Harriette, Collin and Tamarai were grouping together for this shopping expedition. Harriette had already bought presents for both Collin and Tamarai, so all she was really doing now was some last Christmas presents for some of her extended family and the presents for donation.
So they went into all the toy stores and Harriette picked out two dolls to be donated, since when she was young all she ever wanted for Christmas was dolls. Tamarai got a couple Care bears, saying that no one can resist a cute and cuddly bear. Collin went with with finger paints, he was all about the arts.
Harriette always saved the best for last, and the best in this equation was the candy store. She remembered when she was just a little kid and the store was a whole lot smaller and not even located in the mall. It’s original location was on a crowded street full of small family owned shops, but the owner had always dreamed of moving into the mall. The day she did was a big deal and there was a huge sale, and Harriette might have gone a little overboard.
This store was her childhood basically, and every year everyone got a special christmas candy from this store, special from Harriette, in their stockings. And for all the people without stocking, the older visiting relatives, Harriette just handed them out. It was a Christmas tradition.
Every year the store had special Christmas lollipops, since the store was so old some of them were repeated but the owner mostly tried to keep each year unique. This year the special flavors were pomegranate tangerine, brown sugar molasses, and mulled cider.
Harriette loaded up a bag with each of the flavors, then she went on to filling a bag with their candy canes, also with special flavors including orange mint, pomegranate cream, and classic peppermint, for their tree. These candy canes were Harriette’s absolute favorite.
“Wow, got enough there?” Tamarai teased her.
“Uhm, yes, I think I do,” Harriette said, tying up her bag, “and you know it’s tradition!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tamarai said, waving her hand at Harriette then pointed across the store to the chocolates, “Ooh look my favorite!”
Amused, Harriette watched as Tamarai quickly moved over to the peppermint bark. They were in her favorite, and Harriette tried to secretly get a box of those for her too. She also got a box of the s’mores bark for Collin, she knew he loved it and only ever ate it if someone got it for him.
For her mom she got the raspberry dark chocolate truffles. For Fedora she got a variety of chocolates, mostly milk chocolate since Fedora couldn’t stand dark. And for Grayson, her older brother, she got the salted caramel, his favorite.
And with that they left the mall and went out to lunch at a fun little diner around the block. This was one of their mom’s favorite traditions, especially as the kids get older and stopped spending so much time at home with the family. It’s nice to spend some quality family time with your family.
And when they got home they all drunk hot cocoa and watched holiday specials.
And as they did everyone was thinking how they wished the holidays could last forever.
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