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wipers to deal with the snow that was striking her windshield, and tuned her car radio to her favorite local station. The news on the hour was just ending and Rayne Phillips, KCOW’s meteorologist, was in the process of wrapping up his weather report.
    “ . . . chance of snow flurries later this evening. Presently, we have clear skies with temperatures ranging in the teens across Winnetka County. It’s a beautiful night, folks. Get out there and enjoy it.”
    Hannah grumbled, turning up the speed on her windshield wipers to handle the rapidly falling snow. “You’re an idiot, Rayne. If you just look out the window, you’ll know it’s already snowing!”
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    Edna Ferguson looked surprised as Hannah stepped into the kitchen at the community center. “What are you doing here so early? I didn’t expect you before five.”
    “I thought maybe you could use some extra help.” As Hannah stashed Mike’s pâté in the refrigerator, she noticed that Andrea’s Jell-O Cake was already there on a shelf. “Lisa was here?”
    “Come and gone. She said she had to rush home to get dressed. She dropped off the sugar cookies, and they’re just beautiful.”
    “Lisa’s a whiz with a pastry bag. How about Andrea? Did she bring you the serving spoons?”
    “She did, and I don’t know how she does it, as big as she is. That sister of yours is really something.”
    “You mean because of the serving spoons?”
    Edna shook her head so hard, her tightly permed gray curls bounced like springs. “That too, but mostly because of the decorations. The decorating committee was here when Andrea came in, and she asked as nice as pie if she could help. It was just the Hollenbeck sisters. Bernice Maciej was supposed to come too, but her back was acting up. Anyways, they didn’t want to let Andrea help at first, her being in the condition she is and all. But then she said she’d call a couple of her friends to do all the lifting, and they admitted they could use the help. You should have seen the whirlwind once those younger gals started working. Why, they finished it all in less than two hours, including the eighteen-foot-all Christmas tree!”
    “She did more than that. I tell you, I almost dropped my teeth when I saw her up on the ladder, putting the angel on top of the tree.”
    Hannah was glad that she hadn’t witnessed that particular folly. She doubted that Doc Knight had realized the full ramifications when he’d told Andrea to resume her normal activity.
    “Go turn on the lights and have a look.” Edna motioned toward the door. “it’s just beautiful!”
    Hannah went back out into the dining room. Only a few lights had been on when she’d come down the stairs, and she hadn’t really noticed the decorations. She flicked on the bright lights and blinked in astonishment at the wonders her sister had accomplished.
    There were four long tables at the front of the banquet hall, each covered with a different color tablecloth and sporting a large centerpiece of poinsettias, pine boughs, and gold Christmas balls. Stuck inside each one was a hand-lettered flag on a candy cane pole. The red table was for appetizers. It said so right on the flag. The gold was for entrées and sides, the silver was for desserts, and the green was for salads, soups, and breads. Another table, covered in red and green plaid, had bee set up with coffee, tea, and a cooler that would contain bottles of milk, water, and juice.
    More long tables were set up in a geometric pattern around the room, each decorated with Christmas tablecloths sporting snowmen, Santas, Christmas trees, holly, and snowflakes. Three centerpieces, scaled-down versions of the ones that were on the food tables, were placed equidistant down the middle of each table.
    Hannah glanced up and was surprised to see that a canopy that had been woven overhead from red, green, gold, and silver crepe-paper streamers crisscrossed in an intricate patter. Everything was lovely and festive,