“I’ll walk you through checking out this dear lady,” she told Bodie, but as Bodie stepped up to help another couple who wanted to purchase several of the ornaments from the pegboard, she realized instruction wasn’t necessary.

Bodie paid attention to details. He’d watched her and Claudia wait on a few customers and no doubt could write a textbook on the dos and don’ts of ornament selling by this point.

For the next hour and a half, they sold ornaments nonstop as more and more people arrived at the festival.

“She won!” Claudia beamed as she returned to the booth, her cheeks rosy and her eyes full of pride. “Annabelle is Little Miss Pine Hill Christmas.”

“That’s awesome,” Sarah said, giving Claudia a high-five as the woman joined them behind the checkout table.

“Congrats,” Bodie added.

“It was only fitting. All the girls were wonderful, but my Annabelle outshined them,” Claudia assured in her most proud grandmother tone. Bodie and Sarah exchanged a look, smiling.

“She takes after her grandma that way,” Sarah said, earning a happy grin from Claudia.

A half-dozen new customers arrived, entering the booth to check out the ornaments displayed on the pegboards and to congratulate Claudia on her granddaughter’s success.

“Phew, you can tell it’s getting close to time for the parade,” Claudia observed as she smiled at a woman purchasing a snowflake.

“Most definitely,” Sarah agreed, eyeing the building crowd prior to greeting a precious girl who had been in her Sunday school class the previous summer and who held three ornaments. “Hi, Chevell, did you find everything you needed?”

The girl nodded, then said quite loudly, “I’m buying these for my teacher.” Then, she leaned forward and whispered, “Really, they’re for my mom, but I don’t want her to know.”

Chevell’s mom looked amused and indulgent, holding her young son and watching over Chevell while she shopped.

While Sarah wrapped the ornaments, Bodie collected the girl’s money and gave her change.

“Thanks for your business, Chevell.” Sarah winked at her. “I hope your teacher loves her gift.”

The little cutie grinned, then winked back before rejoining her mother. Chevell held up her paper bag to her mother, then turned and waved goodbye at Sarah and Bodie.

Sarah sighed with happiness. “That, Bodie Lewis, is what Christmas is all about.”

“Buying presents?”

“No,” she corrected with a scolding look that prompted a laugh from him. “The excitement Chevell felt at getting her mom a special gift. The joy she experienced at the thought of giving her mom those snowflakes is what Christmas is about, what it should be about.”

He didn’t comment, just grinned, then turned to wait on another customer.

They were still working the booth when Sarah heard the whine of the fire truck sirens, signaling the start of the parade.