Christmas Magic by Jenny Rarden

Christmas Magic

    “I T’S T IME , S ON ,” Luke’s father, Donald, said as Luke stood and began to pace. “I’m handing over the reins—literally and figuratively—to a new generation.”
    Luke wasn’t sure what to say. He paced some more, raking a hand through his hair as his mother watched with worried eyes. His father looked calm, happy…at peace with his decision.
    “I…I won’t have any idea what to do,” Luke argued, shaking his head. “You can’t just expect me to step in and fill your shoes, Dad.”
    “Luke—” his mom started, but she quieted as his father stood, stopping him with his hands on Luke’s shoulders so he could look him in the eyes.
    “Son, do you think I had any clue when your grandfather retired?” His dad chuckled, shaking his head. “I was scared to death too. But you can do this. Your mother and I have faith in you, Lucas. You just have to have faith in yourself.”
    After a moment, Luke nodded, huffing out a breath. “Faith. Right.”
    He could do this. Really, he was born to do it, right? The men in his family had been doing it for nearly a thousand years. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t still scared out of his wits.
    After all, his father had just christened him—Lucas Taylor—the next Santa Claus.

    “Did you hear?” Whitney whispered to Sadie and Lia as she skipped into the dollhouse workshop.
    Out of all the elves at the North Pole, Whitney was one of the few who looked remotely the way humans thought elves looked like. All elves did, in fact, have pointy ears, but most of them weren’t child-sized. Whitney was short enough that she could easily pass for a teenager if she dressed the part. She and Lia were Sadie’s best friends, married to two other elves—Evan and Blake—who worked in one of the other workshops.
    “No… Hear what?” Lia asked, setting down the paintbrush she’d been using to decorate the roof of one of the small houses.
    “Donald Taylor is finally retiring,” Whitney replied excitedly, her eyes wide. “Can you believe it? After nearly a hundred years!”
    Sadie’s heart thudded in her chest. Donald Taylor, as he was known three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, had been Santa Claus for longer than she’d been alive. Lia, Blake, and Evan had each been around to see Donald’s grandfather as Santa, but Sadie and Whitney had only known Donald as Saint Nick.
    “L-Luke is taking over?” Sadie stammered, feeling her cheeks heat at the thought of Donald and Nancy’s gorgeous son.
    Whitney nodded, her grin growing. “Maybe you can pull a Cinderella and finally meet your prince,” she said with a wink.
    Lia nodded her agreement.
    Sadie shook her head. Luke was…North Pole royalty, while she was a simple, lowly elf. He would pick someone whose background, whose family name, was in line with his. Angelica Shepard, the daughter of his father’s right-hand man, maybe. She was a member of his family’s inner circle—their families had been friends for hundreds of years, after all—and she would make a proper Mrs. for one of the most important men in the world.
    No, no matter what her friends thought, Sadie couldn’t imagine Luke would ever spare her a second glance, other than the general politeness Santa and his family extended to all the elves of the North Pole.
    “We should get back to work,” she mumbled. “Christmas is only a week away.”

    The next few days were crazy. Luke’s father held a big meeting in the center of town, announcing that the rumors were true and he was stepping down. Luke had spent the last two days going over every written word in the North Pole library, learning all he could about what his new job entailed.
    He was lucky, he supposed. The reindeer knew the routine by now. They should… They’d been around as long as Santa Claus. Christmas magic was a wonderful thing. Three hundred and sixty-four days a year, he would be Luke Taylor—a normal human who looked twenty-five years old. One day a