The Mother of All Christmases

by Milly Johnson

  If you love The Mother of All Christmases, discover Milly Johnson’s other books, available in paperback and eBook now

  The Yorkshire Pudding Club

  Three friends fall pregnant at the same time. For Helen, it’s a dream come true. For Janey, the timing couldn’t be worse. Elizabeth doubts if she can care for a child. But soon the women find themselves empowered by unexpected pregnancy.

  The Birds and the Bees

  Romance writer and single mum Stevie Honeywell has only weeks to go until her wedding when her fiancé Matthew runs off with her glamorous new friend Jo. It feels like history repeating itself for Stevie, but this time she is determined to win back her man.

  A Spring Affair

  ‘Clear your house and clear your mind. Don’t let life’s clutter dictate to you. Throw it away and take back control!’ When Lou Winter picks up a dog-eared magazine in the dentist’s waiting room and spots an article about clearing clutter, she little realises how it will change her life . . .

  A Summer Fling

  When dynamic, power-dressing Christie blows in like a warm wind to take over at work, five very different women find themselves thrown together. But none of them could have predicted the fierce bond of friendship that her leadership would inspire . . .

  Here Come the Girls

  Ven, Roz, Olive and Frankie have been friends since school. They day-dreamed of glorious futures, full of riches, romance and fabulous jobs. Twenty-five years later, things are not as they imagined. But that doesn’t mean they have given up.

  An Autumn Crush

  Four friends, two crushes and a secret . . . After a bruising divorce, Juliet Miller invests in a flat and advertises for a flatmate. Along comes self-employed copywriter Floz, raw from her own relationship split, and the two women hit it off. Will they help each other to find new romance?

  White Wedding

  Bel is in the midst of planning her perfect wedding when disaster strikes. Can she hold it all together and, with the help of her friends and a mysterious man she meets unexpectedly, turn disaster into triumph?

  A Winter Flame

  Eve has never liked Christmas. So when her adored elderly aunt dies, the last thing she is expecting is to be left a theme park in her will. Can she overcome her dislike of Christmas, and can her difficult counterpart Jacques melt her frozen heart at last?

  It’s Raining Men

  Best friends from work May, Lara and Clare are desperate for some time away. So they set off to a luxurious spa for ten glorious days. But when they arrive at their destination, it’s not quite the place they thought it was . . .

  The Teashop on the Corner

  Spring Hill Square is a pretty sanctuary away from the bustle of everyday life. And at its centre is Leni Merryman’s Teashop on the Corner. Can friends Carla, Molly and Will find the comfort they are looking for there?

  Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café

  When Connie discovers that Jimmy, her husband of more than twenty years, is planning to leave her for his office junior, her world is turned upside down. Determined to salvage her pride, she resolves to get her own back.

  Sunshine Over Wildflower Cottage

  New beginnings, old secrets, and a place to call home – escape to Wildflower Cottage with Viv, Geraldine and Stel for love, laughter and friendship.

  The Queen of Wishful Thinking

  Lewis Harley has opened the antique shop he always dreamed of. When Bonnie Brookland walks into Lew’s shop, she knows this is the place for her. But each has secrets in their past which are about to be uncovered. Can they find the happiness they both deserve?

  The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

  Marnie has made so many mistakes in her life that she fears she will never get on the right track. But when Lilian, an eccentric old lady from a baking chatroom, offers her a fresh start, she ups sticks and heads for Wychwell. But her arrival is as unpopular as a force 12 gale in a confetti factory . . . Will this little village in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales accept her as one of their own . . . ?

  Paul’s Gift

  On 6 April 2018, my friend Clair’s much loved husband Paul King died suddenly of an undetected brain tumour. Paul left behind a young daughter, Sammy aged twelve, and an even younger son, Bob aged nine.

  Paul King gave people more precious gifts than Santa, because – in the actual words of his wife – ‘He was an organ donor (the silly arse signed up twice!) He saved four lives the day after he died. The kids are referring to him as a hero – they are very proud.’

  From the official letter sent to Clair from the NHS Blood and Transplant Authority:

  ‘A gentleman in his late twenties who had been on the transplant waiting list for almost eleven years has received a kidney transplant. The other kidney has helped a gentleman in his mid-thirties who had been on the waiting list for around two months.

  A gentleman in his late sixties was able to receive pancreas islets which are the cells that help the body to produce insulin, this will undoubtedly improve this gentleman’s quality of life.

  A lady in her early thirties was able to receive a liver transplant thanks to Paul’s generous donation.

  You and your family also kindly agreed to tissue donation which means that Paul was able to donate his heart tissue and eye tissue. Unlike organs, tissues are stored for a period of time before being matched and allocated to suitable recipients. As a result of this we are unable to provide you with any further information about those that will benefit from Paul’s gift at this point in time. However, further information may be available in the future.

  I hope that this brings you some comfort and that you feel proud of the difference Paul has made to others through the gift of organ donation.

  Thank you once again and please know that Paul’s gift can never be underestimated.’

  Clair couldn’t believe it when the nurses told her that still so many bereaved relatives refuse to donate their loved ones’ organs when they could be used, as Paul’s were, to give life to others – what a waste. It has been a great comfort to Sammy and Bob that their dad lives on in others and not just in them.

  What is no longer of use to you can be of so much use to those in need. It takes a few minutes to do what Paul did and sign up to become an organ donor, making the decision yourself, taking the onus from those grieving, letting doctors and nurses act quickly. All you need to know is on here www.organdonation.nhs.uk

  Be a hero like Paul King.

  1971–2018

  At the moment when a child is born,

  a mother is born also.

  ANON

  THE FIRST

  TRIMESTER

  The Daily Trumpet would like to apologise to the Reverend Derren Cannon of St Thomas the Doubtful church, Rothsthorpe and his wife Mary. In the article ‘At Home with the Cannons’ on Thursday there was a grammatical error. It should have read, ‘Mary Cannon sits with her feet on the comfortable old pouffe. Her husband, Derren Cannon, rests in his armchair’, and not ‘Mary Cannon sits with her feet on the comfortable old pouffe her husband. Derren Cannon rests in his armchair.’ We apologise unreservedly to Revenant and Mrs Cannon.

  Chapter 1

  ‘Crackers, that’s what this business is,’ cackled Gill Johnson. A joke she had made every week since she had joined them; a joke she never tired of and which the others still laughed at because it had gone beyond corny to be reborn as ‘kitsch’. The owners of The Crackers Yard, Joe and Annie Pandoro, groaned every time it was said, but they’d miss it when they didn’t hear it anymore. Gill was counting down the days to her retirement, when she would be leaving them to live in sunny Spain.

  ‘Oh shut up and get stuffing,’ snapped Iris Caswell, the eld
est of the workforce at eighty-five. She made a selection of ‘oof’ and ‘eeh’ sounds whenever she rose from a chair, and every joint she possessed creaked like an old ship, but if the rest of her were as fit and nimble as her fingers, she’d have been running the Grand National every April.

  ‘I’ve forgotten what I was saying,’ said Annie, eyebrows dipped in deliberation.

  ‘How the menopause is robbing you of your memory,’ Iris reminded her, tying a ribbon into an expert bow around the end of a cracker. ‘You just got on with it in our day. You didn’t go broadcasting you were sweating like a fat lad in a cake shop. You mopped your brow and carried on pegging out the washing.’

  ‘Someone was on the telly saying women should wear badges with the letter M on them to highlight to the known universe that you were going through the change.’ Gill’s wry burst of laughter made it plain what she thought of that idea. ‘What next? “I” badges for incontinence so you don’t have to wait in toilet queues?’

  ‘I’d have one of those,’ said Iris. ‘These days, when my bladder shouts, “Jump”, I have to shout back, “How high?” ’

  ‘Well I’m not wearing a badge,’ decided Annie, packing all the crackers her ladies had completed into a box. ‘Even if I did, it would need to be P for perimenopausal.’

  Her husband Joe poked his head out of his office. He was a man who loved to banter with women, but sometimes he felt the need to exit certain conversations and go and make some tea. Women’s talk often terrified him and he was incredibly grateful to have been born a man.

  ‘What on earth is perimenopausal?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s when you’re so worried you’re menopausal, you have to open up a bottle of Babycham,’ chuckled Gill, queen of the terrible jokes. Joe’s head disappeared back into the sanctuary of his office, not understanding the punchline at all. Some things didn’t translate properly into his native Italian.

  The Crackers Yard was on a small industrial estate between the villages of Higher Hoppleton and Maltstone. There were also some offices there, a paint and wallpaper shop, a wholesaler for stationery products, a pet store and Bren’s Butties, a sandwich shop that served them all and did a roaring trade. Their own unit was mid-sized with a ground floor and a mezzanine above. The front half of the lower floor housed the huge, expensive cracker machine that glued in the snap then rolled and closed the crackers for the very large orders and the guillotine for cutting the paper and card. There was an area reserved for storing the boxes of crackers that were ready to be shipped out and shelves of all the beautiful sheets of paper that came from Switzerland. At the back there was a small kitchen, the toilet and an office for those times when some privacy was needed, or when Joe needed to escape the conversation if it became too much even for his banter-hardened Neapolitan ears. There were two tables for hand-rolling the more expensive crackers, shelves full of snaps and novelties, hats, mottos and ribbons and a long central table where Gill and Iris sat stuffing, constructing and ribbon-tying. The mezzanine floor was used as a showroom for all their past commissions. If any clients preferred to come to the factory rather than for Joe go to them, this was where they’d talk shop and make deals. For such a tall, impersonal building it was surprisingly cosy, but then the products made there and the people who made them oozed good feeling and fun, which made a huge contribution to the buoyant atmosphere.

  Fifteen years ago, Joe Pandoro had been a business consultant and Annie an accounts manager, both unhappy in their jobs, both wishing they could plough their energies into working for themselves, and had gone searching for a concern they could buy off the peg. They bought ‘Cracker Jackie’, as it was then, as a company run aground. They hadn’t known a thing about the cracker industry and Jackie hadn’t been helpful. They made a loss for two years, broke even on the third and made a bigger than expected profit in year four. Since then, they’d had an impressive year-on-year growth. Workers had come and gone but with the steady crew of Iris and Gill on board, somehow everything had fallen into place. The business had flourished to the extent that the Pandoros had orders coming out of their ears and they needed to take on more staff, not lose them to the charms of the Costa del Sol.

  ‘My body is all over the place. Just when I think I’ve had my last period and I throw all my things out, along comes another one,’ Annie sighed, putting a lid on a full box of crackers and taping down the edges.

  ‘So don’t throw them out,’ said Gill. ‘Sod’s law you’ll stop having periods if you’ve got a year’s supply of sanitary towels clogging up your cupboards.’

  ‘I hadn’t had one since the middle of last year,’ said Annie. ‘Then a fortnight ago . . . bingo.’

  ‘I used to be ever so heavy in that department,’ said Iris, shaking her head as a less than savoury memory visited her. ‘Those belts we had to wear. And rubber slips.’

  Gill nodded. ‘The curse of a woman. My mother threw a pad at me one day and said, “Do you know what this is, Gillian?” I hadn’t a clue. Then she told me that for one week of the month I couldn’t have a bath, couldn’t wash my hair, couldn’t stir eggs, couldn’t do this, couldn’t do that. I was bloody terrified.’ She visibly shuddered. ‘Best thing that ever happened to me, the menopause. I wasn’t sorry to say goodbye to my monthlies. I’d had my kids and . . .’

  Her voice withered and she wished she could have rewound time by a few seconds and not said those words, because she might have done her duty by Mother Nature and produced another generation – and so had Iris – but Annie hadn’t been so blessed. And the end of her periods signified a goodbye to her ever-dwindling hope of being able to do so. Her window of opportunity had closed and the bolt on it was about to drop.

  Iris noticed the awkward lull in the conversation and came flying to the rescue.

  ‘And a fond farewell to a sex drive,’ she said. ‘Dennis and I settled into a nice pattern of a game of Scrabble and a hot chocolate before bedtime instead. Kiss on the cheek and we were asleep in five minutes. It’s overrated, sex. It’s for the young ones.’

  Annie didn’t comment on that. She and Joe might not have been at it like the rabbits they once were but they were still pretty much in tune with each other in that department. Their lovemaking had been particularly tender recently, as if they realised they were entering another phase of their lives and wanted to give and take comfort from each other as recompense. Last night, for instance. A goodnight kiss had blossomed into a very long snog and then hands had started to wander. They’d both had a better sleep afterwards than any game of Scrabble and a cup of Galaxy’s Frothy Top might have induced.

  Chapter 2

  Eve Glace looked out of the office window at all the noisy activity going on. A few years ago this vista was merely a flat piece of boring landscape with a lot of spruce and fir trees growing at one end of it. Now it was a theme park devoted to Christmas. Winterworld had been her mad great-aunt’s concept. Evelyn Douglas had been an old lady with a penchant for cats and Mr Kipling cakes, but only when they were on special offer. No one knew that she’d been a genius on the stock market and bought a plot of land from a desperate landowner that she planned to turn into her own personal North Pole. ‘A theme park in Barnsley?’ far too many had scoffed. But once upon a time, Alton Towers had been a mere hunting lodge with a big garden, so the scoffers could carry on scoffing because Winterworld was built, up and running and fantastically popular. Visitors had started to come from abroad now and the feedback received was terrific. Every year the park shut for a few months so that work could be carried out that would make it even bigger and better than before. They were in close-down at the moment, slogging madly behind the public scenes to make Winterworld ever more magical and special. There were more than enough places to eat in it now: lovely cafés and an ice-cream parlour with the most amazing flavours. There was an enchanted woodland where hidden machines made sure it could snow every day of the year. There was Santapark, packed with rides for the little ones and an ice rink and a small animal encl
osure full of reindeer and llamas, white ponies and rescued Snowy owls and a hop-on, hop-off train that had a mind of its own and refused to bow to any engineering tweaks. The big concept for this year was for a bathing lagoon. It was a two-year project that Eve had pushed to finish in one – utter lunacy. The builders had found a natural spring near the Christmas tree plantation and it seemed the perfect place to put the lagoon that her aunt had outlined in her original plans. As soon as her site manager Effin Williams had agreed it could be done, Eve had given him the go-ahead to start it. As her Aunt Evelyn would have said, there’s no excitement in a comfort zone and she should know. She’d found fun in turning eccentricity into an art form, but sadly her corset-busting freedom had come too late to see her ideas through to completion. The attraction was to be called after her: Lady Evelyn’s Lake. Eve wanted it to appear as bewitching as if it had been a feature of a fairy forest.

  Eve had been expecting her aunt to leave her something like a locket in her will, not the onus to build a fantasy world, in conjunction with a crazy half-French stranger whose name translated to ‘Jack the Ice-cream’; a twerp of the highest order who kept his phone in a SpongeBob SquarePants sock. A ridiculous, insane, little-boy-trapped-inside-a-grown-up whom she’d hated on sight. Then a spell had been cast upon her, allowing her to see beyond the bouncy puppy image he projected and deep down to the heart of the man which was solid and brave and beat in time to her own. She had fallen in love with him and he had married her, as he had promised he would on their very first meeting.

  She could see Jacques out of the window, matching Effin for dramatic gesticulations. Eve had thought Effin a strange one in the beginning. Brilliant at his job, he ruled his workforce with a rod of iron, a wand of fairness and a lot of Welsh profanities. His half-Welsh, half-Polish team all took him in their stride and, in time, Eve had come to realise that they wouldn’t have wanted to work for anyone else.