Page 28 of The Scrooge Effect

“Just keep your suggestions to something that won’t strike fear into the hearts of little kids and wives alike.”

“Look, it’s football season. All you have to do is put the game on silent, let her blare her music, and smile along with her as she sings her stupid songs. That’s what I do.”

I shot him an incredulous look. “You do not. I’ve seen you dancing around with reindeer antlers on your head.”

“Hey, it’s a great holiday, okay? Lay off, man! Not everyone is a Grinch!

Brock stomped through my grass, kicking over one of my reindeer before picking it back up and making sure it was perfectly in place before heading home.

I got back to work and focused on the task at hand. If I thought of it from strictly an engineering standpoint and not as holiday decorating, the time went by pretty quickly. And when I got to the roof, things got really technical as I strung lights in a fancy pattern, making sure to use every last one to light up the whole damn street. Hell, they’d be able to see these lights all the way from the road.

“Hey!” Harper shouted from where she stood on the ground, waving excitedly. She looked so damn cute, all bundled up for the weather. It was the one thing that made me smile.

“How’s it look?”

“Amazing! Hey! I went shopping!”

“Of course she did,” I muttered under my breath as I kept waving to her, pretending to be happy about the whole fucking thing.

“Scottie’s bringing it over! He said he’d help you put it up!”

“Put what up?” I shouted, but she was already running over to the end of the drive where Scottie was pulling around and backing in.

In the fading light, it was nearly impossible to see what was in the trailer, and when I climbed down the ladder, I wished I had stayed where I was. Maybe I’d camp out up there for the whole fucking holiday and pretend I was stuck on the roof.

“What the fuck is that?” I muttered to myself.

As I got closer, I knew I’d regret ever telling Cash I would put up the damn decorations.

“Man, this is so awesome!” Scottie laughed as he got out of his truck. “Look at this! Have you ever seen such a perfect set of reindeer for your roof?”

It was horrible.

Nine reindeer that were nearly life-like in size, pulling a sleigh with Santa. And I had to haul those up on my roof and install them? They’d probably cave in the roof under their massive weight.

“So, what do you think?” Harper grinned. “Amazing, right?”

I opened my mouth, desperately trying to find the words, but failing massively. “It’s…”

She flung herself into my arms and hugged me tight, grinning so wide I could hardly tell her how fucking horrible this was.

“Do you like it?”

I swallowed hard, telling myself not to ruin yet another day. “It’s brilliant.”

Great, now I was fucking British.

“I might have gone a little overboard with Christmas expenses this year, but when I saw them, I knew they would be perfect.”

I swallowed hard, trying to calculate how much she must have spent on this…decoration. It was baffling. Not that I would deny her anything, but couldn’t she have a different hobby? Like collecting fabric and sewing? Or reading a massive amount of books. Hell, I’d even take tons of beads around the house over this shit.

“Alright, well, we’d better get started on this now if we want to finish before midnight,” Scottie laughed.

“You want to do this now?”

“Hell yeah! I want to see this baby lit up! Although, we might want to get a few of the guys to help. I think I might have pulled a muscle loading it in the truck,” he whispered, then slapped me on the shoulder and walked away.

“You’re not upset, are you?” Harper asked, looking at me worriedly.