There were murmured assents from behind the curtains, and Tory continued her instructions. “When the sleigh bells reach a peak, Santa and Mrs. Claus will enter stage right. Santa will give us one ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ and then go directly to his rocker. Once seated, Mrs. Claus will hand him his lap robe and retire to the table, where the Christmas gift bags will be arranged. Is everyone clear on that, so far?”

Again, there were assenting murmurs. Tory waited for a moment and then she called out, “Action!”

Once the curtains opened, Hannah turned to watch Lisa’s face in the reflected light from the stage. She looked extremely nervous, and her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were white.

“Relax. It’ll be fine,” Hannah whispered, even though she had no valid reason to think that it would be so. Then the sleigh bells began to ring, growing louder and louder, until Santa and Mrs. Claus walked out on the stage.

Hannah heard Lisa’s sharp exhalation of breath, and she realized that she had also given a gasp of shock. When she turned to look, Lisa was staring at the stage with an expression of disbelief. Hannah couldn’t blame her one bit. Phyllis was wearing a Mrs. Claus costume that was unlike anything Hannah had ever seen before in her life.

The red velvet bodice was so tight, Hannah wondered why she couldn’t see the bulge of the fasteners on Phyllis’s brassiere. Then she realized that perhaps Phyllis wasn’t wearing a brassiere, and she was even more shocked than she’d been before. The red velvet skirt of the costume was short. Very short. And with the display of unadorned skin with no protection from the winter elements, Mrs. Claus would have been flash frozen like a Popsicle in no time flat.

Santa Claus was wearing heavy winter boots. The height came just under his knees, and the boots matched the ones that had been depicted on countless Christmas cards. Mrs. Claus, on the other hand, was wearing fire-engine-red patent-leather, knee-high boots that perfectly matched the color of her red velvet costume. The heels on the boots were pencil thin, and Phyllis looked erotically alluring. She was a modern, very sexy Mrs. Claus, and no one would ever mistake her for the overweight, jolly, grey-haired Mrs. Claus that smiled continually and baked cookies for Santa’s elfin toy-makers.

Hannah turned to look at Lisa, who appeared every bit as scandalized as Hannah was. Phyllis Bates wasn’t playing Mrs. Claus. She was playing a Playboy bunny dressed up as a sexy, over-the-top Mrs. Claus.

Lisa gave an audible gasp as Mrs. Claus bent over to tuck in the lap robe around Santa’s knees. Hannah felt like groaning, too. It wasn’t her place to do it, but someone had better tell Phyllis never to bend over!