Now you see me...
Dec. 30th, 2009 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jl_merrowDarn it! I've barely had time to catch up with the flist (and okay, do two sets of edits and a blurb) and now we're off again tomorrow! ;D We shall be travelling back in time oh, about forty years or so. No, we don't have a Tardis. A trip on the Isle of Wight ferry does the trick nicely...
So this is really in the nature of a fly-by promo post: I have a new release in the anthology I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus. My story, Just Like Santa, is a seasonal tale of a single dad and an unwilling Santa who suffers a wardrobe malfunction.
Just Like Santa
"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the—Jason, you've got your 'Bah, Humbug' face on again. That's not going to impress the kiddies—or their parents." Maggie dumped the sack of presents in the doorway and stood there with her hands on her hips, trying to glare me into the holiday spirit.
"It's all right for you, isn't it?" I countered. "You just get to bung a bit of tinsel in your hair. I'm the one who has to shove a pillow up my shirt and go out dressed like this!"
I love working at the Bright Eyes nursery, don't get me wrong. Yeah, it's a constant round of cleaning up floors, noses and nappies, but if you've never seen the look on a kid's face when he's taken his first few steps, well, you're missing out, that's all I can say. Sometimes, though, the people who run the place really get on my nerves. I mean, we work all year round at creating a safe, familiar environment for the babies and toddlers, so they won't feel bad at being left by their parents and will actually look forward to coming here, and then what do management tell us to do?
We have to feed the kids up on cakes, biscuits and sugary drinks and tell them something really, really special's going to happen, and when they're all literally wetting themselves with excitement, we herd them into another room and in walks a big fat man with a beard and a sack and a scary deep voice going "Ho, ho, ho!"
It takes about three seconds before the first child starts howling in terror, and that sets all the rest of them off, of course. And this is with their parents there, mind. The nursery always invites the mums and dads to the Christmas party; I think it's so they can see what we have to deal with just before they put the fees up in January. I'm sure you've guessed where all this is going. Yeah, me being our only male member of staff, I'm always the one who has to put on the Santa suit. And before you ask, no, it's not much fun having all the kids suddenly hate you on sight. It's not like it's even a decent costume. Must've been the cheapest on the market stall when it was bought, that one, and it hasn't got any better for living in the back of a cupboard 364 days of the year ever since.
"I don't think this is going to last another year," I told Maggie, picking at the moth holes, while she made sure my beard was hanging right.
"Just as long as it lasts for the next half hour," she said with a grin, and gave me a playful dig in the belly. Well, the pillow that was standing in for it, anyway. "Now, do you want me to point out all the new single dads? Although it seems to me there's only one single dad you're interested in…" She broke off with a leer.
So this is really in the nature of a fly-by promo post: I have a new release in the anthology I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus. My story, Just Like Santa, is a seasonal tale of a single dad and an unwilling Santa who suffers a wardrobe malfunction.
Just Like Santa
"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the—Jason, you've got your 'Bah, Humbug' face on again. That's not going to impress the kiddies—or their parents." Maggie dumped the sack of presents in the doorway and stood there with her hands on her hips, trying to glare me into the holiday spirit.
"It's all right for you, isn't it?" I countered. "You just get to bung a bit of tinsel in your hair. I'm the one who has to shove a pillow up my shirt and go out dressed like this!"
I love working at the Bright Eyes nursery, don't get me wrong. Yeah, it's a constant round of cleaning up floors, noses and nappies, but if you've never seen the look on a kid's face when he's taken his first few steps, well, you're missing out, that's all I can say. Sometimes, though, the people who run the place really get on my nerves. I mean, we work all year round at creating a safe, familiar environment for the babies and toddlers, so they won't feel bad at being left by their parents and will actually look forward to coming here, and then what do management tell us to do?
We have to feed the kids up on cakes, biscuits and sugary drinks and tell them something really, really special's going to happen, and when they're all literally wetting themselves with excitement, we herd them into another room and in walks a big fat man with a beard and a sack and a scary deep voice going "Ho, ho, ho!"
It takes about three seconds before the first child starts howling in terror, and that sets all the rest of them off, of course. And this is with their parents there, mind. The nursery always invites the mums and dads to the Christmas party; I think it's so they can see what we have to deal with just before they put the fees up in January. I'm sure you've guessed where all this is going. Yeah, me being our only male member of staff, I'm always the one who has to put on the Santa suit. And before you ask, no, it's not much fun having all the kids suddenly hate you on sight. It's not like it's even a decent costume. Must've been the cheapest on the market stall when it was bought, that one, and it hasn't got any better for living in the back of a cupboard 364 days of the year ever since.
"I don't think this is going to last another year," I told Maggie, picking at the moth holes, while she made sure my beard was hanging right.
"Just as long as it lasts for the next half hour," she said with a grin, and gave me a playful dig in the belly. Well, the pillow that was standing in for it, anyway. "Now, do you want me to point out all the new single dads? Although it seems to me there's only one single dad you're interested in…" She broke off with a leer.
