ISAAC MACALLISTER'S life revolves around building his business and doing his best to give his daughter Sara a strong sense of family. Over the years he's had to learn how to keep their little family together on his own, but this Christmas Isaac is g...
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Jenna Murphy had one goal for this holiday season: to enjoy ten days of a completely Christmas-free existence. No busy malls, no Christmas carols on an endless loop, no product reviews to write, and no month-long calorie fest of taste-testing new recipes.
Just pure, unadulterated wilderness.
She'd found the place online. The website wasn't great, but so far the Vancouver Island scenery was living up to the promise of the few photos that she'd been able to view. There were trees everywhere, drooping with the weight of the snow. Every now and then a branch would let go of its load with a quiet plop, then bounce back up in relief.
Jenna knew just how that branch felt. It had been a heck of a year, and she was ready to shed her load and move on. Jenna trudged through the snow, the crunch, crunch, crunch of her footsteps comforting in the stillness.
She headed towards the cabin marked #3. It was going to be her home for the next ten days, while she basked in the freedom to do absolutely nothing but read the bag full of books she'd brought and soak in the hot tub promised on the website.
She had until the first of January to be out of her apartment, and she'd put all of her stuff in storage already. She wanted this time to be free of obligations and deadlines of any kind. After five years of never-ending hard work, she'd earned herself a vacation.
A Christmas-free vacation.
Jenna stomped the snow off her boots at the door, put the key in the lock, and turned.
When the door opened, she couldn't believe her eyes.
*
It was like Santa's workshop had exploded in the cabin. There were garlands, paper chains, even a giant tree in the corner. Jenna shuddered. It was her worst nightmare come to life.
After being fully immersed in Christmas for the past 1,825 days—not that she was counting—she was so done with the holiday. She had declared the next ten days Christmas-free so she could work out what her future might look like without her blog as the central project of her life. Without Christmas being the focus of every single day of the year.
Jenna could feel herself start to panic at this very direct threat to her un-holiday mission. Instant action was required. She dropped her bag in the middle of the floor and took down everything she could get her hands on, as fast as she possibly could.
When she had a giant pile of red and silver and green in the middle of the floor, she went hunting for somewhere to put it. She didn't want to be tripping over stuff the entire time she was here. She found a closet upstairs in the bedroom. It took a few trips, but she crammed in all the decorations, and then shut the door tight.
*
The view from the balcony hot tub was absolutely amazing. Jenna thought again it was a pity the website didn't do the place justice. Soaring above the tree line was a snow-capped mountain peak, visible—for the moment, anyway—through a break in the cloud cover. There was even a convenient little ledge at the side of the hot tub that held the thermos of warm cocoa she had been sipping away on since she got in.
