Too Old For Santa by Janice Sperry

Excerpt from Too Old For Santa

"Michael? That thing of yours is broken.” Michael looked down at his little brother. Usually it was cute, the way Trent said his name. My Coal. It wasn’t so cute now.

 “What’s broken?” He kept everything that Trent could break up on his bunk bed. What could Trent have gotten his little hands on?

“That thing…of yours…that’s broken.” “What’s broken?” Michael struggled to keep his voice calm, especially with Mom listening. Nine-year-olds are too old to believe in Santa. Michael knew that Mom was Santa. The magic of Christmas was gone, but getting presents was still fun. Even Dad behaved himself at this time of year.

“That thing,” Trent said.

 “Mom!” Michael said. This conversation was going nowhere.

 “Calm down, Michael.” She got down on her knees and made Trent look at her. “Trent, honey, can you show Mommy what’s broken?”

Trent nodded and took Mom’s hand. Michael followed, wishing Trent could move his little legs a bit faster. After what seemed an eternity, they entered the crime scene. There sat his favorite airplane—minus one wing.

“My airplane!” Michael cried. He and Dad had worked for weeks on the plane. “You ruined it.”

“Michael,” Mom said. “Did you put your airplane away? How did Trent get to it?”

 “I had it on my bed.” Michael knelt by the ruined plane and gathered the pieces in his arms.

“Oh.” Mom’s cheeks turned pink. Michael glared at her. She felt guilty about something. “I forgot to tell you. Trent climbed to the top bunk bed yesterday while you were at school.”

A sick feeling settled in Michael’s stomach. His bed was his last refuge. The last place he could go to get away from his little brother. The last place where his stuff was safe from Captain Destructo.

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From Dad by L.T. Elliot

Excerpt from From Dad

We lost Grandpa on Christmas Eve. He was a man of strength and silence. His softness bespoke greater power than any raised voice ever would. His tools were those of reason and thought and anything shaped with their wisdom hummed with the warmth of sun-polished wood.

Where other men might have railed against the unjust discovery of an inoperable brain tumor, Grandpa humbly bowed to the will of an all-knowing Father and trusted Him to do what was best.

And the Father called him home.

On the night the world celebrated the Savior’s first drawn breath, we mourned the loss of another great man. There was little time to reconnect to the joy of Christmas. So much needed to be done and in the midst of it, my parents strove to keep the spirit of the season from dispersing. The younger children had long awaited the joy of Christmas morning and my parents, though devastated, still planned to give it to them. Their sorrow was buried beneath loving duty.

 I will never know what strength it took for my father to carry on, preparing a world of magic and wonder when his own had been swallowed beneath a mantle of loss. I imagine that many quiet tears were shed and that his heart was burdened with the unsaid. Somehow, he did what he had to do.

Morning came, our front room littered with Santa’s gifts in bright red, green, and white. Stockings brimmed with treats and essentials: toothbrushes, lotions, and a traditional orange. Not a single thing had been forgotten, despite the tragedy that befell our family.

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The Cat Who Ate the Quiche by Laura Craner

Excerpt from The Cat Who Ate the Quiche

The cat had never been spry. Not in all the years she had lived with the family had she been spry. The kids had long since learned to leave the cat alone. They didn’t even try to pet her anymore—especially near her hindquarters—because, even though she had no front claws, the cat was a biter and a scratcher. Every now and again one of the kids would wake up to find the cat snuggled up and snoring next to them in bed. They’d have to climb gingerly around her to get out or else the cat would turn into a snarling flurry of pure fur fury.

The cat had shown up one snowy November evening. The family was eating mushroom-broccoli quiche for dinner. Or, more correctly, the family was not eating mushroom-broccoli quiche for dinner. Well, the father was eating it. He always ate it, whatever it was. The mother would have been eating it had she not been telling the children (she always called them children because, after all, they were not a herd of goats) to eat it regardless of what they thought of the smell. And the kids, they were, well, they were prodding it.

Just as the mother warmed herself up for a round of “you-don’t-always-get-what-you-want-and-sometimes-you-have-to- try-new-things-because-I-am-your-mother-and-I-said-so-and-what-about-the-starving-children-in-Africa?” they all heard the sound. The kids stopped their prodding. The mother closed her mouth. The father swallowed.

It definitely wasn’t a meowing sound. If it had been, the family would have recognized it and opened the door immediately. It wasn’t a purring either. The wind was too loud to hear purring. In later years, after the cat died, the family decided the noise could only be described as a demand—if a demand could be wordless and completely other-worldly and animalistic.

At the sound, the family rushed to the back door and jostled it open. (It was a sticky and temperamental door, especially in wet weather.) As soon as the knob turned and the latch freed itself from the frame, the wind pushed the door open and the family discovered they had opened the wrong door.

The family rushed to the front door and also jostled it open. (It refused to be bested by the back door. Especially in wet weather.) Again, they found nothing. But the noise—the demand—was louder. So the boy, the quintessential middle child who was always running ahead, walked out into the snow and peered into the juniper bushes that lined the front of the house. He was still holding his fork and began to prod the bushes—apparently prodding the quiche had not been enough for him.

That was how he found the cat.

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Walking In a Weevil Wonderland by Melanie Goldmund

Excerpt from Walking In a Weevil Wonderland

I love my job. There’s something incredibly satisfying about hunting down were-creatures and blasting them into oblivion. Of course, since I’m on call as soon as the moon rises, it plays havoc with my social life, and a lot of guys get turned off when you say that you’re basically an exterminator. But that’s the price you pay for keeping the world safe, or so I tell myself whenever I’m feeling lonely.

Like every December, we were battling were-weevils. True were-weevils take advantage of the full moon to open a transdimensional gate from the Were-world and cross over to ours, to destroy Christmas and the entire Christmas spirit. They chew anything that looks or smells or sounds like Christmas, and bite anyone who tries to stop them.

You can guess by the word “were-” what happens to those unlucky humans who are bitten by a were-weevil. Within two heartbeats, they turn into six-legged creatures with long snouts and teeth capable of biting through almost anything. And if they can’t chew it—Christmas lights, for example—they drool on it. The acid in their saliva burns through and destroys it just the same.

Transformed were-weevils chew until the sun comes up and they turn back into humans, at least until the next holiday season. True were-weevils, on the other hand, chew until they’ve absorbed enough Christmas spirit that they can sprout wings. Not only can they then fly to any other source of Christmas spirit that they fancy, they’re also capable of breeding, they can move independently of the moon phases, and worst of all, they’re almost impossible to catch. My job is to make sure they don’t get to that point.

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Believe, Mr. Thomas by Don Carey

Excerpt from Believe, Mr. Thomas

Across the desk sat an older, well dressed man, and he was getting on my nerves. Our meeting had been arranged by my Board of Directors, and I silently cursed them when the man asked if I would run his brand new, as yet unnamed Christmas non-profit.

I shook my head in disbelief. “Well, you see, the thing is, um, Mr. …”

“Nicholas,” he said. “Nicholas, right. You see, Mr. Nicholas, the thing is I already have a job—a very good one, in fact.” I adjusted the nameplate on my desk which read ‘Reginald Thomas—Chief Executive.’

“Yes, you do have a good job,” he said, smiling through his trimmed white beard. “For now.” I wondered what he meant by that, but decided not to ask—it would only delay the meeting’s conclusion. “Nevertheless, I would suggest you seriously consider my offer, Mr. Thomas.”

 I was seriously considering a call to office security instead when he continued, “Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother you with this. I certainly don’t like to be a bother, but I’m here as a favor to my dear friend Holly Garland.”

I stopped, and he smiled at me again. “Yes, that Holly Garland. Your grandmother.”

“Mr. Nicholas,” I said icily, “had you done your homework, you would know that my grandmother died over thirty years ago.” The only thing worse than a shameless name dropper was a clueless one.

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An Epiphany Gift for Robin by Joyce DiPastena

Excerpt from An Epiphany Gift for Robin

"Why, Arthur, what is this?” Marriot stared down in surprise at the large, thickly wrapped bundle her husband placed in her lap.

The Christmas season was drawing to its close on this, the twelfth day following the Nativity of the Lord. The extra rents of eggs, bread and a fine speckled hen they’d been forced to pay to help supply the baron’s Christmas feast had been somewhat offset by Lord Beckford having selected her husband as one of two peasants he traditionally invited to the castle on Christmas day.

Arthur, representing the poorest of Beckford’s poor serfs, had carried away as much food and ale as he could balance in one cloth, a cup, and a wooden trencher, while the second tenant, a free farmer on the manor, had been allowed to take two friends and feast for two days at the baron’s own table. Arthur had returned all a-grumble at Beckford’s stinginess, claiming he’d heard that at many another manor, the lord or abbot invited all his serfs to a Christmas feast.

Still, he’d managed to return with enough good food to make a fine, if modest, Christmas dinner for their family.

The food was long gone now, along with the merry games played by the villagers to keep warm in the winter snows. The ivy and holly so gleefully gathered and hung by the children to brighten their tiny thatched cottage had grown dry and crisp, crackling off their garlands and crushed by shoes to form a fine, fragrant dust on the earth-beaten floor. Today, Epiphany, the day the Magi had presented their gifts to the Christ Child, was the last day of respite her family would have from the backbreaking work in the baron’s fields.

“What foolish thing have you done?” Marriot demanded of her husband. Gifts were only given to small children on Epiphany, especially among the poor. Her husband’s dark eyes danced with that mischievous gleam that had won her heart ten years ago. “Sometimes a bit of foolishness is just what a man needs to bestow on the woman he loves.”

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R. Edwin Dugert by Brian C. Ricks

Excerpt from R. Edwin Dugert

Bob Dugert jogged up the path to the front door, looked at his watch, and for the thousandth time got ready to explain to his wife that it wasn’t his fault the bus was late. Brushing the snow off his construction helmet and overalls, he pushed open the front door.

 The front room was empty. His son’s books were strewn across the floor, but he wasn’t there and neither was Alice. The light wasn’t even on. Bob slipped off his boots and helmet and listened for sounds of life. He could hear the soft music of Alice’s yoga video coming from the family room around the corner. He took a deep breath and walked down the hall, into the room.

The TV was on showing dozens of women in the same strange contortion. Alice’s yoga mat was there on the floor, but there was no Alice. He took another few steps forward and then saw her curled up on a chair staring—somewhere.

“Hi,” Bob offered.

“Hi.”

Bob knelt down next to her chair. “Darling, I’m really sorry. I know you needed me home early but the bus was really late.”

Alice remained silent.

Bob looked into her eyes, but she continued her nowhere stare. He sighed. “I told my boss I needed to get off early because we had Christmas shopping to do and—”

“No, it’s not that,” said Alice, finally focusing her gaze toward him.

“Are you worried about your parents this Christmas? Maybe we should look at the tickets again. Maybe they’ve gone down in price since we last checked them.”

Alice looked up. “Your son won’t talk to me.”

 “Our son won’t talk to you?”

“He’s not supposed to learn the silent treatment until he’s a teenager. He won’t forgive me and it’s your fault!”

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