Happily Ever Christmas

~One~

                                                                        Christmas Eve

                                                                     Thirty Years Later

"Mom, do you think Santa likes M&Ms in his cookies?"

I smiled down at my six-year-old daughter as I helped her make Christmas cookies. My four-year-old son, Bradley, was a little less interested in baking cookies so much as he was eating the raw cookie dough.

"Well, Santa's favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin." I told my daughter, Olivia.

My husband, Peter, laughed from across the room as he sat at the kitchen table, on his laptop as usual. "Is it now?"

I shot him a playful expression. "Yes. As a matter of fact, it is. But these will do just fine, honey, Santa likes all kinds of cookies, as long as they're baked with love."

Olivia wrinkled her nose as she pondered this and added more M&Ms, just for good measure. "Even gluten-free cookies like what Aunt Becky always brings?"

I glanced at Peter again with a smirk; Becky was his sister.

My mind flickered back to the night when I had seen the man in red himself and I snorted with amusement.

Not that he really existed, of course. I had convinced myself, over the years, that Santa Claus was not real. He had just been a figment of my wild childhood imagination.

I'd had no choice but to convince myself that I had dreamt it all up.

Olivia already knew, I could tell, but she still played along for the sake of her little brother, whose toddler's heart would just be broken if he knew the bitter truth.

There was no Tooth Fairy, there was no Santa Claus, no gnomes in the forest; no magic at all.

"So what was Santa like?" Peter teased me now, getting up to come over and freshen his coffee cup. "And how do you know what his favorite kind of cookies are again?"

"'Cause he told me." I smiled down at my daughter, smoothing my hand down the back of her head of brunette hair, which was liberally streaked with gold.

*~*~*~*

That night, after we had convinced our two hyped-up kids to go to bed, after we had slipped all the extra special presents under the tree, and were snuggled in bed together, Peter asked me the same question again.

"So what was Santa like, hmmm?" He nuzzled my neck, making me squirm and laugh.

"Well, he was kinda hot."

"Oh?"

We both laughed and he made a few more lascivious comments; references to stuffing my chimney and the like, and I swatted him away.

"Stop it, you're disgusting!"

"I'll be your Secret Santa!" He leered at me, pawing at my flannel pajamas.

"Why the sudden fascination with Santa Claus anyway?" I questioned. "You know it's kind of a touchy subject for me."

"Oh, come on. That was a long time ago, babe. You gotta let it go."