“Good morning, Ivy,” Jen said, climbing out of a pickup truck parked in front of the shop. She had a natural, fresh-scrubbed look and wore faded blue jeans with brown cowboy boots and a fringed leather jacket. Her hair swung to her shoulders. “How do you like the new window?”
“I love it,” Ivy said with a sigh. “Makes me miss waking to fresh snow outside my frosty bedroom window in Boston. The first snowfall of the season was always magical—a quiet, reverent display of the wonder of nature.”
Imagining that moment brought back memories, and Ivy went on. “I used to take Misty and Sunny to the park to build snow families when they were young. The snow mother, father, kids, and even snow dogs. Sometimes we had a lot of snow to work with.”
“You won’t find that around here,” Jen said. “If you want snow, head to the mountains—Big Bear and Mammoth Lakes are my favorite places in California for snow, but then, I love to ski. You should go while it’s quiet at the inn.”
“Not this year, I’m afraid.” A trip was hardly in the budget. “But we have plenty to celebrate. And you’ll never believe what we found stored in the garage.”
“Tell me,” Jen cried with excitement. “More treasures?”
Ivy laughed. “Yes, but not the kind worth millions. We found crates of vintage Christmas ornaments and decorations. They’re handmade and utterly exquisite. I think most of them are from Europe.”
“I would love to see them,” Jen said. “You’re putting up a tree, right?”
“We hadn’t planned on it because we didn’t have any decorations. But now, it looks like we’re going to have to. Where’s a good place to find one?” A small one.
“Leilani and Roy have the best trees over at Hidden Garden. They buy from Southern California tree farmers who follow sustainable practices, so that’s pretty cool.” Jen paused to smile and nod to a local woman who came out of the shop. Turning back to Ivy, she asked, “Anything I can help you with today?”
“I need some strong wire hooks for the ornaments,” Ivy said. “Some of the pieces are pretty heavy. Although many of the ornaments have ribbons for hanging attached, others have old hooks that are rusted and mangled. I don’t need anything fancy, just those wire type that I can bend to secure to tree branches.”
“Come in. I have just the thing. And George should have the hot cider going if you’d like a cup.” She opened the door, and the scent of apple and cinnamon wafted out.
Jen’s husband was wrapping a train set for a customer. “Hello, Ivy,” George said, his face wreathed in a friendly smile. He wore an old T-shirt with a lumberjack flannel shirt and jeans.
Jen poured two cups of hot cider and handed one to Ivy. “Now, about those ornament hangers you need.” She bustled through the narrow, crowded aisles of the small hardware store. Although it was compact, Jen made sure everything was neat and attractively merchandised.
Warming her hands on the cup of cider, Ivy followed her. Jen’s parents had established the hardware store decades ago. Here, people passed businesses and homes through the generations. As Ivy had come to know many of the shop owners in the village of Summer Beach, she discovered that wasn’t unusual. The fast-food and big-box stores hadn’t invaded the town as they had the neighboring community, so Summer Beach still had a unique charm about it.
Even more so during the holiday season, Ivy noticed. Everyone brought out decorations, and many of them looked like they’d been in the family for years. A pair of tall, hand-painted wooden nutcrackers stood at the entry to Nan and Arthur’s antique shop. A rough-hewn wagon with a family of Christmas bears at the helm sat outside the Starfish Café.
Summer Beach might not have snow, but it had all the good cheer and charm one could want.
One. That thought gave Ivy an idea.
“Here you are,” Jen sang out. “How many boxes do you need?”
“A lot. As Shelly put it, we found the mother lode of Christmas ornaments.”
They scooped up several boxes. As George was ringing up her purchase, he asked, “Are you going to have an open house for the holidays?”
“I think we should,” Ivy said. “I want to share what we discovered in the storeroom. The newest decorations are from the 1950s, though most of them look much older.”
Jen and George exchanged an interested glance. “We’d love to see that. I bet a lot of people would.”
“We need to do something to boost occupancy. It’s been so slow since the end of summer.”
“Summer Beach is such a family place, so I guess most people stay home during the holidays,” Jen said.
Ivy raised her brow. “I wonder what people who don’t have families do?” She remembered how lonely the holidays were for her in Boston after Jeremy died. Even though Misty shared an apartment with a friend nearby, and Sunny lived in university housing, Ivy had felt very much alone in her rented room at the professor’s townhouse.
Ivy thanked Jen and George and promised to invite them to the open house. After returning to the inn, she sought out Shelly, who was photographing the vintage ornaments for a video montage.
“I got the ornament hooks, and Jen said the best trees in town are at the Hidden Garden. Want to come with me?”
A smile brightened Shelly’s face. “When I picked up the poinsettias there, I saw some gorgeous Monterey pine trees. Let’s take the Jeep so we can haul one back.” Shelly shoved her feet into a pair of faux fur snow boots sitting by the back door and grabbed a puffy red jacket to throw over her yoga wear.
Ten minutes later, Ivy and Shelly were strolling through a Christmas tree village set up on the beautiful grounds of the Hidden Garden nursery. Leilani waved and made her way toward them.
“Mele Kalikimaka,” Leilani said, wishing them a Merry Christmas in Hawaiian. The garden and nursery owner wore a bright red sweater with a green Christmas tree on the front. Her dark, shiny hair was woven into a thick braid with red ribbons. “Hi, Shelly. Back for a tree, after all?”
“We discovered a storeroom full of ornaments,” Shelly said. “So now we have to have a tree to put them on.”
“I’m glad you came back,” Leilani said.
Shelly ran her hands over the long, slender pine needles of a tall tree. “Your Monterey pine trees are so fresh and fragrant. Pinus Radiata. So full and such a bright shade of green. They’re fairly rare on the roster of Christmas trees. Mostly grown along the California coast, right?”
Leilani nodded. “Monterey pines are native to Central California—on the Monterey Peninsula, the Año Nuevo area of Santa Cruz County, and the Cambria area around San Luis Obispo.” As she spoke, Leilani picked up a tree and shook out the full branches. “You’ll also find them on Cedros Island and Guadalupe Island off the coast of Baja California in Mexico. But did you know they’re also native to New Zealand? They grow these pines quite extensively for timber.”
Shelly and Leilani talked about the fine points of different trees for a few minutes while Ivy looked around. Ivy zoned out when they began speaking about stenotopic coniferous and pyrophyte trees, though she recalled that had something to do with ecological conditions—Shelly once explained how fire was needed to open certain species’ closed pine cones for reproduction.