Happily Ever Christmas

~Prologue~

                                                                               Christmas Eve 1989

                                                                                  Thirty Years Ago

I fell asleep on the couch that night, as many other six-year-olds were doing all over the world.

It was Christmas Eve, after all, the one night a year aside from New Years' Eve that I was allowed to stay up.

It was just after midnight when something startled me awake.

This was my third year staying up waiting for Santa by the fireplace and I hadn't caught the sly old codger yet. I had high hopes that this year would be the one.

I had a serious request this year and it wasn't something that I could ask for in a letter. No, I'd already tried that and I had a sinking feeling that nothing was actually going to come of it.

This was something I needed to speak with the man himself about, in person. Then I was sure to get what I wished for most dearly in all the whole wide world.

Something jolted me awake and I sat up with a start, clutching my Snoopy blanket closer to me as I peered around the dim living room.

What had made that sound?!

The lights on our big fluffy tree were twinkling softly and the fire had burned low in the grate. Outside the windows, it was snowing steadily in our yard. New England usually enjoyed a bit of flurries, but it felt extra lucky that we had such a perfect white Christmas this year.

It was the fireplace that interested me, though.

I could hear something scuffling from inside the upper part of the chimney and a little bit of soot came trickling down every now and then.

Excited, I sat up straighter, holding my breath as my heart thundered away in my ears. It was really happening!

He was coming!

Right before my very eyes, more soot began to rain down from inside the chimney. I gasped as, in the next instance, a pair of big black boots hit the grate with a crunch.

Sparks flew out everywhere, littering the hearth.

Those big boots crushed the logs to embers before the man himself was ducking out of the fireplace.

He stomped his boots upon the rug a few times then set his big red pack down on the floor with a groan.

I was still sitting on the couch, gaping up at him.

He wasn't what I'd been expecting.

He was much too young, for one thing. He had no long white beard to speak of; his beard was short and black and so was his hair.

This was no fat, short, ruddy faced man, either. He was tall and tan like he lived somewhere sunny or something, not a North Pole resident. He had the outfit right; a red coat and the big black boots, of course, but he was missing his hat and white gloves.

I sighed in deep, dejected disappointment.

"Oh. You're not Santa Claus." I said gloomily.

The man was rooting around in his bag and he looked up at me sharply.