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CHAPTER ONE

OH, WHAT FRESH hell was this?

A pair of ten-foot nutcrackers srins that looked capable of snapping an entire chestnut tree in half—let alone a single nut Welcoold banner clutched in their wooden hands Where It’s Christmas All Year Round

Jaht

He was the only one though, as scores of children dragged their parents by the hand past the nutcracker guards and toward the Bavarian castle ahead, their shouts of delight echoing in the crisp Michigan air One little girl, winter coat flapping in the wind, narrowly ht ahead of her

“I see Santa’s Castle,” he heard her squeal

Only if Santa lived in northern Ger, with its holly-draped ra out of a Gri of pedaling a false reality, that’s for sure It was obvious that his fantasy was coic, homespun malarkey Hammond’s Toys sold to the public

The popularity of both went to show that people loved their Christ to shovel boatloads of money in order to keep them alive

Jalad to help theardened and grew vegetables Ja’s Toys, and its awful Christ to help hier

“Excuse me, sir, but the line for Santa’s trolley starts back there” Aa red toy soldier’s jacket and black busby pointed behind James’s shoulder In an attempt to control traffic flow, the store provided transportation around the grounds via a garishly colored “toy” train “Trains leave every fivea wait

“Or y-you could alk,” he added

People always tended to stammer whenever Ja to be inti or not They simply did Maybe because, as his mother once told him, he had the same cold, dead eyes as his father He’d spentto erase the sirown not to accept his intilower, but embrace it Same way he embraced all his other unapproachable qualities