The Christmas [Blank]
A collection of very short Christmas stories for people who would probably never read a collection of very short Christmas stories
Brian Rushton
Amy Rushton
Kevin Rushton
© 2011
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords
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Introduction
You know how there are a zillion Christmas movies, books, and TV specials with titles like “The Christmas” plus something else? It occurred to the authors that the formulas used in these stories could probably be applied – or shattered – using just about any noun in a title like that. So we came up with a new tradition. The rules are simple:
Open a Christmas book and point to a random spot on a random page.
Scan along the text until you come to a noun. You may skip a noun if it meets one of these criteria:
It is a proper noun.
It already has a connotation related to Christmas festivities.
Everyone agrees that it’s not interesting. This isn’t a legal document.
Write that story.
This is a collection of these stories. They are set in several different genres: children’s picture books, holiday drama, etc. We are confident that they will fill your holiday season with… something. Amusement, at least.
The Christmas File
“What a slob,” Tracy muttered as Dirk drove away.
“What’s wrong?” asked Janet, the look of disappointment evident on her face. “He’s always seemed polite to me!”
“Oh he was polite enough. A bit boring, but I can deal with that. But his fingers. They were so…”
Janet raised an eyebrow. She was going to make Tracy come up with the word.
“Unkempt,” Tracy finished. “His nails were different lengths. They looked like they had been gnawed rather than trimmed.”
“Oh, please,” her roommate protested. “You can’t be so picky about such tiny things if you ever hope to meet a guy.”
“You are the one who hopes I meet a guy,” Tracy countered. “I just want to live my life in peace, away from slobs and boring blind dates. I’m going to bed.” And with that, she headed off to her room.
Meanwhile, Grant was rummaging through a disturbingly large stack of papers, with some measurable attrition from the stack landing on the floor around his desk. “It’s in here,” he insisted out loud, although he was alone in the room. “It has to be!”
The door opened, and Mrs. Widgetson entered with a scowl. “It’s Friday, sir. And it’s Christmas Eve. You need to get home and… whatever you plan to do with your holiday break.”
Grant surfaced from the mass of papers, which was now more of a layer than a stack. “I know what day it is. I’m in a hurry. Business meetings don’t wait for weekends or Christmas.”
“Evidently not,” Mrs. Widgetson replied. “But perhaps a fresh perspective would help you find it.”
Grant was about to shout back a retort, but all of a sudden his mind soothed him with a mental image of a donut, conjured up from his secretary’s suggestion that he leave. He took a deep breath. “I need a snack,” he admitted.
“Very good, sir. I will see you…”
“Please see if you can find that folder,” he said, cutting her off before she had a chance to voice her intention to leave, which he would have had to deny, which would have made him feel guilty. Somehow cutting her off and ignoring her imminent request didn’t feel quite so bad. She let out a deep breath, but Grant was out the door before he had time to see the disappointed expression on her face.
He strode stiffly down the hallway to the elevator, which was evidently somewhere in the earth’s mantle, judging by how long it took to reach his floor. He tried to calm himself down and put his conscience to rest. It wasn’t like he was being selfish here. There was an orphanage at stake. Everyone knew that St. Güfbahl’s Home for Children had inherited its land and buildings from the Zigwalt estate when Old Ziggy had passed away. But those cursed lawyers at Stern’s Real Estate were now insisting that the Zigwalt family had used the land as collateral on a loan, which they had failed to pay off. It was a claim that should have been easy enough to disprove, given Old Ziggy’s propensity to hoard everything, especially receipts and contracts. The only problem was that his first-in-last-out filing system, combined with his decade-old-cardboard-box storage policy, was making a nightmare out of this whole ordeal. And now the deadline was upon him. If he couldn’t prove that the loan had been paid in full, the kids at St. Güfbahl’s would be out on the street on Christmas Day. And not just for caroling.
Grant’s phone rang, but at that instant the elevator arrived, and Grant hurried in, dropping the call. For some reason there was never phone coverage in the elevator – but then an elevator that penetrated the planet’s crust would have to have thick walls, he supposed. He was going to check the number, but the mental image of a donut returned and distracted him. He got off the elevator, hurried into the building’s café, and purchased three of them, plus some minty hot chocolate that turned out to be overly pepperminty and weird. But the donuts were very satisfying.
He was just starting the last donut – well a maple bar, actually – when a woman entered the café. Something about her caught his attention, even more than the maple bar. Maybe it was the expression of hopeful confidence in her eyes. Maybe it was her youthful look in contrast with the half-dozen scowling old men that filled the surrounding tables. Maybe it was her attractive eyes and the bounce of her hair. Maybe it was … no, actually it was almost definitely her attractive eyes and bouncy hair. Grant wasn’t used to seeing good looking women at work, and it took him a little too long to decide whether to speak or look away. She caught him staring.
“Working late?” she asked as she stepped up to the counter.
“Unfortunately, yes,” he replied. Afraid of looking nervous, he picked up his maple bar and stood up, walking over to stand next to her as she ordered. “You should try those,” he offered, pointing at some elaborate-looking donuts.
She bought a couple, then turned to him. “Do you always offer advice to customers?”
“No,” he replied honestly, “but at the moment it’s a useful excuse to delay going back upstairs.”
“Got to get your fix of workahol?” she asked with a lopsided smile.
“It’s not like that,” he said quickly. “I just have to find some old documentation or a bunch of orphans are going to be evicted tomorrow.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Tell you what,” she said. “Since I’ve already distracted you from your noble task, I’ll make it up by giving you some motivation to get back to it. If you find that file and save the orphans, and if you can prove your story, then I will let you escort me to my friend’s Christmas party tonight.”
“Seriously?” Grant said, then realized he was repeating himself. But he was so surprised that he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Here’s my number,” the woman said, writing it on a napkin. “My name’s Tracy.”
“Grant,” he managed, and then she shooed him back to work with a friendly smile. All of a sudden he didn’t feel like waiting for the elevator. He ran up the stairs instead.
Tracy wasn’t really sure why she had been so forward with that guy. He had seemed trustworthy enough, and the look he had had on his face made her feel more than a little sorry for him. Also he was kind of tall. Anyway, Tracy took some satisfaction from the fact that she had found her own date; now Janet wouldn’t be able to hook her up with some loser. At least this way if things went badly, it would be her own loser she would be dealing with. She couldn’t wait to get back to Janet’s house. She finished the shopping she had set out to do, but she made the mistake of fishing for her keys as she walked back to her car, and her boot slid on the ice. Tracy went down, and the contents of her purse pursued various escape vectors. It was dark, and her fingers were numb by the time she found her lipstick and finally made it into the car.
The items she had missed in the snow weren’t nearly light enough for her to notice that her purse was just slightly lighter.
Mrs. Widgetson was on her hands and knees in Grant’s office when he returned. She was sorting through papers. Her lips were pressed tight. The guilt returned, and Grant didn’t like the feeling messing up his mood after meeting a pretty girl. “Don’t you have a thing tonight?”
She looked up at him. “A date, actually.” Then she looked away. “If I have time.”
“Go,” Grant said. “I’ll finish up here.” She looked up again, as if to challenge his abrupt change in temperament. “Really. I’ll finish up here.”
“This is an important case…”
“I’ll be fine. And worst case, you can come in tomorrow and tell me how it went. Go.”
She stood up and dusted herself off. “Merry Christmas,” she said, and headed out the door.
Grant sat down and started looking through papers, but he realized his fingers were sticky. The closest drinkable liquid was in the water cooler near the copy machine, so he headed over there. It was the first time he had tried to use the machine; Mrs. Widgetson had always brought him water, but now she was gone, and he had to fiddle with the spout a bit before it would…
He stopped. There was something underneath the cooler. Curious, he bent down to pick it up, but just then his phone rang again – he had forgotten about the previous call. It was his cousin, Igmund. Grant tried to make the conversation brief, but Igmund took forever to say anything. Finally Grant understood that his cousin had forgotten to get a present for his mom and wanted Grant to pick one up from the store and wrap it. The request was completely unreasonable, but Grant was on a charity streak and didn’t want to break it. “Okay,” he said. He started out to his car, but then something in the back of his mind tugged at him, and he remembered the piece of paper. I really should go, he thought, but then he stooped down and picked it up.
“Impossible,” he whispered to himself as he drew it out from under the cooler. “It’s a miracle!” Indeed, the paper was the very receipt he had been looking for all day long. “And to think,” he continued to himself, “I never would have found it if I hadn’t let Mrs. Widgetson go on her date!”
Grant quickly found a folder for the precious document and then ran down to his car. He would deliver the paper and then give Tracy a call. It was going to be a wonderful Christmas after all. In his haste though, he forgot to slow down as he exited the building and entered the slick parking lot. He started to slip and grabbed a banister to keep his footing. He managed to stay on his feet, but the hasty swipe of his hand brought his fingers against the metal at an unexpected angle, and there was a slight stab of pain. He looked at his fingers in disbelief, then horror.
Grant had broken a nail.
Janet watched as her roommate answer her phone excitedly. Tracy’s face beamed as she said hello, but then her eyes dropped and her expression changed to one of concern, then utter disappointment. “Okay,” she said softly. “I understand.”
“What’s wrong?” Janet asked, putting her arm around her friend.
“He didn’t explain,” Tracy said, a tear glistening in her eye. “He just said he’s not going to be able to make it.”
There was just no way around it, Grant thought as he forced himself to do Igmund’s last-minute Christmas shopping. You couldn’t go on a date with a broken nail. It was just too tacky – it would be an insult to the girl, tantamount to saying that you didn’t care enough about her to take the slightest care of your appearance. And of course she would never have believed him if he had just come out and told her what had happened; the only way was to cover it up and let her make up her own explanation – anything would be less degrading than the truth.
He bought the item and started back out into another icy parking lot, cursing the weather and lamenting the lost sense of festivity about the season. Some Christmas. He was almost to his car when he saw something glittering in the snow. He bent down and caught his breath.
Another miracle. It was a nail file!
Frantically, Grant picked up the precious object and filed the broken part off of his fingernail. Then he picked up his phone and called Tracy. It rang several times, but finally someone answered. It wasn’t her.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is Tracy there? This is Grant – we met earlier.”
“Oh, hi. No, she’s gone. She ran out of here in tears and left her phone. You are so insensitive!”
“I can explain everything – something wonderful has happened. But I have to find her! Do you know where she was going?”
“Yes, but why should I tell you?”
“Please, I have to make this right! After all, it’s Christmas Eve!”
“Oh,
all right. Here’s the address.”
Tracy was still crying when she reached her grandfather’s house. She always came here when she was confused or hurt – he always knew what to say. She walked up the steps and knocked.
Nothing.
She kept knocking and rang the doorbell few times, but there wasn’t a sound.
That was it. The whole holiday was ruined. She couldn’t go to the party, and she was alone, without her grandfather’s wisdom to comfort her. It just couldn’t get any worse.
“Tracy?”
She turned around, and it somehow managed to get worse. “You.”
“I am so sorry!” Grant said, walking up to her.
“How did you find me?”
“It doesn’t matter; everything’s okay now! I found the file! Well actually, I found two!”
“You did? So the orphanage is saved?”
“Yes! And look, I broke my nail, but it’s fixed now! I found this in the snow!”
Grant held out the nail file in his newly-repaired hand, and Tracy stared in shock. “My nail file! I dropped it in the snow and thought I had lost it!”
“You mean this was yours? What are the odds?”
Just then, it started snowing. They looked up at the falling flakes and noticed the mistletoe hanging above them. The romantic confluence was just too much. Grant and Tracy slowly leaned toward each other and kissed. Somewhere a few blocks away, someone started playing music on a stringed instrument.
Then they stepped back, and Grant asked, “Why is there mistletoe up there, anyway?”
A voice from behind him said, “I put it there in case my date went well. Who in Sam Hill are you?”
“Grandpa!” Tracy called out!
“Mrs. Widgetson!” Grant blurted in surprise. Your date was Tracy’s grandfather?”
As the four greeted each other and explained the day’s miraculous events, their laughter blended with the nearby music as the view of them faded into the distance – from the perspective of something. Maybe some kind of bird.
The End
