This Christmas by Jane Green

as she perches on his knee with wide eyes and a shy smile. Maggie nods.
    “Isn’t she beautiful?”
    Maggie nods again.
    “And what did you think of Peter Pan?” Santa turns to Walker, perched on his other knee. “Did you see him fly?”
    Walker nods. His five-year-old confidence has completely disappeared in the face of the real-life Santa Claus.
    “But are you sure he’s the real one?” Walker had whispered earlier as they rounded a corner and saw a glimpse of Santa sitting behind a sparkly curtain.
    “Absolutely.” Sarah had nodded seriously. “There’s only one Santa and this is it.”
    “But what about the one at the grocery store?” Walker had said after a moment’s thought.
    Sarah had frowned. The one at the grocery store had been rubbish. A cheap polyester suit and a very fake beard. When they’d got up close Sarah had discovered that Santa at the grocery store also happened to be a cross-dresser, which was disappointing, to say the least.
    “Mom?” Walker had asked as they left. “Is Santa a lady?”
    “Not usually,” Sarah had said. “But that’s not the real Santa. That’s just someone pretending.”
    “Ho, Ho, Ho.” Santa—today’s more realistic Santa—beams. “So, Walker and Maggie, have you been good this year?”
    They nod.
    “I heard you had been. My elves told me you deserved really good gifts this year. What would you most like for Christmas?”
    In the silence that follows Sarah has a jolt of realization. Oh, God , she thinks. I know this is going to turn into a Lifetime movie. Please don’t say it , she prays. Please don’t say I want my daddy home .
    She holds her breath as Walker struggles to think of what he most wants before turning to Santa.
    “I want…” Another pause. “I want the really cool robots from the movie that really walk and talk and do stuff like this.” And he gives an impromptu demonstration, which seems to give Maggie the confidence she has been missing.
    “And I want a Barbie jeep,” Maggie announces.
    “And can I have a jeep as well?” Walker says. “But a cool army one, not a Barbie one because Barbie is for girls, but my sister can have a pink one.”
    “Ho, Ho, Ho,” Santa says. “You only get one gift for Christmas but I’ll see what I can do.”
    “Santa,” Walker pauses and looks at Santa seriously, “actually what I’d really like is a light saber.”
    “Okay,” Santa says. “Thanks for telling me.” And he looks at Sarah and winks. Sarah gathers up the children and whispers a thank you to Santa. “And thank God for good old American consumerism,” she mutters to herself on the way out.
     
    “I am acting like a teenager,” Sarah says to Caroline on the phone.
    “Not for the first time recently.” Caroline laughs. “Not that I’m going to be the one to remind you of how you blushed and ran away when Joe the sexy contractor made a pass at you.”
    “He did not make a pass at me.” Sarah groans. “And anyway, we’re not supposed to talk about that anymore.”
    “I know, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.”
    Joe hadn’t shown up again. He was not used to being rejected by the lonely housewives he so often worked for and ended up in bed with, and had not come back to finish the job. Sarah was part furious and part relieved. She was mortified at her behavior, relieved she hadn’t paid him, and even more relieved to find she had been put off completely by his overt advance and hadn’t spent any more time fantasizing about his six-pack stomach. Nope. She’d been put off entirely and now was simply irritated that she had to find someone else to finish the job.
    In the end it had been done by a handyman, and although the sheetrock wasn’t as smooth as it could have been, at least her kitchen didn’t resemble a construction site, and at least the handyman in question had been in his early sixties, and not the slightest bit interested in Sarah.
    “But I am regressing,” Sarah insists. “I can’t believe