‘Christmas films?’ He makes a face. ‘None of ’em.’
‘Oh, come on. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? That’s the best Christmas film ever.’
He shakes his head.
‘The Santa Clause?’
‘Nope.’
‘It’s a Wonderful Life?’
‘I saw a bit of it years ago. Doesn’t it go on forever? I think I died of boredom halfway through. I imagine “death by It’s a Wonderful Life” is a common cause listed on death certificates.’
I glare at him for insulting one of the best Christmas films ever made. ‘How about The Muppet Christmas Carol?’
‘Muppets?’ He screws his face up. ‘I’m an adult.’
‘The Muppets are not just for children. The Muppet Christmas Carol is one hundred per cent the definitive version of that story. The original Dickens pales in comparison to the Muppet version.’
His eyebrows knit together so hard that he might need a seam picker to untangle them.
‘Home Alone? Die Hard?’ I try again.
‘I’ve seen Die Hard.’
‘Good, because it’s not a Christmas movie, no matter what anyone says,’ I say as we walk up the darkened lane, past the silent windows of the bakery displaying gingerbread houses and cupcake wreaths, and the soap and bath bomb shop that sells Santa-shaped soaps, tiny holly-leaf bath pearls, and fizzing bath bombs modelled to look like snowmen and reindeer and Christmas puddings that smell as gorgeously festive as they look and leave you sparkling with glitter afterwards.
‘I need to get out of the shop more often,’ I say. ‘I haven’t bought a new jumper yet this year, or a new headband, or even any new socks. I buy a new pair of Christmas socks every year. My goal is to have twenty-five pairs – one a day from the 1st until the 25th.’
‘Like some sort of weird sock advent calendar?’
‘Exact— Flipping heck, I forgot to open my advent calendar this morning. What is wrong with me? Day three and I’ve already forgotten chocolate before breakfast.’ I don’t mention quite how distracted I was this morning, or that I was so eager to get in and see him that it even stopped me thinking about chocolate.
‘You have an advent calendar?’
‘Of course. Don’t you?’
He laughs and clutches his ribs, his face slowly falling when I don’t laugh with him. ‘Do I look particularly young or something? I’m thirty-seven and I have to constantly remind you that I’m not a child. I’ve never had an advent calendar; I’m certainly not about to start now.’
‘You’ve never had an advent calendar?’
He shakes his head, looking at me like I’m the weird one here. ‘What’s the point?’
‘It’s chocolate. Every morning before breakfast. Surely even you can see the upside of that?’
He shrugs. ‘I barely function before breakfast. I don’t have the coordination to get a little chocolate out of a fiddly cardboard door. At that time of day, all I want is coffee. If by some madness I wanted chocolate, I’d go to the kitchen cupboard and break a piece off one of the bars there.’
‘You’re missing the point. It’s fun, it’s a countdown to Christmas, and it’s basically enforced chocolate.’ I shake my head at his blank look. ‘First thing tomorrow morning, I’m buying you an advent calendar. It’ll only be the 4th – it’s not too late. The Nutcracker Lane chocolate shop does some amazing ones.’
‘I don’t want—’
‘Don’t finish that sentence.’ I point a threatening finger towards him. ‘Even you are not so much of a Grinch that you can’t appreciate chocolate for breakfast. And if you are then there’s absolutely no hope for you.’
We round the bend in the lane and the giant wish-granting nutcracker comes into view.
‘I don’t mind nutcrackers, you know.’
I do a mock gasp and give him my best flabbergasted look. ‘Did you just say there’s something about Christmas you actually like?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far, but my dad used to read me the book when I was little, and apparently we had one that I used to carry around like a doll and I’d never let my mum put it away after Christmas.’ He looks up at the eight-foot-tall carved nutcracker looming over us as we approach the fence and garden area surrounding him. ‘I always thought it was hilarious how people used to make wishes on this thing though. They honestly believed it was magical. Thankfully I was never young enough to believe in that nonsense.’
‘What?’ I ask. How can anyone ever not be young enough to believe in magic? Unless he really is a nutcracker prince who magically appeared into life a couple of days ago.
‘You know what I mean. My parents were always honest with me. I never believed in Santa, and when we visited here, they’d point out the wish-granters dressed as elves who were strategically positioned to listen in on wishes made at the giant nutcracker.’
‘You never believed in Santa?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe in lying to children. Neither did my parents.’
‘… lying to children,’ I repeat in disbelief. ‘It’s not lying to help a child believe in Christmas magic. That’s something people remember for the rest of their lives. Anyone, at any age, should look up to the sky on Christmas Eve night and hope they’ll see something magical.’
‘Again.’ He points to himself. ‘Adult.’
I roll my eyes. ‘That makes you need to believe in Christmas magic even more. With all the stresses and worries and strains of adulthood, we need it more than kids do. We need to believe that our dreams can still come true and that anything can happen at this time of year.’
‘And your wishes all came true, did they?’
‘Sometimes. Our family got my childhood dog because I wished for one here. Obviously I now know that one of the elves took my dad aside and talked about the benefits of having a dog and about how many dogs there are in rescue centres who need homes, gave him a free adoption voucher, and a few days later, we went to choose our dog.
