Kissing Kris Kringle by Erin Quinn

 
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    Kris woke up spread eagle on his kitchen floor feeling like he’d been hit by a runaway sleigh attached to twelve rabid reindeer. He remembered going to Yule Tide’s with Nick and Rudy—two school buddies he hadn’t seen in ages. Rudy, because he’d moved away from the tiny town of North Pole, Maine years ago and now lived in New York City. Nick, because even in a town with the population of twelve hundred and two, life got in the way. Plus, with everything going to shit between the economy, lagging tourism and finally, the last insult, no snow…well, it made a person want to hole up and be alone.
    Kris had been doing a lot of that lately.
    But Rudy was in town for a short trip and he’d been buying. They’d drank beer, then tequila, then something pink and sweet with the word fuzzy in it, then more beer, then…well, who the hell knew what then. Certainly not Kris.
    He sat, holding his pounding head on his shoulders with one hand to make sure it didn't roll off. The other clutched a black velvet bag. Kris stared at it for a moment.
    WTF?
    He had no idea where it had come from or how it had come to be in his possession, but he had such a tight grip on the thing that his hand hurt. The bag was huge and at the bottom was a bulge that indicated it wasn’t empty.
    Jesus, had he robbed somebody?
    He discarded the horrified idea at once. No way. He hadn’t been that drunk.
    Had he?
    Cautiously, he loosened his grip and peered inside. He caught a glimpse of something red, something white and something kind of creamy yellow. Frowning, he reached inside and one of those somethings moved.
    With a shout he released the bag and hit his feet. WTF ?
    As he stared at the bag, the bulge at the bottom separated, became two bumps—one stationary and the other squirming like a whole nest of snakes. Except it wasn’t making snake noises. As Kris watched, the wiggling bump moved to the lip of the bag and out popped…
    A puppy.
    A puppy?
    Where the hell had he gotten a puppy? And why had he stuffed it in a bag?
    “Hey, there,” he said, hunkering down beside it. It was a cute little lab with golden fur and big brown eyes. It wagged its whole body in its excitement to see him, set its front paws on Kris’s thigh and stretched up to lick his chin. “Where did you come from?”
    “Wruff,” it answered and licked him again.
    Kris rubbed the little fat puppy’s belly before digging in the bag again, intrigued at what else might be in there. He pulled out a red hat with a white trim at the crown and a fluffy white ball at the end. A Santa hat. Ho, ho, ho. Scowling, he reached in again and out came a Santa suit—jacket and pants. Shiny black belt and boots followed. At the very bottom was a cheesy beard, wig and…a miniature Santa hat and a leash.
    “I think that one’s yours,” he said to the dog.
    “Wruff,” the puppy answered.
    As he stared at the bizarre collection and the black bag which, of course, was meant to hold toys for all the good little boys and girls, he had to wonder yet again… what had been in that fuzzy, pink drink?
    He had no recollection of when, where, or why he’d lifted a puppy and a Santa suit, but somewhere in that alcohol saturated memory of his, he remembered a guy dressed like the jolly fat man himself, scolding Kris for being such a Scrooge and telling him he’d been relegated to the Naughty List .
    Kris let out a shaky laugh that made his head hurt even worse. Had to be a dream—a nightmare. Kris dreaded Christmas—had since he was a boy and his dad had died on Christmas eve, followed a few years later by his mother—not on Christmas eve, but close enough to make December and all the holiday cheer, just a grim reminder of two people he’d loved who died too young.
    He shook his head, rattling the few brain cells that had survived the drinking binge, and returned his attention to the bag, the suit and the puppy. Where had all this stuff come from? The pup gave