On this early December day, snowflakes sparkled down to earth like granted wishes from a magic wand.

Inside the handsome lounge of The Haven, Yule logs blazed cheerfully in the fireplace, while Presley, Sinatra, and Springsteen sang Christmas carols. Near the long casement windows, five women were looping lights around a Norway spruce so tall they had to use a ladder to reach the highest branches.

"Okay, that's the end of the last string," Marilyn called from behind the fat tree.

"Plug them in," Shirley told her.

Marilyn knelt to fit the plug into the socket.

"Oooooooh!" Shirley, Faye, Alice, Marilyn, and Polly sighed with delight as dozens and dozens of multicolored miniature lights twinkled to life.

"Now," Shirley announced, "for the fun part. How shall we do this?" Shirley was the director of The Haven, but the four other women were her best friends, practically her family, and she wanted to please everyone.

"I think we should all hang the ornaments we brought where we want," Polly suggested.

"But keep in mind," Faye added, "it will look better if the heaviest, biggest ornaments go on the bottom boughs, with the smaller ones on the higher branches." She was an artist, with an artist's eye.

"Yes, but we don't want it to look too perfect," Alice insisted. "We want it to look real."

"Good point, Alice," Shirley agreed. "Perfection, as we all know, isn't real."

"Sometimes it is," Marilyn disagreed, in her thoughtful, vague way. "The horseshoe crab, genus Limulus, for example, is perfect. Its design hasn't changed since the Triassic period, that's two hundred forty-five million years."

"Lovely," Faye said gently, amused. "Still, we really don't want to hang a horseshoe crab on the Christmas tree."

"I suppose not. Although one year we did." Marilyn smiled at the memory. She was a paleobiologist--the others teasingly called her a pale old biologist--and her grown son and her ex-husband were molecular geneticists. "Teddy was nine, and fascinated with crustaceans and fossils, so we bored holes in lots of shells, slipped colored cords through, and hung the tree with crabs, mollusks, and gastropods."

Alice snorted with laughter. "You are so weird!"

"Oh, I don't know," Polly chimed in. "David told me that he and Amy are hanging only homemade decorations on their tree. And my daughter-in-law is such a purist, she'll use only vegetable dyes, natural wood, straw, and such. Afterwards, they'll probably carry the tree outside and feed the entire thing to the goat."

The others laughed. As they talked, they moved back and forth from the tables and couches where the boxes of decorations were set out. Occasionally Shirley dropped another log on the fire.

The spacious room, with its casement windows, high ceilings, and mahogany paneling, seemed to glow with contentment. Once built to house a private boarding school, this old stone lodge had been abandoned for a few years. Then Shirley, with the help of her friends and a few investors, had bought it and opened The Haven, a premier spa and wellness resort with a burgeoning membership and second-floor condos for staff or friends.

She had staff (she had staff! Shirley, who had struggled financially most of her life, got a thrill every time she remembered that). But she hadn't wanted her staff to decorate the Christmas tree, and neither had her friends. They'd wanted to do this together. They'd agreed to bring three boxes of decorations each, and they'd agreed to do it without advance discussion or collaboration, so...

 

"Frank and entertaining."

 

"Warm, lively, wise, and as much fun as a girl's night out."

 

"Nancy Thayer's gift for reaching the emotional core of her characters [is] captivating."

 

"Thayer has the knack of creating likable characters who grapple with problems that will strike a chord with many readers."

 

"Thayer's writing often reminds me of Elizabeth Berg, Jeanne Ray, and Anne Tyler."

 

Hot Flash Holidays by Nancy Thayer
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