Lucia Practice

"Don't slouch!"
"You're way too stiff!"
"Keep your head straight... No, not like that!"
"No! No! No! No!"

Hailey had done nothing more for the past hour and a half except walking around slowly with a crown of candles on her head, and yet that had sufficed to exhaust her more than anything she had ever done in recent memory. And the candles weren't even lit!
Hailey slumped into a chair by the gingerbread and the lussekatts, picking the wreath of holly on which the candles were arranged in a circle, off the tip of her auburn hair, letting it rest on her lap.

"And what do you think you are doing?" An Elvira in the same white dress as Hailey, minus the red sash, looked down on the honoured Lucia while resting her hands on her hips even though one of the hands held on to a candle.
"What does it look like? I'm taking a break."
"We're not done yet!" Elvira said.
"Well, when are we gonna get done? I'm tired..."
"We'll be done when we get all of this done to a T!"
Hailey groaned. At this point she wanted to cry. The rehersal had been nothing but a single big nightmare to her.
Which is not to say it had been a walk in the park for the other elves either. In fact Sylvia was in the process of demanding a recount of the votes for the sixteenth time.

"I keep telling you, Sylvia," Roland said with ever decreasing levels of patience in his voice, "I must have counted the votes sixty or so times before I even announced the results! Trust me, I could believe what I saw no more than you!"
"Then let's hold another vote!" Sylvia said, "I mean, she obviously must have cheated!"
Roland glanced towards Hailey, who was on the verge of tears, "...Somehow I doubt that. And besides, it's far too late to settle on another Lucia. Showtime is tomorrow! And everything will have to be right as rain by then!"

While this was all going on, a festive yet moody ambient tune played from the piano by a scrawny, hunched elf with thick grey beard, bald apart from the mane of matted gray hair along his temples and the back of his head.
"Come on, boys and girls. Hailey was chosen for a reason." The elder elf said as his boney, veined fingers danced across the keys, "Now, I might not know exactly what reason that is, but I do know it won't ever manifest at this rate. Not unless we show an ounce of faith."

Hailey glanced appreciatively towards the elder elf. Apart from Jess, who could be such a busibody at times, Alvin was probably the one Christmas elf Hailey got along with the most, and who would stand up for her when things got rough. He was also a relic from a different time, and so had trouble connecting with him. Maybe if she would muster the effort to get to know him, she wouldn't feel so lonely all the time. But as far as she was concerned, 'finding the effort' was exactly the problem. And since Alvin most of the time resided in his own quarters in the tower, he really didn't pop up in her mind.

"Hey, so Hailey..." a sympathetic smile growing from under the moustache as he clicked his fingers against the keys, producing a high-tempo upbeat cover of Joulupuu On Rakennettu.
Hailey tapped her feet to the rhythm with exactly the kind of enthusiasm she thought had escaped her, "Jou-lu-puu on ra-ken-net-tu..."
She started, and all others chimed in, filling the room with song.
"Joulu on jo ovella! Nnamusia ri-pu-ste-ttu, ompi kuusen ok-si-lla!"

Every single elves burst out laughing at the end, Ralph even falling to the floor.
"Ehehe... Now, looks like you at least got strength left in you to laugh, right? So... How about you give this just one more try, hmm?"
Hailey sighed, beholding the wreath in her hands, before putting the crown back on her head, rising to her feet.
"...Fine. Guess I'll just go on for a little longer."