Once again, Josh found himself astonished by how much the young girls could put away and found himself remembering with envy his own youthful appetite. Never the less, he allowed himself to be persuaded to have a Chicken Royale after the burger he had ordered, which he enjoyed a lot, and he helped the girls out with the nuggets and chilli cheese-bites which had long been a guilty pleasure of his. When he had tried protesting that he was full, Samantha had taken great pleasure in reminding him that he had to keep his strength up for that night and for a moment Josh felt a twinge of doubt about his own capability – Clearly wanting to cram a lifetime’s worth of sexual fun into the short time left to her, Samantha was utterly insatiable once she got going, and now he had agreed to satisfy another girl the same age! When all the savoury food had been devoured, they went back and ordered ice-creams and brownie bites as well as a fresh round of milkshakes for everyone. Knowing his limits, Josh declined dessert but had to admit he enjoyed the strawberry milkshake.

“And to think I was worried about having too many left-overs at Christmas!” he chuckled, looking at the remains of their meal on the table which consisted of nothing but empty boxes, balled-up paper wrappers and mostly-empty sauce pots.

“Good job we ordered the meat from Emily too, huh?” Samantha grinned, clearly feeling rather proud of herself. As he stood up, Josh felt overly full and rather bloated and was both surprised and amused to see that the girls seemed to be suffering no ill effects, not even bulging stomachs, from having just consumed what had looked like their own body-weight in fast food.

“So,” Josh rubbed his hands together once they were outside, having deposited their rubbish down the appropriate chutes and left their trays on the stack above the bin, “where do you want to start?”

“We should probably sort the bags out first.” Samantha suggested. “Then we’ll know for sure how big they are.”

“Good idea!” Josh nodded, thinking how much like her mother his little girl could be at times and, not for the first time, he found himself wondering if the similarity went both ways – if Sidney Roebuck had been born thirty years earlier, would Laura have been as keen to be eaten as Samantha was now? Would she have set her heart on being Christmas dinner too or seen herself as a spit-roasted like Amelia? Or even felt the urge to go “all the way” like Emily apparently did? “There’s a party shop down this way!” He started to lead the way but the girls quickly drew level with him, taking one hand each. Inside the fairly small shop, Amelia seemed to want to stick close to him but Samantha ran off to explore. He found the gift bags with relative ease and was about to call to her to come look when her heard Samantha calling to them, insisting that she had found something cool.

They found there they other side of a rack of shelves in a section more focussed on decorations and party favours, nearly all Christmas themed for the season, of course, but with a few more genetic pieces in the mix.


“Look at these!” she proudly held up a green Christmas Stocking with a white strip across the top framed with metallic candy-striped string. “It comes with letters you can stick on,” she lifted the packet of golden letter fabric stickers that was tagged to the back of the stocking, “so you can put the person’s name! Isn’t that a cool idea?” Josh agreed that it was. “Can we get these instead of the bags?” she asked rather animatedly, pushing her arm inside to how how much space there was inside. “They’re a good size! The calendars would fit in easily and we can can find other stuff to fill them out with! What do you think?” She gave him the puppy-dog eyes she knew he was powerless to resist. “It would make it even more Christmassy and putting people’s names on them would make a nice, personal touch!”

“It does seem like a very nice idea.” Josh agreed, taking the stocking from her and rubbing his thumbs over it to feel the quality, finding it to be pretty decently made for the price. “And I agree it would be very Christmassy! Do they have different colours? And, more importantly, have they got enough?” Samantha quickly checked the rack, finding that they came in green and red and confirming that there were more than enough. “Let’s get twenty,” Josh suggested, “just to be on the safe side. Ten of each.” Having not picked one up when they came in, he went to find a basket while the girls counted out the stockings, checking for and rejecting any that had loose stitching, dirty smudges on them or any other defects.

“Should we look at other decorations while we’re here?” Samantha suggested. “It’s a pretty big hall and we want it to look festive!” Josh agreed that this was a good idea and the girls had a great time picking out garlands, wall-stickers and other fold-out decorations that would be far too over-sized to display in a house but which would look perfect in that hall.

“Big party, I take it?” the woman behind the checkout beamed as she rang through the purchases. Although the reaction to her plans that she had received so far had been overwhelmingly positive, Samantha knew better than to push her luck, especially out in public like this so just grinned in agreement. “You know,” she continued, folding the stockings into one large paper back and loading the other decorations, most of which were currently in flat packaging, into another, “there’s a new Christmas store opened last week in what used to be Home Bargains, do you know the one I mean?” Josh nodded. “One of those seasonal pop-ups,” she explained, turning the card machine around to show Josh the total and inviting him to tap his card, “but they have some really nice stuff! I went for a look after work yesterday. It’s mostly stuff for in the home but they had a whole section of bigger stuff too, not bad prices either!”

“Thanks!” Josh grinned as he put his wallet away and the girls took charge of a bag each. “We’ll definitely check that out! Merry Christmas!” he waved with one hand, pulling the shop door open with the other.

“B&M is probably the best place for sweets!” Amelia suggested. “I saw they do big candy canes too! Proper huge ones like in the movies!” She lifted her hands, one of which was clutching a bag from the party shop, and held them about a foot apart to illustrate. “Nice and thick, too!”

“Daddy’s got a special long, thick treat for you later!” Samantha giggled, bringing the subject up for the first time since they left the house, apparently unable to resist the set-up Amelia had given her with apparent innocence. “It’s really good to suck on too, trust me!” she winked, making Josh blush but Amelia only giggle. Now that her crush was out in the open and the arrangements had been made, she did not seem at all embarrassed discussing what she and her friend’s handsome Daddy would be getting up to later!

They began making their way towards the suggested shop when Samantha noticed something through the window of the discount bookshop.

“Wait!” she exclaimed, “In here first! Here,” she thrust her bag at Josh, “hold this!” before shooting into the shop.

Exchanging slightly bemused glances, Josh and Amelia followed to see what she had spotted, wondering what it could possibly have been to generate such excitement and urgency. They found Samantha standing at a table displaying lots of different Christmas story books – pop-up hardbacks, colouring books for a variety of different ages, story books of various kinds about Santa and the Nativity story, at least three different editions of “A Christmas Carol” and a selection of pocket-sized books, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper folded in four, on a stand marked “Christmas Classics”. There was “The Snowman” by Raymond Briggs along with both his “Father Christmas” books, Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, a few others that Josh had not heard of before, or did not really remember if he had, and right in the middle, the one that had caught Samantha’s eye from all the way out in the street – “Rosie the Christmas Turkey”!

This popular seasonal favourite showed up in book stores most years in its normal format of a large, square paperback but none of them had seen a mini edition like this before, apparently perfect for fitting into stockings!

“Can we get it, Daddy?” Samantha wheedled. “Please! Please! Please! Fuck!” she exclaimed, a little louder than she meant to, as before Josh could answer, she turned back to check the number of copies on the display. “There’s not enough! Do you think they have more? Or can we try another branch?”

“Well, actually,” Josh suggested gently, “a lot of people coming are families, so wouldn’t it make more sense to get a mix of books? We can make sure every household gets one copy, certainly,” he agreed, making a quick mental calculation of the number of copies available versus the number that would be needed and concluding that it worked out in their favour, “but let’s get a mix so people don’t all go home with the same one! We’re labelling the stockings, after all,” he reminded her, “so we can make sure of that!” Between them they worked out how many copies would actually be needed – one for Amelia, one for Miranda and her daughters, one for each set of grandparents, one for each family of cousins, one for Josh’s co-worker and his daughter and one for her other school friends.

“That’s eight copies.” Samantha nodded approvingly. “And it looks like they’ve got ten!”

“Well they’re three for ten pounds.” he pointed out, reading the banner on the front of the stand, “so get those eight and pick another two, or you can mix and match.” he suggested. “Just don’t get any more than eight of each. We can always donate the spares.” With Amelia’s help, Samantha settled on getting six copies of “The Grinch” and five copies each of “Father Christmas” and “The Snowman”.

“These are cute!” Amelia pointed out the novelty pens on the counter at the checkout, some with a squishy Santa figure on top, some with snowmen and some with Christmas trees which for some reason had faces. Josh agreed and they bought a mixture for the stockings. With their new purchases added to the bag, they made their way to the shop Amelia had suggested for the sweets where they bought bags of chocolate coins – both gold ones made from milk chocolate and silver ones made from white chocolate, one of each for each stocking, enough of the large candy-canes for each stocking and a few spares just in case, plus a variety of small bags of other Christmassy chocolate.

“Maybe we should get some of these too?” Samantha suggested, picking up a snowman-shaped marshmallow on a stick. “What about these?” she showed a bag of fruit-flavoured jellies shaped like Christmas puddings. “Mix things up a bit so not everything is chocolate?”

“Add them to the basket!” Josh chuckled, wondering just how much these stockings could be expected to hold. Still, he reasoned, nobody ever complained about extra sweets at a Christmas party. They could always put some out in a bowl if they didn’t all fit. Although they did browse the Christmas decorations aisle, there was really nothing the stood out as special, especially since they were planning on visiting the dedicated Christmas shop the lady at the party store had recommended. The lines at the checkouts were quite long but the cashiers were good at their job and they moved quickly.

“Don’t we have to go back past the car park to get to the Christmas store?” Samantha observed. “Maybe we should drop the bags off on the way?” Josh agreed that this was a good idea and so it was with unladen hands that they arrived at the Christmas pop-up store. Stepping inside the door was an instant magical experience. Despite its temporary nature, great care had been taken in setting up the shop and as well as making sure the stock was well displayed, attention had been given to creating a suitably Christmassy atmosphere.


To be continued...