Christmas Wonder (RotG)

Chapter 5

One and a half dragons. That was all you had finished so far out of 300. And only the sewing part. You hadn't put in the stuffing and sealed the plushie, or wrapped it. You'd never stuffed a plushie before, so there would be a learning curve. You'd wrapped presents before, but you were pretty bad at that, too.

After work that day, you were tired, and your hands still hurt, so you didn't get started cooking supper until it was an hour and a half before Santa would show up. Once you'd finally regained some energy, you got out your ingredients: pasta, butter, oregano, a few other spices, olive oil, spagh—where was the spaghetti sauce?

You raided your stained fridge, your dented cabinets, your drawers, and—nothing. Groaning, you searched around the kitchen for enough ingredients to make something else, but tomorrow was the day you usually went grocery shopping, so you didn't have much. You considered just eating snacks for supper, but you'd eaten snacks the whole time you were at Santa's workshop, so you knew you needed to eat something healthier.

You'd have to go to the store to buy some spaghetti sauce. And quickly.

Flying out the door, you locked it behind yourself and sped toward your car, then headed straight to Walmart.

When you arrived, you hurried past the Salvation Army bell ringers and wove between other customers straight to the pasta aisle. Your eyes scanned the racks, but you couldn't find your usual brand. Other people stood in the way, though, so you couldn't see all the sauces. Come on. You waited with fidgeting fingers for other customers to move so you could see the sauces. When they did, though, you still couldn't find your regular sauce. Crap.

You spent a little too long trying to figure out which sauce was the closest to your usual flavor and brand and headed to the self-checkout lines.

Which were blocked off, marked with yellow chains and bright red "CLOSED FOR REPAIRS" signs. Come on! What kind of luck is this? You looked at the normal checkout lines. They were so long, they curved to the side.

You joined the line that looked like it would get you to the front the quickest. Its people didn't have many items in their carts. But they didn't move as quickly as you would've liked.

Come on. Come on. Come on.

There was only one person in front of you now. Well, two people. A woman with a falling-apart graying bun, and a little boy with three Bluey bandages on his arm. The woman put three things on the conveyor belt—a box of pasta, a sleeve of bread, and some cheese crackers.

You checked your watch. You only had an hour left before Santa came, and cooking always took a while because you sucked at it.

The cashier, a pinkish man, rang up the groceries and put them into a plastic bag. "Your total is $5.84."

The woman's eyes teared up, but she immediately inserted her credit card into the reader. She and you waited for several painful seconds before the cashier said, "Your credit card was denied."

The woman burst into tears. The little boy looked up at his mother, frowning and grabbing her hand.

"I'll pay for it," you said, holding up your small wallet. Six dollars wasn't very much.

The woman turned to you, smiling through the tears. "Really? Thank you so much! You don't know how much this means to me!"

"It's fine," you said as you slid your own credit card into the reader. Your chest warmed a little.

You had barely finished dinner and gathering snacks when Santa showed up, knocking on your door again. You rubbed your eyes and sighed. There had to be a way to get your Christmas wonder back. There had to be a way to tap into your childhood, and spark it back to life.