Wee Hours Before Christmas

There is nothing like the fire that lights a child's eyes when they are first to reach the room where the Christmas tree sits. Boxes, in bunches, gather round the tree like familiar friends, waiting for their labels to be read, their contents to be shaken, and their wrappers to be torn.

No, there is nothing like it in the world. I would suppose that the only thing that comes close is a young bride on a wedding morning.

And so it was...

Carol Hahn had combined two of her greatest things in life: Wedding and Christmas. This was probably the best combination of headaches for her father, Frank Hahn. Frank Hahn was the traditional bah-humbug type of store owner, who ran 'Hahn's One Stop', a grocery market where a person could pick up laundry detergent, a fan belt for a clothes dryer, and Vanilla Ice Cream. Not that anyone would want that combination, but if they did, it was there for the taking.

His daughter Carol had spent the week in Boston and would be arriving at the Pittsburgh Airport at 9:00 p.m.