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Eric finished the rest of his shopping and then headed home. He wondered how he could bring "Christmas cheer" to Mr. and Mrs. Decker. Eric was surprised to see his mom's car in the driveway when he pulled in.
"Hi Mom! What are you doing home so early?"
"Well we were supposed to meet with some manufacturing reps, but they canceled at the last minute and my boss said we could all start the weekend early."
"Lucky you. Hey I have something I want to talk to you about."
"Sure, what's up?"
"I was Christmas shopping downtown and I ran into Father Jerry. We ended up having lunch and he told me how Mr. Decker was having a hard time dealing with his cancer."
"Did it spread?"
"No, I don't think so. It sounded more like it was taking a long time to heal and he was depressed about it.
"Oh, I feel so bad. I wonder if we should try to help some way."
"I said the same thing. Father Jerry invited us over for dinner tomorrow at 6:00. He said a little Christmas cheer might help. Do you want to go? I kind have already said we would."
"Hmm... tomorrow night... that should work. Does Father Jerry want us to bring anything?"
"He just mentioned Christmas cheer. I don't really know what that means. I'd like to think of something cool to do...you know to cheer him up. Father Jerry said the Deckers were either at the doctors or stuck in their house. He said they could really use a change of scenery."
"Maybe we could bring over some Christmas decorations and make it seem festive. We could bring over some of the Christmas cookies I made last night."
"That's a good idea. What kind of decorations were you thinking about?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe a nice centerpiece with some candles or we could buy some Christmas lights and hang them up. I wonder if they felt up to putting a tree up this year."
"I don't know if they did or not."
"Why don't we go to the store and look around for some ideas," Mom suggested.
"Let's do it."
Mom turned on the radio and put on the station playing continuos Christmas songs as we drove. We were going to stop at the florist first to check out centerpieces with candles in them. Personally, I didn't think a centerpiece would cheer up any guy, but maybe Mrs. Decker would like it. I was listening to my mom sing when all of a sudden a fantastic idea popped into my brain. Suddenly I knew exactly how to bring Christmas cheer to the Deckers!
"Mom, pull over!" I said bursting with excitement. "I just figured out what were going to do and its going to be awesome! We're going to have to call in some favors in order to pull it off."
"Oh, I've seen that look before, what exactly are you planning to pull off?"
I told Mom my idea and she instantly loved it. It was going to take some planning but I think it could be accomplished. We were definitely going to have to make some phone calls and head towards downtown to pick up what we needed.
"Eric this is one of the best ideas you have ever had! How in the world did you come up with that?"
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