Deleted Scene from It Started with Christmas
With everything going on in our world, I thought I’d do something to raise spirits and let you in on a deleted scene from my novel It Started with Christmas! It’s very rare that I cut enormous pieces of my story. Usually, when I edit, it’s more about adding than subtracting, but we wanted to get the all-important Chapter One as perfect as possible, so this little scene in It Started with Christmas fluttered to the editing room floor.
It began its life as the opening scene in my novel. It takes place in a not-so-great area of Nashville, where Nana lives when she isn’t at the cabin in Leiper’s Fork. They need to get out of there and up to the cabin, where life is better. Here’s an unedited, raw, and original sneak peek into life at Nana’s Nashville home:
Deleted Scene from It Started with Christmas
The house was dark, with the Christmas lights all turned off for the night, and Holly was heading upstairs, padding gently so as not to make the boards creak too loudly while Nana was sleeping, when she heard a thump outside. She stopped on the stairway, listening for the sound.
Another thump.
Holly stood still, peering over the banister as a beam of cold white light flickered in through the front window downstairs. It vanished. Her heart slamming in her chest, Holly started back down the stairs, every inch of her on high alert. There was another thump and she zeroed in on its location: the window by the Christmas tree.
When she rounded the corner to the living room, she came face to face through the glass window pane with a stranger as he shined a flashlight on her packages. Holly let out a scream, and the face disappeared in a flash. She ran over to the wall by the back door and threw on the outside lights as a dog barked in a nearby yard. She wasn’t letting this possible intruder get away. Her hands were shaking, hovering over the emergency call on her phone, her breath icy in her chest as she yanked open the back door, snowflakes falling all around her.
No one was there. Even the dog across the street had stopped barking, its owner having probably hurried its business and taken it inside at the sound of the commotion.
She shut the door quickly and locked the bolt.
“What’s happened?” Nana’s voice came from the stairway.
Holly rushed around, clicking on every light she could find, her mouth dry as a bone. Finally, she managed, “I think someone just attempted to break in.” She tried unsuccessfully to hide her fear as she turned to Nana, who was standing as straight as she could these days, her pink bathrobe tied neatly at her waist, her thin gray hair pinned back on the sides like she did every night before she went to bed.
Holly slumped onto the sofa, her hands still shaking. Nana lowered herself slowly beside Holly.
The two of them sat in silence for quite a while before Nana eventually spoke. “Things just aren’t the same,” she said, shaking her head, her lips set in that familiar pursed position, distress clear on her face.
“No,” Holly agreed. She took in a steading breath to try to get herself together.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I haven’t said anything. And this just makes it seem all the more right…”
Holly waited, pulling the blanket up over them both, the room now filled with light, showing the dinginess of the paint on the walls, making Holly wish she could spruce this place up.
“I want to spend Christmas at the cabin,” Nana said.
Holly stared at her.
Nana hadn’t been to Papa’s cabin since before he passed. In fact, the only time Holly had been there in recent years was when she’d renovated the place. She’d received directions and a substantial amount of money from Papa that he’d set aside for renovations and décor. Holly had an eye for design; she’d always thought that was how Papa’s artistic gene had manifested itself in her. She was amazing at planning things, at organizing, and at decorating. Her friends all had her shop with them when they’d move into their apartments and she couldn’t remember how many weddings she’d planned for friends.
Holly wondered if Papa had been hoping, with her decorating help, that the cabin could pull in a sizeable income in holiday rentals to supplement Nana’s retirement and give her a nice nest egg to see her through the rest of her life.
Holly had painted the interior, updated the lighting, added stainless steel appliances with a double oven feature and new cabinetry, hardwood floors and crown molding. Then she’d completely redecorated with creamy furniture, soft lighting, and lots of references to Nashville and its surrounding areas. She’d covered the blank walls with local artwork, and the whole place had a very southern feel to it when she’d finished—just what would bring in the tourists.
“Isn’t it rented for the holiday?” she asked. After she’d redone the place, and put the new photos online, they could barely keep up with the number of rental requests.
Nana shook her head. “Like I said, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I cleared the schedule just in case I had the courage to go. I feel like tonight is pushing me in that direction.”
“But the snow…”
This December had been a record-breaking month, with icy temperatures plummeting, sending more snow than this area had ever seen before. There were road closures everywhere, and she knew that driving up in the hills would be a nightmare. And even though Nana and Papa had lived here in the city, their hearts were always at the cabin. Nana had married Papa there, she’d spent her honeymoon there. And they’d always had Christmas there. Until Papa died.
Should they go?
The alternative was to sit in this house, worried every minute the prowler would come back and rob them blind, Nana spending another holiday, thinking about how she should be at the cabin and about how Papa wasn’t there with her.
Nope. Holly wasn’t going to let that happen.
“You know what?” she said before Nana had said anything back to her. “If you want to go, then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll pack up all the gifts, take down the tree, tie it back to the top of my car, and put it up at the cabin. We’ll make hot chocolates, and climb under blankets and binge-watch movies until we fall asleep. We’ll read all the books we’ve been wanting to finish, make oven pizzas, and never put anything on our feet but fuzzy socks.”
She grabbed Nana’s hands, pulling her off the sofa gently. “We’ll dance to Christmas carols and watch the crazy parade in town from the back window like we used to do.”
She twirled Nana around, and that little scowl she’d gotten so good at faltered just slightly.
“Even with the snow, we can drive there in less than an hour. Shall we pack?”
“Right now?” Nana pressed her lips together to suppress her smile.
“Why not? I can have that tree down and be ready to leave in a couple of hours. If we stay up too late, we can just sleep in the next morning. I put extra thick, feather bedding and duvets on the beds, with one thousand thread-count sheets.”
Nana’s eyes grew round.
“Gramps said, and I quote, to ‘do it up right’ and if I didn’t, I’d have to answer to him when we saw each other next.”
That made Nana smile. “Let’s do it,” she said.