers Weekly

"Charming...Hazelgrove has real compassion for his characters." Chicago Tribune