Strands of garland decorated Coyne Pavilion’s Doric columns with a cheery red ribbon tied around each. A banner hailing the CommUNITY Holiday Cookie Exchange! provided a threshold between your run-of-the-mill small town holiday charm into an all-out seasonal spectacle.
You would never know that the Pavilion was the same place I spent my fifteenth summer shoveling horse dung from the stalls to make some extra cash. Today it was a full-blown winter wonderland, complete with fake snow and a live nativity manned by Bill Jenkins and his two boys. But an air of competition filtered through the atmosphere that even Blake Shelton’s honky-tonk rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” couldn’t drown out.
I glided past the Rotary Club’s Giving Tree. Cutout paper tags in the shape of presents hung from the branches. Each tag contained the name and wishlist of a patient at the regional Children’s Hospital who wouldn’t be spending the holidays at home this year. I paused and plucked a few at random for The Pumphouse to sponsor and shoved them in my pocket.
Candlelight flickered from the life-sized menorah and kinara that flanked each side of the tree, and a rotund Kris Kringle, who looked an awful lot like Bert Phelps, roamed the interior, handing out candy canes and Ho-Ho-Hos! to children as they scurried past.
Dina spotted me from her perch at the far end. She and her husband Grizzy were trying — and failing — to referee a contentious game of dreidel between a gang of miniature Santa’s elves who had descended into full-on sugar highs. Through the chaos, I spied their own kids Bear and Olivia behind the disguises’ cartoonish costumes. My best friend gave me a sad, helpless wave.
I pushed toward the enormous crowd amassed in front of the judging table. The contest’s sole judge and my most loyal customer, Orville Johnson, sat upon his throne, holding court while we peasants awaited his final vote on the year’s best cookie.
“Best” didn’t exactly come with a clear-cut matrix of criteria, though. That designation was subject to Orville’s whims from one year to the next. Three years ago, he catapulted anything containing mint to the top slots. Two years back, it was cloves. Rumor had it that a legendary spreadsheet circulated around town, documenting the top three cookies each year since 1971. It didn’t seem to help anyone, though.
“Marnie has an unfair advantage,” Amber Easton pouted aloud as I made my way through the sea of people. Pairs of suspicious eyes trained on me. “Orville eats at her restaurant every day. She knows exactly what he likes!”
I contemplated whether to respond to my least grateful customer when a shock of gray cropped hair atop a white coat scurried by me.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Prudence Harrington called out to nobody in particular, her short legs making a mad dash toward the entry table. She waved a large Tupperware in one hand and a fistful of dollars in the other.
At least I wasn’t the very last person to arrive.