I look over the top of the sleigh at him but he just stands there breathing in the steam from the hot tea without looking up. Building a sleigh from scratch is not nothing.

‘How did you know these were my favourite biscuits?’ He opens the packet of biscuits and stuffs a whole one into his mouth.

I roll my eyes at his determination to never take a compliment. ‘They’re chocolate digestives – they’re everyone’s favourite biscuit.’

Gizmo is sitting in the sleigh with his nose twitching in the direction of said biscuits, so I reach over and rub his ears again and he turns into my hand. ‘What are you two doing out here at this time of night when I know how early your start is?’

He checks his watch like he’s got no idea what the time is. ‘Well, it was much earlier when I started, and I’ve just carried on.’

I watch the way he’s mainlining chocolate digestives like they’re going out of fashion. ‘Have you had anything to eat or drink?’

‘No, that’s why I love you.’ Panic flashes across his face and he frantically nods to the tea and biscuits. ‘For these, obviously. Not for anything else. I didn’t mean …’

I blush almost as much as he is, but I don’t know why I’m blushing. Obviously he didn’t mean anything else by it. ‘Can I get in?’ I gesture to the sleigh to stop myself thinking about why either of us are blushing so fiercely.

‘Of course. That’s what it’s designed for. If I can get it finished in time, I thought it would make a great place for the Santa you’ve hired to sit and meet kids, a cool backdrop for photographs taken with him. I know you were thinking of hiring a grotto, but I think it’s too late in the year for that.’

I’ve managed to book a man to play Santa through an agency, and Glenna suggested either hiring a grotto or putting up a little shed myself, but I ran out of time to do either. And now he’s made me a sleigh. ‘Noel, this is …’ I trail off as tears fill my eyes. This is unreal.

‘Evergreene was intending to take on a herd of reindeer. There are a lot of concerns about reindeer being used for entertainment purposes now so it’s probably not such a good idea, but if you ever wanted to keep horses in the future, it’s light enough to be pulled by a working horse. You could offer sleigh rides around the farm in a real “one horse open sleigh”.’