This winter I found true love! (A 'The Santa Clause' Story)

chapter 13= It's the list!

Julia's POV

My dad and I were watching Charlie play football with his team on a sports field.

Dad was sitting on a wooden bench, and I sat under a tree, picking my fingernails out of Santa stress.

I hid my, now full candy cane hair, and elf ears in my beanie, and dad had a red hoodie on with almost pure white hair and a pure white beard.

He was definitely becoming Santa claus.

I then saw a little girl out of the corner of my eye, walking towards the bench my dad was sitting at. I watched from a-far.

She sat at the end of the bench. Dad looked at her and smiled for a split second.

She then moved further down the bench. Dad gave her a slight side eye.

Dad then scooted further down the bench, turned his back to her, and lifted a leg over the other.

She then she stood up on the bench and tapped dad on the shoulder.

He slowly turned around to face the little girl. ".... What?" He asked.

She then sat down on his lap.
"I want some ballet slippers." She said.

I smiled to myself as I grabbed a notebook from my tote bag.

"Another one to list." I muttered, writing
'Mary Jenson = Ballet slippers.'

I had been making a list of what all the children wanted for Christmas.

I then looked up to see Laura and Niel approaching dad, who stood up from the bench and approached them.

I could already tell this can't be good.

So, I stood from the ground and lightly jogged over to them.

"This probably looks pretty odd, doesn't it? These kids lined up all by themselves." Dad chuckled nervously.

"Scott, I think it's safe to say You're taking this Santa thing to an unhealthy level," Niel reached into his back pocket and pulled out a card. "Here's my card. Call me."

I rolled my eyes.

"Scott, I really have to tell you that this is beginning to scare me. I never in my wildest... Well, no, okay, maybe my wildest...
But certainly never in my normal dreams... But then, this is Scott we're talking about!" Laura sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

"Laura, the point." Niel hurried her along with her words.

"It's just I never thought you would stoop to changing your physical appearance in order to make Charlie like you! Do you have any concept on how dangerous this is to a little boy?" She sighed.

"Whoa. Whoa. "How dangerous"?" Dad asked, slightly offended by Laura's words.

"Also, what's going on with you, Jules?" Laura turned to me.

"Wh-.. what do you mean?" I stuttered.

"This," she gestured to my beanie. "What are you? The CEO of beanie GAP?" She shook her head in disbelief.

Before I could answer, Charlie came running up to us.

"Mom, what's the matter?" Charlie asked.

"Come on, Charlie. We're going home." Laura grabbed Charlie's hand and marched him to the car.

"But we just started." Charlie whined.

"You let him stay. Jules and I will go." Dad volunteered.

"If you two don't get your acts together, so help me..." Laura's words stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she eventually gave up, and entered the car.

But before Niel entered the car, he turned to dad and mouthed, "Call me." From a-far.

-time skip-
2 days later...

I was sat on the living room sofa, reading a book.

Ding, dong.

The doorbell rang.

"Jules, can you get that please?" Dad called down from upstairs.

"Got it, dad!" I called back as I got up from the sofa, and jogged lightly to the front door.

I opened the door to a mailman, with a clipboard in hand.

"Woah, there. Seems like someone's in the Christmas spirit!" The mailman chuckled.

"Hm?" I then realized, I didn't put my beanie on. "Oh! The hair? Yeah! I love Christmas!" I smiled.

"Uh-huh... Anyways, I got a delivery for S.C.?" The mailman smiled.

"Scott Calvin. That's my dad," I sighed. "I can sign for him, if you want."

"Oh, you go ahead, sweetheart." The mailman handed a clipboard and a pen to me.

I scribbled my calligraphic signature onto the dotted line, and smiled up at the mailman, telling him that I had finished signing.

"Thanks, I'll get your dad's packages." The mailman took the clipboard off me, and walked down the porch steps.

I stood in silence for a moment, my eyes wide with slight shock.

"Packages?" I asked after a short silence.

"Yeah, there's quite a few of them!" The mailman chuckled.

"That's... I'll just the door open and uhhh... Bring 'em in, I guess." I wasn't quite sure what to say.

-time skip-
A few minutes later...

"Alright. Alright, okay. Don't worry, Jules. You're just in your living room, which is now jam-packed with red boxes!" I spoke to myself.

There were about 25-30 stacks of red boxes in my living room.

To be brutally honest, I was getting extremely claustrophobic!

"Alright... What are these boxes for? And why is my dad taking so long to get down here?" I muttered to myself, looking up towards the stairs.

I then noticed a note sat on top of one of the stacks.

I slowly lifted it up off of the box, and opened it.

'Heres the list.
Check it twice!

Yours,
B.'

I smiled to myself.

Then, suddenly I heard my dad from behind me.

"Woah. What's going on here?!??" He asked.

I turned around with Bernard's little note in my hand.

"It's the list!" I exclaimed.

"Oh........ Oh, n-..... No." My dad sighed.