Sadly, that warmth failed to keep the cold away once we stood in front of the tree.

"It's freezing out here," I grumbled, shoving my mitten clad hands beneath my armpits. I didn't, in fact, pack anything warmer than my sweater and coat, and the coat was meant to fit over a tailored suit, not a bulky knit. I worried any sudden movements might tear it at the seams, but Jordan warned me about leaving the house without it, especially considering I'd already refused to wear socks with my flats.

Once in town, he dragged me over to a kitschy gift store filled with locally made pieces, including several knitted items. After buying a pair of mittens, a hat, and a scarf, we made our way back to the town square where the caroler's guild stood before a dark tree.

"Maybe you should have packed more. Your toes are going to have frostbite by the end of the night." Jordan had his own gloved hands shoved into the deep pockets of his fleece-lined, soft suede jacket. He, however, left it unzipped and relied on several layers of shirts and a sweater to insulate his muscular frame. A colorful scarf of blues and greens, with a dash of burgundy, warmed his neck. He, however, neglected his head, leaving his ears bare and red against the frigid chill.

"I was supposed to be spending my weekend working inside, not traipsing about town."

"I wouldn't call what you're doing traipsing," he said with a chuckle. "You're far too stiff and compact to be traipsing."

I dug my face further into the folds of my scarf and glared at him from the thin slit formed between it and the brim of my hat. "I don't know why I'm here."

"Ooh, that's an interesting question, isn't it?" He rose up on his toes to look over the crowd as signs of activity stirred at the front. Then he rocked back on his heels and turned to me with a bright smile made merrier by the rosy tint the cold had whipped across his cheeks. "It depends on how you frame it. Are we talking about why you're here at the tree lighting or why you are here in Hereford Hills?"

"I'm here in Hereford Hills because you wouldn't relinquish the keys," I said with a light growl in my voice. "I meant why I'm out here. It's not like the guests need babysitting. I don't even know where they are, and I'm sure they're old enough to find their way back to the town shuttle bus."

"Well, only you can answer that question."

His voice dropped once the mayor approached the podium to recite a welcome speech. Jordan leaned in so I could hear him over the noise without disturbing our neighbors. His nose brushed a few strands of my hair as he brought his lips close to my ear. I hoped my bulky clothes could hide the shiver it sent through me, or that it appeared to be from the cold if he did notice.

"Perhaps," he offered, his tone settling into a husky timbre with the low volume of his voice, "you're out here because you want to be a good hostess and this is what a good hostess would do."

"Maybe." I kept my voice flat and my eyes upon the mayor as she introduced the caroler's guild.

"Or," he continued, his inflection teasing, "it's because you really didn't want to stay home alone working on something your heart really isn't in."

I responded with another piercing glare from beneath the shadow of my cap, but he only pulled away with a smile on his face.

"You know," he said, his voice rising slightly as the band began to play a light melody that slowly grew with a crescendo, "Gina wouldn't miss a single Sunday night during Christmas."

"Well, I've been told by numerous sources that she did indeed love her job." I sighed and looked over the heads of the crowd, watching the choir swell with their first note. "I guess a good hostess would come out."

"No," he said, his eyes sparkling as he too looked to the choir, basking in their simple, but inviting harmony, "she came out here because she just loved to sing. She was the one who founded the caroler's guild. Even after her responsibilities to the guild and the inn became too much, she still always came out to carol on Sunday nights. She had the voice of an angel." He then turned to look at me, the song now rising with the force of the coming tide, their voices washing over the crowd and drowning them in music. "I know it's cliche to say, but I honestly don't know how else to describe it. She found her voice somewhere beyond human understanding and elevated everyone around her to a plane that could only be reached with her song."

My chest tightened, the beat of the song pressing against it. Soon, the power of their voices collided with the strum of the guitar and the stroke of the violin. They melded into one until the sound became something beyond reason and understanding. It was a creature all of its own and I knew it would only live for the next minute or so before dying in front of us.

"What song is this?" I asked, trying to change the subject with grace. However, what seemed a simple segue to me hit a strange chord with my companion. My grandmother, in all her wisdom, had her eccentricities. It was easy to forget to compensate for them when interacting with others.

"What? This is 'Angels We Have Heard on High.' You're not familiar with it? The Gloria part is kind of a memorable line." He laughed as if I had been joking, but when I turned from him in embarrassment, his tone shifted. "Wait, you honestly don't know this song?"

"My grandmother wasn't a fan of music." My words were stiff as the chorus hit their final Gloria and the lights flickered on with the swell of their voices. The crowd oh'd and ah'd, while some couples pulled in tight to feel the touch of the golden glow as one. "I don't know if she actually grew up in the town from Footloose or she just simply never found the appeal in it. It's just, whenever I asked about it, she simply told me that music defeated reason. That it had the power to convince well-meaning folks to do things they wouldn't normally do. She said it was better to stay grounded."

"Well, I mean, I suppose that's true in a way."

Jordan turned from the bright spectacle before us and absentmindedly clapped his hands as the song ended. After a brief pause, the band began a new song, one with an upbeat tempo that got a few in the crowd bopping along with the music before they'd even reached the third note.

"She never listened to it, so I never did either. I hold nothing against it, I just..." With my arms crossed and my head bowed, I kicked the ground with my toe. Jordan was right. I couldn't really feel them any more and the pressure sent a painful sense of numbness to my brain. Perhaps it was the uncomfortable chill squeezing me or the ache in my legs from standing that loosened my lips, but I couldn't stop myself from trying to explain something so trivial. "Instead, I will read books at home and, you know, I'll listen to podcasts or NPR when I go out for a jog or need something to occupy me on the subway. I know I'm a grown woman and my grandmother certainly can't stop me from getting into music now, but I just have no desire to do so."

I looked up at him to see if he understood what I meant, but he only met me with pity.

"I can't imagine going through the things you've been through without music there to lift you up. I'm not proud of some things I've done in my life and I've had my rough patches. Music, however, touches you in ways no words can. It does ascend reason and logic, but it does it by making you believe in something more. I can't see how that's a bad thing. It helped me believe I was worth something. Nobody would hire me, nobody wanted an ex-addict working for them. In fact, the town probably would have paid for the ticket to get me out of here."

He paused, his words a harsh juxtaposition against the merry cadence of the song bouncing through the crowd. I felt a knot of guilt form in my throat and the burn of sympathy at the corners of my eyes. I held them back, keeping my face firm and emotionless as I gazed up at Jordan. He took a breath and continued. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt disarmed by the cold. Or perhaps it was the light of the tree and the magic of the choir's voices.

"I was about to give up and move to the city where no one would know I was a high school dropout with a history of drug abuse. I gave myself one last Christmas in Hereford Hills. It didn't seem right to leave my family around the holidays. For whatever reason, they hadn't given up on me yet, and I wasn't totally ready to let that go. That Christmas, they dragged me out to the last caroling performance of the season. That's when Gina sang 'Mary Did You Know?' I guess I lost reason then because she somehow convinced me I should stay and that I should go ask her for a job. She did that without saying a single word to my face."

"So you just went up to her one day and asked for a job? Just like that?" The choir fell into the background as applause rose in their place. Another song started, solemn and urgent in its beat. The voices rose and fell at different times, somehow both out of sync and perfectly in harmony at the same time.

"I went to her the very next day and asked for a job." He shrugged and kept his eyes turned to the choir, breathing in the strength of their voices. "She accepted me without question. As long as I did the work, stayed off the drugs, and stopped dealing, I was employed. She had to beat me upside the head a few times when I stumbled in those early years, but I've been clean for nine years now. Thanks to her, I also got my GED and eventually my home inspector license. I owe her so much."

"Well, I don't know my aunt very well—barely at all really—but I can at least tell you that if she was anything like me, hard work speaks volumes about someone. I don't care what you did when you were young. It's in the past and all we have is the present. If you are doing right now and promise to continue to do so in the future, then you're a good person, Jordan."

I nodded my head, then turned from him. The rising tide of the song had found its peak and then descended into the soft chime of the choir's voice, echoing the call of bells.

"You know, I'm glad I brought you out here. They say it took the whole of Whoville's song to make the Grinch's heart grow that Christmas day."

I looked back to see a boyish grin replacing the serious expression that had settled on his face. I gave him a dramatic roll of my eyes, but a smirk still curled up my cheek.

We watched the rest of the concert in silence. Each of us allowing the music to cast its spell, curious what its magic had in store for us.