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Chapter One
It was the day after Thanksgiving in my hometown of Lighthouse Cove, California, which meant that suddenly, without any warning, the Christmas season was upon us. It happened the same way every year, so why did I never see it coming? All I knew was that one day we were baking pumpkin pies and discussing the best turkey stuffing recipes, and the next day we were struggling over Christmas gifts and draping our homes in a few gazillion strings of twinkle lights.
Massive blow-up balloon characters were the trend this year. On my street alone, there were at least two dozen huge cartoon faces staring down at me from my neighbors' houses each evening. They reminded me of all those floating creatures in the annual Macy's parade. Unlike Macy's, however, the giant balloon faces on my block were deflated each morning, turning my little neighborhood into something resembling a Salvador Dalí painting. Melting bodies and stretched-out faces were draped across the lawns. It was weird. But 'tis the season.
Despite the oddly surrealistic sight, I whistled a happy tune as I strolled down the street with Robbie, my adorable West Highland terrier. Robbie wore a handsome plaid winter coat, and I wore a big silly smile. I waved hello to my neighbors and managed to chuckle at the sight of their creepy dancing candy canes and awkward singing snowmen. Not even the sight of those withered balloon creatures could snap me out of my cheerful mood. I was riding high.
It hadn't always been this way for me and Christmas. There had been a few seasons when I had resembled Scrooge in all the worst ways. But this year, everything was wonderful. I was in love, engaged to be married to MacKintyre Sullivan, my extremely handsome and very talented writer fiancé. My name is Shannon Hammer, and I'm a building contractor here in Lighthouse Cove, specializing in Victorian architecture. My world was sunny and life was good. The air was filled with the spicy scents of balsam fir and blue spruce, two of our local favorites when it came to Christmas trees.
I wasn't the only one whistling a perky tune in welcoming the season. In Lighthouse Cove, Christmas was everyone's favorite holiday. The shops along Main Street and around the town plaza were gaily decorated, and shoppers were out in force, snatching up all the best holiday deals they could find. The mailman and the various independent shipping services were delivering packages three and four times a day to all the folks who had turned to shopping by mail. My girlfriends were gleefully pulling out their ugliest Christmas sweaters to wear to all the holiday parties. The joyful feeling was contagious.
And as I always advised anyone lucky enough to find themselves in Lighthouse Cove at this time of year, there was no better place to celebrate the season than at the majestic Cliffs Hotel.
The Cliffs Hotel was a Victorian mansion perched along the eastern edge of the rugged Alisal Cliffs overlooking the Cove and the Pacific Ocean beyond. The house was originally four identical mansions constructed by the father of four children. The Cliffs had been beautifully restored, thanks in part to my father and his talented construction crew, who had first taken on the renovation and were steadfast in their efforts to keep the old place in exquisite condition.
There were five stories, and each was accented by classic Victorian turrets and towers and balconies and gorgeous wraparound verandas. There were twenty-two chimneys of every conceivable shape and size, lending the roofline an eccentric charm, which culminated in the delightful widow's walk that topped the south wing.
The surrounding grounds consisted of twenty semi-wooded acres, which offered every possible activity and sport a person could ask for. There were hiking trails and rock climbing for the serious athletes, plus kayaking and stand-up paddleboards for water sport enthusiasts who didn't mind how cold the Cove could get this time of year.
To counter all the sports madness that some visitors craved, the Garrisons had recently renovated their gorgeous luxury spa, adding an indoor pool and a sauna that was serenity and elegance personified.
There were tennis courts, a putting green, and even a pickleball court just a short walk from the hotel steps.
At the opposite end of the property was a half acre devoted to all things kid-friendly, including swings and slides and monkey bars and tunnels and climbing walls. Much of this area was covered in rubber playground tiles that protected the young ones from hurting themselves in case of a fall. There was miniature golf and a batting cage, plus mini go-karts-with adult supervision, of course-and every other kind of fun thing a kid could want to do while staying at the hotel. There was also a clubhouse where indoor activities were offered to the kids, mainly arts and crafts and puzzles and board games for all ages. There were plenty of grown-ups who liked to hang out in the kids' zone, too.
If parents wanted a few hours of kid-free time, the Cliffs provided a staff of bonded loving nannies and childcare professionals, babysitters and supervisors to take care of their little ones. And in case one didn't want to trek all the way across the acreage to check up on the kids, last year the Cliffs had purchased an actual miniature railroad train with three comfy passenger cars and a locomotive that circled the grounds, stopping to pick up guests and deliver them anywhere on the grounds they wanted to go.
Bill and Lilian Garrison were the third generation of Garrisons to own the hotel, and everyone in town knew and loved them. Not only because they were lovable and fun, but also because they were constantly seeking out new and interesting ways to bring Christmas into everyone's lives, both visitors and locals alike. The train had been last year's big surprise, and everyone had fallen in love with it. I knew some folks who had checked into the hotel precisely to take advantage of the train rides. Who didn't want a chance to blow that whistle?
Bill and Lilian had been my parents' best friends before my mother died. After that, my dad remained their close friend and Lilian became a surrogate mother to me and my sister, Chloe. We loved them to pieces.
My dad and his construction crew had always been the Garrisons' go-to company for building and refurbishing the property. Dad's crew had essentially worked to bring the structure into the twenty-first century, and by the time I took over the company, the Cliffs Hotel was considered a world-class property on the level of the Ritz or the Four Seasons.
But more than anything else, the Cliffs Hotel was famous for celebrating Christmas in a big way. It consistently blew the competition out of the water, and this year was no exception. Last year they had bought a train, a real one, for goodness' sake.
This year, Bill had come to me in February with an idea of building an authentic Victorian carnival with at least ten or twelve different booths, each featuring a classic carnival game of chance or skill. Naturally, there would be lots of fun prizes to win, which was basically what a carnival was all about.
"We'll call it the Fun Zone," Bill said to me. "I've picked out a spot well away from the hotel itself and closer to the children's park."
And with that in mind, we began to strategize. First, my team spent several weeks brainstorming with Bill on the best design for the carnival booths. He wanted "big." He wanted "flashy." And he wanted "fun." He wanted something everyone in town would be able to see from a mile away.
We would work on the tent itself later, but we started by grading the land in order to have a flat, solid base and enough drainage outlets to keep the surface dry and smooth. We covered this with several layers of gravel and sand, and then my crew and I poured a six-inch-thick circular slab, eighty feet in diameter, that would be reinforced with both rebar and wire mesh. According to my engineers, this slab would withstand the weight of several thousand pounds' worth of carnival booths, along with the weight of hundreds of adults and children traipsing through the carnival site every night for an entire month.
Once the huge circular cement base was poured, we gave it several weeks to harden. We arranged for road access and plenty of acreage left over to mark out a parking lot.
"I picture a circus tent big enough to be seen from anywhere in town," Bill had said.
I sketched a classic circus tent divided and scooped in twelve sections. It would come to a peak in the center, and it would be covered in Christmas lights.
"It's pretty basic," I explained.
"I'm getting old-fashioned carnival vibes," Lilian said, smiling brilliantly. "I love it. We'll have concession stands scattered here and there, selling popcorn and candy apples. And hot cider."
"Good thinking, Lil," Bill said.
"I'm just loving this whole nostalgia vibe."
"Me too, babe." And that was how it usually went. If it was good enough for Lilian, it was good enough for Bill, who told us to get to work.
As work began on the carnival itself, I happened to run into an old friend, Steve Shore, and asked him to come over to meet Lilian and Bill. I wasn't sure if the Garrisons had considered the Santa Claus element, but since it was Christmas, I was pretty sure they would be excited to include the jolliest Santa Claus of them all. Steve was a member of the Santa Claus Brigade and would definitely have something in common with Lilian and Bill, who were complete Christmas fanatics.
I'd met the entire brigade a few Christmases ago when my construction team and I refurbished a beautiful old mansion, turning it into small apartments for a number of families in need of housing. I was still so proud of that project, even though the grand opening had been marred by murder.
Anyway, I figured since Lilian and Bill were crazy about Christmas, they might enjoy meeting a Santa Claus or two. It was sure to be a match made in holiday heaven.
Now that we had the basic idea for this year's Christmas surprise extravaganza, I shared with Bill Garrison a few conceptual details I'd studied last year when my team and I started construction on Homefront, the veterans' village of tiny homes. At that time I had been looking into dozens of different concepts in modular homes and prefab structures in hopes of giving each tiny home some different space options. Some of the ideas were elaborate, but some were as simple as installing a Murphy bed that could be pulled out and used for sleeping at night and folded up in the morning to provide extra space for an office or a small in-home studio.
I had studied collapsible spaces, folding rooms, sliding walls, car elevators, and lots of other Jet Age house stuff that I found exciting. But we didn't end up using any of those plans for the tiny homes, opting instead to keep things simple. Most of the vets we worked with just wanted a comfortable small space in which to live and hopefully thrive.
But now that we were designing the carnival, it was time to revisit some of those wild ideas. My plan was to build the individual carnival booths with walls that could be folded up accordion-style and layered one on top of the other, then rolled away on special carts to be stored within a space we'd built for that purpose alongside one of the outbuildings. Protected from the elements, the panels would remain tucked away until next year, when we would bring them out again.
I started to explain my ideas to Bill, but he just laughed and held up his hands to stop me. "I love your ideas, but you'd better figure out how to include my newest purchase."
"What are you talking about?" I asked nervously.
Bill never did anything halfway and this was no exception. He pulled out a colorful brochure of the gorgeous antique carousel that was being delivered the following week.
"A carousel?" I said, feeling gobsmacked and not quite believing he had gone out and purchased this adorable carousel.
"It's a beauty," he said. "And we'll have it forever."
I could tell from the pictures in the brochure that the carousel animals were beautifully hand-painted and the choices were inventive. Among the lions and tigers and bears were a dolphin, a dinosaur, an eagle, a gorilla, and a chariot built for two. Also built into the carousel was an ornate calliope that played the most perfect old-fashioned organ music.
"It's small," he explained. "Only twenty-two feet across, but that allows for fourteen pairs of animals. It'll fit right into one half of our design."
It took me some time to calculate just how that would work out, but Bill was right. The carousel, which was indeed a mere twenty-two feet across, would be perfect for our small-town carnival.
The carousel itself would be surrounded by a guardrail and a wide walkway that would open up to all the carnival games. And every inch of what we were calling the Fun Zone would fit under the old-fashioned red-and-white-striped big top, with its scalloped fringe along the high edges.
Strings of Christmas lights would run from the top center down to the edges of the big top. Banners and flags would wave in the wind, and the entire effect would be big, colorful, and fun.
As soon as we got the okay from Bill, my crew and I began to build the game booths. I started with a lightweight wood that we hinged together to create the walls and ceiling of each booth, giving each an old-timey, bandbox effect.
On both sides of each booth, I had attached heavy-duty sailcloth banners that had been silk-screened with pictures of the particular game being played in that booth. The vintage style of the silk screens was charming and fun. I attached the banners to a steel plate using brass grommets spaced about six inches apart. The overall effect was very appealing, according to Lilian and everyone who saw them, and I was proud that my crew made it work so well.
My guys had always referred to me as the Drywall Queen, but these days they'd switched it up to Grommet Girl. It was a silly name and made me chuckle, but the moniker also had a Justice League vibe that I thought was pretty cool. And honestly? I totally loved using grommets. Who didn't?
