The Christmas Cabin
"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!" sang a six year old girl. She then took a bite of her golden–brown cookie in the shape of a reindeer before skipping back into the main room of her family's winter vacation home.
Her mother paused in the process of stringing up tree lights. "Jamie, sweetheart, go see what's taking Daddy so long with the boxes of ornaments. We've got to get you and Serena to bed soon."
Jamie nodded compliantly before skipping off again. She found her father in the room they used for storage. Mack was digging through a clear plastic bin in search of some long forgotten Christmas treasure. "Daddy," Jamie chirped as she walked to where he sat. The elder Hartford abandoned his search.
"What can I help you with, Princess?" Mack asked as Jamie snuggled up to him happily.
"Mommy wants the decorations," the oldest Hartford child told her father. "She says me and Serena gotta go to bed soon." Jamie's bright blue eyes narrowed a bit as she furrowed her brow, "Why do we gotta go to sleep, anyway?"
Mack laughed as he set Jamie back on the dusty hardwood floor. "Good girls go to bed when their mommies and daddies say to. And you what happens to good girls on Christmas Eve…"
And his little Jamie let out a squeal of delight. "Santa Claus!"
The retired red ranger dropped a kiss on his daughter's hair. "Right you are." He then turned back to the box he'd been sifting through and scooped it up. He shooed Jamie into the living room and followed suit.
It was Jamie and Serena's favorite holiday tradition to decorate the family Christmas tree. Rose and Mack usually hung back during this process, smiling as they watched their girls. They sat on the big leather couch across from the tree, their year–old son, Matthew, on Rose's lap. Every so often one of the Hartford parents would remind the girls to hang the ornaments as high as they could reach.
The girls were about halfway done when Mack collected the youngest Hartford and took him to bed. Rose went to help Jamie and Serena, rearranging ornaments higher up on the tree as soon as the Hartford daughters weren't looking.
Mack rejoined his family, helping his wife and daughters trim the tree. Every so often he would put his arms around Rose's waist and pull her close, at which the girls would giggle. Rose would smile before standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.
When all the boxes were empty of decorations with two exceptions, Rose picked up Serena and Mack took Jamie by the hand. The Hartford parents took the girls into their room and proceeded to tuck them in. "Good night, sweetheart," Rose crooned to her eldest child, sweeping hair out of her daughter's baby blue eyes.
"When's Christmas?" Jamie asked sleepily, yawning. "How many more days do I have to wait?"
The retired pink ranger smiled. "Four more days, little Jay."
"Little Jay" snuggled deeper under the thick comforter and flannel sheets. "Too many," she murmured before closing her eyes.
The Hartford parents chuckled quietly as they left the room. "Well, it's nice that they look forward to Christmas," Rose mused. "I guess over the years we learned how to do things right."
"Just think, no trees tried to kill us this year," Mack teased lightly, kneeling before one of the many plastic storage bins and pulling out two carefully wrapped items. He handed the one swathed in pink tissue to Rose, keeping the red one for himself.
With a smile, she unwrapped her small package, revealing the tiny model ornament of herself in her ranger uniform. As Rose glanced back at her husband, she saw he had torn the paper off his as well. "This spot looks good," she said, hanging hers in the middle of the tree.
Mack hung the red ranger figure next to the pink one. "Perfect fit."
"Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas."