Category: Christmas Stories

Andrea gazed out the window as the first snow fell, blanketing the ground with its grace. It was Christmas Eve and any other year she would be jumping for joy at this wondrous sight. Andrea and her Dad would try to build a snowman or sprinkle reindeer food with dashes of glitter scattered about so that Santa’s sleigh could find the food easily.

Those moments were only memories now. Her father had passed away the day after Christmas one year ago. As she cried herself to sleep many times in the past year, she tried to hold on to his embrace and the image of his gentle face. Her loneliness had continued to grow rather than subside.

Especially now.

Andrea wanted to stop the arrival of Christmas Day unless it could bring her father back to life! No other gift could be greater than his self-assuring presence and constant love for her.

Her mother tried to create the excitement of past holidays by continuing family traditions. Beautifully wrapped packages sat under a balsam tree decorated with favorite ornaments and twinkling lights. Homemade dressing was being prepared for a feast of all feasts.

Yet, none of these holiday trimmings seemed to fill the gap and make Andrea whole once more.

Fortunately, she had her shoebox. It was neatly decorated with hearts of many colors and golden stars. Beneath the cover, photographs, travel brochures, post cards including a trip to Niagara Falls, a broken wrist watch, a tie clip and other treasures symbolizing her father’s life filled the container as well as the barren spot in her heart.

Tonight, it was time, time for Andrea to feel safe, secure and loved. So, she went to her dresser drawer and carefully pulled the box from it’s’ place, cradling it like a baby in her arms. After many minutes, she spread the contents of the box on the floor to be touched, read and admired.
She felt close to him now.

But on the floor nestled in her collection was an advertising card that Andrea had not seen before. It was a rectangle in blue and advertised the top automobile glass companies with their phone numbers and addresses on it.

The third company on the card was her father’s “Glass Sales and Service” and beside the name, his familiar phone number. Andrea couldn’t even begin to count the number of times that she had dialed that number, anxious to share her accomplishments at school or simply to tell him “yes, it had been a good day.”

After he passed away, her mother had sold the business and the new owners changed its name, requesting a new phone number. Had that number which offered Andrea private words of concern with her father been disconnected forever? Maybe it had been issued to another business or home for those to share similar conversations as Andrea had experienced
A voice, deep within, had prompted Andrea to find out. Why, she didn’t know, but, still the whisper of the unknown urged her on.

Cautiously, she picked up the receiver and dialed the number…

There seemed to be a connection! The number had not been discontinued after all!

After two rings, a voice responded.

“Good evening, Glass Sales and Service,” followed by a brief pause, “Hello, Andrea.”

The voice was distant and almost inaudible due to crackling on the line but there was no question whom the voice belonged to.

“Dad?” she stammered, her throat parched, her heart throbbing as she shut her eyes quickly, hoping to hear a response over the pounding in her chest.

“Yes, Sweetheart,” her father said calmly and deliberately.

Andrea could not believe what was happening or how and why. All she knew is that her father was finally here. Tears of joy began to flow freely down her face, “Dad, are you really alive?” she asked. There was a pause that seemed endless.

“Andrea, I cannot come back to the life as you know it. But…..”

“No! It wasn’t true! Andrea had been dreaming, a long and dreadful dream this year. He was really coming home soon and……..

“What you are hearing, Andrea is the voice of your heart, my spirit that will always be there.” She was so confused and at a complete loss for words. Though buried within her soul, Andrea knew he was right. His funeral had been too vivid, too horribly real and that indistinguishable voice inside of her convinced her that death was final, final in the physical way.

He did not wait for her reaction because he knew it would be too difficult for her to understand. So, he continued.

“Regardless of where I am today, death cannot tear us apart. If you believe in the importance of your life and look inside your heart, you will always find me waiting. Waiting to guide you through problems and loving you as you are and will be. Don’t ever lose hope for what is hidden in your heart. Just open it, Andrea, like you do with your shoebox of memories and you know what, if you listen carefully, you can hear the angels……………..”

Static drowned his words.

“Dad, I love you…….” Her voice suddenly dropped dramatically, “Dad, are you there?”

Within seconds, she heard a click followed by a dial tone. He was gone.

Instantly, Andrea dialed the number again. It began to ring and suddenly she heard, “I am sorry, that number has been disconnected.”

As she hung up the phone, Andrea slumped to her knees, shaking with emotional exhaustion. Shock trembled through her, but somehow, she felt a peace that she had not experienced for a long time. The peace found a place in her heart that had been barren. She truly believed her father’s words and she knew life could go on in her world as well as his.

She heard her Mom call so she made her way to the bathroom to wash her tear-stained face. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror above the sink and smiled. She not only saw her her own features but the wonderful love of her father standing behind her. And as her Mom called once again, she thought she heard other voices as well.

“If you listen carefully, you can hear the angels……..sing.

Critique: I like the idea of Christmas being a time of spiritual reunion with those who have gone before, but this was a little too magical for my tastes. I’d probably put the phone call in a dream sequence and also have her dad reference Christmas and that we celebrate the birth of Christ, who will make their reunion in the future possible. Need a little more personality for Andrea and more time exploring the change that just happened. Also, I have no idea how old she is—and I need an indication of it. I’m guessing around 12?

What I liked best: Her box of memories.

Publication ready: No. It has potential, but it needs some work.

Sarina Howard crossed her fingers on both hands, as she hit the send button. I hope I win, I hope I win, she silently chanted in her head. Just then she caught a glimpse of her hair in the now dark computer screen. She reached up and tugged at the offending strands. Her hair was just like her, too short to put up in a ponytail and too long to just leave. Sarina was way too short for her age and most of the time this didn’t bother her that was until someone, usually an adult treated her like a baby instead of the 11 year-old she was. That was one of the reasons winning this essay contest was so important to her. This was the first year she was old enough to enter. Wouldn’t it just burn Valerie’s britches if I won and she didn’t. She’s been calling me baby all year at school, we’ll just see who is the baby now. Sarina turned of the computer and walked into her room. Now all she had to do was wait, hope and pray she won.

Ten days later the leaders of the colony began reading all the essays for this years contest and at first fast then, slower and slower tossing out the ones that didn’t fit what they envisioned for the contest. Some were just silly, others an obvious rewrite of the encyclopedia. This year the leaders were particularly picky. There must be something special about this years winners. After all it wasn’t everyday that a colony celebrated it’s 150th anniversary. The leaders of Snow knew that somewhere in this pile of essays was “the one” now they just had to find it.

“Sarina, Sarina hey, I’ve been calling you for at least two minutes. Where is your mind today?” Yelled Gina, Sarina’s best friend as she ran to catch up with Sarina.

“Gina, did you enter the essay contest for the snow day?”

“Ah Sarina, you know the older kids always win that after all They have a lot more experience writing than we do.” Gina glanced at Sarina. “Oh no, you didn’t, you did didn’t you. Sarina, some day your going to go too far and one of the older kids is going to get you.”

“I know but I just had to try, maybe they won’t find out.”

“You better hope not. Now what did you get on you math test?”

Sarina was glad Gina didn’t push although she would have loved to have another opinion on her essay. It wouldn’t do her any good though because it was already sent.

The days wore on and Sarina tried to put the contest out of her mind. As the Christmas Holiday season grew nearer and nearer she began to feel both let down and excited. This was the magical time of the year. The Christmas holiday’s and the naming and landing here on Snow fell together and made every child’s heart beat a little faster.

Decorations that were traditional but didn’t always make sense were appearing all over. Huge white balls stacked up and made to look like people. Lacy silver and glittery “snowflakes” . Odd shaped tree’s with balls star’s, red and white hooks and many other ornaments could be bought at nearly every store in town. Everyone knew they were fake, no tree on the planet looked like that. The orniments at least made sense. Everyone knew the Christmas story, but what did the funny shaped trees and snow have to do with that? Sarina wondered, actually Sarina wondered alot and worried.

The “snowflakes” really worried Sarina. They looked so big, and she just couldn’t imagine them falling lightly on anyone with out squishing them. But all the history books said snowflakes fell. If she won this contest she would know for herself.

“Sarina, come in here.” Called her mother from the living area. “You have an official notice here and it won’t let me open it. The computer says it needs your password. Now young lady I will be standing right here. So there better be no funny business, understand?”

Sarina stared. “Mom, I think I won”

“Won, what do you mean?”

“I entered the Founders Day essay contest. I don’t think they even let the losers know anything so I must have won.”

“The only way to know for sure is to open the notice.”

Hands shaking so bad that she messed up the password twice Sarina did just that.

Sarina Howard you are hear by notified that your essay won first prize in the Founder’s Day Essay Contest. You and your family are to report to Equinox City for your prize. At this time you will be outfitted for the Dome and your winning entry will be read. It will be broadcast for the entire colony to hear and then published in the archives. Sincerely, Bradley Jameson, Matthew Chavez, Jaunita Choe, and Ingred McFarland.

The Founder’s Day dawned bright and hot like most days on Snow did. There looked to be rain in the afternoon also to be expected at this time of year. Snow a tropical planet with seasons that consisted of dry and rainy. The planet had been named from orbit because of the time of year the landing was happening. Most of the new settlers were from the Northern Hemisphere on Earth and December meant snow for them. They had bought only one Temperate Dome, that was all they could afford and they hoped to only use it until the planet could be adapted to. Now 150 years later it was used to make the only snow the planet would ever see. Fifty families were being allowed in to experience the first snow. Sarina’s family would now be one of them.

“Mom, why do we have to wear these funny clothes?”

“Sarina you know as much as I do after all you wrote all about snow to get us here.”

Suddenly over the loudspeaker came “Miss Sarina Howard please step forward.”

Sarina smiled at her Mother and Father, Waved at Gina standing in the audience and walked up to read all about snow. A substance she had never seen and was just a little afraid and in awe of. A substance her world was named after. This was the best Christmas ever.

Sarina cleared her throat and began reading.

Snow by Sarina Howard

To me snow means my home and family on this planet we live on but to my ancestors it meant something entirely different. Have you ever opened the refrigerator unit in your house? The first puff of air coming out sparkles with small drops of white. Then the heat makes them dissappear. This is the nearest I have ever come to the cold snow they knew. I have heard about snowmen, snowball fights and just snowflakes. I find myself wondering what they would think of the snow I know. Hot, loud and teaming with life. I hope that they would be proud of what snow has come to mean here and not mourn too much on what it used to mean to them. I wish there was some way of asking them and hearing first hand what the cold snow was like but all I can do is imagine and dream. Dream of a white cold substance I have never felt or seen in real life.

Sarina smiled at this last sentence for now she would have even more to dream about she was going to experience real snow now.

Critique: There are a lot of technical errors—spelling, grammar, structure of the story. The girls sound older than 11. Needs more character development, more action. The plot has a few issues, for example, it doesn’t really make sense that other kids would get her for entering the essay contest. And you’d think they’d have used the dome for snow sooner than 150 years after they landed.

What I liked best: Christmas on a planet named Snow, where there is never any snow. I like that idea.

Publication ready: No. It needs more work.

by Teresa Osgood

It was a dark and stormy night. I know, that’s what they all say. Still, the rain pelted the bare trees unmercifully, and the streetlights had been on since three in the afternoon. There was no other way to describe it.

Well, I could also say it was cold. The wind that blew the rain in nearly sideways gusts was a typical moist Mid-Atlantic howler, the kind that makes you feel like your parka is a colander, and your thermal underwear might as well be cheesecloth. But I couldn’t really feel the chill, squashed as I was in the back seat of Dad’s hatchback with my little brother, Jimmy, my big brother, Matt, and Rolf, the German exchange student. Our breath was steaming up the windows, and the air was stale with sweat. Didn’t Rolf ever use deodorant?

I could also say it was Christmas Eve, but that would give you the wrong impression entirely. There were no snowflakes, no sleigh bells, and there was precious little goodwill in the back seat of that car.

“Matt’s on my side,” Jimmy whined.

Dad sighed. “Can’t we all be on the same side?”

Usually, when we all went out together, we took Mom’s Oldsmobile. Jimmy had to sit in the middle of the bench seat in front, and I was stuck straddling the hump in the back. We had clambered into the Olds that evening, laden with plates of cookies that we weren’t supposed to eat, and dutifully buckled up.

“Is everyone buckled?” Dad called, then turned the key.

Click.

“Oh, no.” Dad tried again.

“Do we need to jump-start it, dear?” Mom asked.

“No, it’s the starter. This car is not going anywhere tonight.”

Matt started to look hopeful.

“Then we’ll have to take your car,” Mom decided.

Jimmy couldn’t sit on the gearshift, of course, so he squeezed into the narrow confines of the back of the Honda with the rest of us. It was sort of a relief whenever the car stopped and we spilled out into the rain, sloshing up to someone’s front door to give them our goodies. I would have been just as happy to not stand there in the rain, singing, before we handed them over. That was our tradition, though. Rolf loved it, and sang loud enough to cover for a couple of us, so Matt kept his cracking voice down. I was just lazy, and mumbled along.

Except for a certain amount of stinking, Rolf was all right. He could juggle a soccer ball with his knees longer than anyone I knew. He taught me some words that sounded really insulting, but didn’t actually mean anything bad. I secretly didn’t mind giving up my room for him, because I got to play with Jimmy’s toy cars when no one was looking.

We had been going to museums a lot more than usual since Rolf had come, so he could have “cultural experiences.” Some of them were pretty dull, like the National Archives. Who wants to look at a bunch of old pieces of paper? But some places had cool stuff, like the light-up map at the Gettysburg battlefield. The National Air and Space Museum was the best. I could have stayed in the old Skylab module for hours, pretending I was an astronaut, all by myself in an alien world.

I wonder if Rolf ever felt that way.

Rolf came to church with us every week, as another cultural experience. The first Sunday I watched him as we drove there in the Olds. There were two or three other churches on the way, and he looked more disappointed as we drove past each one. When we parked at our meetinghouse, he looked upward in dismay.

“What sort of church is this?” he whispered as we followed my parents inside. “Where is the cross?”

“Um. . .” I had never really thought about it before, but I got a clue when we stepped through the double doors. “Jesus was resurrected, right?” I pointed at the painting over the couch in the foyer. “So we don’t put up crosses.”

Rolf considered the picture of Jesus and Mary outside the empty tomb, and gave a small nod. But his face fell again when we walked into the unadorned chapel.

The talks that day were about marriage, which didn’t really relate to us kids. The high council speaker was pretty funny, though. When he joked about having his wife iron his socks, I glanced over at Rolf to see if he got it. Rolf glared back at me. I guess he didn’t.

When Mom asked him what he thought about church afterward, he politely said it was nice. I followed him upstairs, though, to see what he really thought.

“You laugh during sermons, and leave Christ out in the hall. What sort of church is it? Heidnisch!” He shut my door in my face.

I looked it up later. “Heathen.”

Every Sunday after that, Rolf smiled tolerantly at the giggling girls in the hallway, shook hands with the bishop, and tried to sing the hymns. But he spent most of the three hours at church reading his German Bible.

As Christmas approached, Rolf took a special interest in the mail. Every day he asked if anything had come for him. Every day Mom displayed more cards we received from friends and relatives, or hid packages in her closet, but said, “Sorry, Rolf, nothing today.”

We were playing Parcheesi in the living room the day before Christmas, when Rolf spotted the mailman in his yellow slicker, coming up the walk. Rolf met him at the door, gleefully shouting, “It’s here!”

He gathered Mom and Dad and made a little speech before opening the box. “It is the Christmas schmuck from my Oma. Every year she sends. This year, she sent for you, too.”

“Schmuck?” Dad repeated. Mom wrinkled her nose.

“Schmuck for the tree,” Rolf tried to explain. He handed us each a wad of tissue paper. “Open, open.”

Mine was a thin wooden disk with a star design cut out of it. The loop of thread at the top gave it away. “Ornaments?”

“Yes, ornaments. Please hang them on the Tannenbaum.” Glad that we understood, Rolf turned his attention back to the box.

“Your grandmother is so sweet, Rolf,” Mom said. Then made a face when she thought he wasn’t looking. “They don’t really fit the theme this year,” she murmured to Dad.

It was true. She had outdone herself with big, shiny, brightly colored ornaments. Instead of balls, there were onion shapes and long, twisting tubes. Coordinating strings of beads twisted around the cords of jumbo lights. Mom smiled weakly, and placed two of the new ornaments on the side of the tree, nearly out of sight.

Personally, I preferred the wooden silhouettes to the schmuck Mom had put on the branches. “Thanks, Rolf,” I said loudly, and hung my star smack in the middle of the tree. Not that he was paying attention to our little drama. After unloading a cookie tin and a wrapped gift that looked awfully sweater-shaped, he picked up one more hunk of tissue paper. As he unwrapped the ornament, his eyes started looking suspiciously bright. He gave his face a rough swipe with the back of his hand, and stuffed the disc in his pocket.

I wondered what was so special about that ornament as it dug into my hip in the back seat of the car. Jimmy poked Matt again, and Matt elbowed him back. Mom started singing, probably hoping to calm them down, or at least drown them out.

“Oh, little town of Bethlehem,” she sang in time with the windshield wipers, “how still we see thee lie. . .”

There wasn’t much traffic on the wet streets. It was about as still as you could get in these suburbs.

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth–“

“–the endless traffic light,” Dad interrupted.

“Dear!”

Matt and I sniggered.

“Can I have a cookie?” Jimmy asked. “There’s only one plate left.”

“Don’t touch those cookies. They are for Sister Larsen.”

“Oops,” Matt mumbled. It sounded like his mouth was full.

“Sister Larsen?” I asked. Singing to the cantankerous widow didn’t sound like my idea of an exciting end to the evening. “Won’t she be with the Blakes? She usually sits with them at church.”

“She and the Blakes have had a, well, misunderstanding. I’m afraid she’ll be alone tonight,” Mom said.

Jimmy groaned. “Oh, no. Is she going to adopt us next?”

“She has no grandchildren of her own, so she needs some company. Try to be civil, boys,” Dad said firmly. He flipped on the blinker.

“She lives here?” Matt asked. “‘Whiskey Bottom Apartments.’ Classy name “

“That’s a geographic term, you know. ‘Bottom’ refers to the land around a river,” Dad explained.

“Yeah, but look at the sign.” Matt reached across me to nudge Rolf. “There’s a big bottle of whiskey and a big–“

“Matthew!” Mom couldn’t deny the sign, but she tried to change the subject. “What shall we sing to Sister Larsen?”

Soon we stood in the dingy stairwell. I counted how many times the fluorescent light flicked off. Matt kicked at the steps.

“I don’t think anyone’s coming,” Jimmy said. Just then we heard the rattle of a chain, and the door opened a crack.

“Oh, it’s you. Well, come in, then.” Sister Larsen shuffled back to her chair.

“Okay, ‘Joy to the World,’” Dad said. “One, two–“

“Stille nacht, heilige nacht,” Rolf stepped forward and sang in a surprisingly high voice.

“Alles schläft; einsam wacht,” Jimmy joined in. Surprised, I stared at him. “Learned it in school,” he whispered, and they went on. I started humming the familiar tune, and my parents added alto and bass parts. It sounded pretty good.

When the song ended, Rolf crossed the tiny living room with one step, and dug something out of his pocket. “I give this to you. Please take it.”

Sister Larsen held the ornament up to the light. A small building had been carved into it, with a pointy roof and a cross on top. The old woman looked up at Rolf in wonder. “Danke,” she whispered.

Immediately he knelt beside the chair and began pouring out his soul to her in German. Sister Larsen waved for us to sit down, and listened intently. Mom sat on the faded couch. Dad and Matt sat down too, and sank to the middle with her. Jimmy and I settled on the floor, and stroked the cats that came to investigate us.

“What is he so upset about?” Mom wondered.

I caught a couple of words. Kirche. Heidnisch. “He thinks we’re not very Christian, Mom.”

“What?” Her surprised look soon gave way to thoughtfulness.

Finally Rolf slowed down. He blew his nose on the tissue Sister Larsen handed him, then looked over at us. “I am sorry. She looks so much like my Oma. I think of home.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Mom said to Sister Larsen. “Rolf got carried away.”

“No, no, it’s all right. I understand.”

“Where did you learn German, Sister Larsen?” Dad asked.

“In Germany, of course, at my mother’s knee,” she answered. “When Jack brought me here after the war, I found that being German was rather unpopular. He took me to church and I learned to speak like an American.”

“I had no idea,” Mom said, as if she should have known.

“After Jack died in Korea, I managed to make ends meet. But I have never been able to go back to Germany. Thank you for this piece of home, Rolf.” She held his chin in her hand, and studied his face. “Now, tell me about your grandmother. What is her name?”

“Lilli Mueller.”

“I knew a Lilli, once. Bring me that picture, young man.” She pointed straight behind me. Turning around, I saw a framed black-and-white image of two young ladies wearing hats. I placed it in her wrinkled hands.

Rolf stared at it, speechless. Finally he whispered, “Oma has the same photo. When I asked about it, she only said, ‘Anna is gone, gone.’”

Sister Larsen reached for another tissue. “Is she still alive, then? After I married, I tried to send letters. They came back to me, long after I sent them. I did not know if the mail was bad, or if my family moved, or died . . . Lilli is my sister.”

Mom wiped her eyes on her scarf, and even Dad was blinking a lot. “Wow, what a coincidence,” Matt proclaimed in the silence.

“No, no, a blessing. See, Rolf, the Holy Ghost is with the Latter-day Saints, too. He brought you here tonight.”

“But,” Rolf started to protest.

“No, Christ is not in paintings or tapestries. He is in our scriptures, our prayers.” She handed Rolf a book bound in battered blue leather. “This is my gift to you. You need it more than I do, now.”

“Das Buch Mormon?” Rolf looked unsure, but he held it to his chest.

“Sit with me on Sunday, and I will show you Christ among the Latter-day Saints. Now, help me up, and let’s sing again.”

We all stood, and linked our arms like Rolfe and Sister Larsen did. They started to sway as we sang.

“How silently, how silently

The wondrous gift is given!

So God imparts to human hearts

The blessings of his heaven.

No ear may hear his coming;

But in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him, still

The dear Christ enters in.”

The stormy sky was still dark as we walked outside muffled in new hand-knit scarves, but I did not notice the wind or the rain. The back seat of the car held us in a brotherly hug. All the way home, all the way through Christmas, even, I felt warm from the inside out.

Critique: Uhmmm. Trying to think of something critical to say and the only thing I can come up with is I’m not sure how old the narrative character is or if it’s a boy. That needs to be more clear. But other than that, I loved it! The only perfect score from me this year and the only one that made me cry.

What I liked best: Loved the writing style and the message.

Publication ready: YES!!!

Sarah and her brother had made the same walk home from school so many times; she was convinced she had memorized every rock and shrub along the way.

Today was no different than so many others that had passed before in that respect. Ben, walking ahead of her, as usual, looking around for a stone of suitable weight and size that could serve as a projectile against the unsuspecting lizard or grass snake. While she, thinking about the day’s lessons, somewhat, but more about the handsome boy who sat behind her in class.

It was during times such as these that she enjoyed their walk home the most. The air was crisp and cool, yet today the thunderclouds to the west troubled her. Not the rain, mind you. That she could deal with and even enjoyed, especially at nightfall. No, it was the driving wind that preceded the storm which concerned her more.

So today, especially, as she saw the clouds begin to form, she hastened her steps, catching up with Ben.

“Hey sis, when you gonna stop daydreamin’ and start payin’ more ‘tention in Grammar? The ol’ man’s gonna catch ya one o’ these days and I sure wanna be around when that happens!”

Sarah dismissed the remark. Besides, she smiled to herself, she was one of the top students in the class.

And so soon, she thought, the daylight disappears even before nightfall: The clouds had now blanketed the setting sun, leaving a faint glow, almost like an aura surrounding billows of blackening doom.

“Come on, Ben, let’s get going,” she urged her brother, “I think it’s gonna be rainin’ before we get home.”

Ben was almost giddy as he started whirling around in circles. “Whadda sissy! ‘Sides, I ain’t had a good bath in days!”

Sarah shook her head. Why did he have to be my brother – she thought to herself.

The road continued to wind and as soon as the pair made their way to the top of a fairly steep rise, off ahead to the left sat a woman – all alone – sitting by herself on a large boulder. The two youngsters slowed their pace to hesitant steps.

From a distance, especially at this time of day, it was difficult to recognize appearances. As Ben and Sarah walked on, veering somewhat to the right and away from the stranger, they noticed she was more like an older girl. Sort of reminded Sarah of her older sister.

Cautiously the two continued their walk on the opposite side of the road, noticing that the woman was holding a rather strange package, of sorts.

It was kind of big, but not bulky, and looked like an old burlap sack, folded about in half. The kind father used for storing his potatoes.

Sarah thought to herself then whispered to Ben, “I wonder what’s in the sack.”

“Groceries, most likely.” Then it was Ben’s turn to urge the pair onward. “Now never you mind, Sarah, let’s get on home.”

As they approached a point just opposite of the near-motionless figure, the woman looked up, staring right at them. Then she smiled.

Sarah stopped.

“C’mon, let’s go!” Ben tugged at his sister’s sleeve.

Sarah looked at the woman, sitting there all alone, on the side of the road, holding her sack of provisions.

How odd, she thought.

Ben tugged again but Sarah remained unmoved.

Then, for no reason at all, Sarah slowly crossed the road.

“SARAH!” in the loudest whisper he could muster, Ben shook his head as he proceeded toward home. “All right then with ya – see ya later.”

Ignoring her brother’s pleadings, Sarah couldn’t quite seem to keep her eyes off the woman’s face. Or off the smile that just stayed there, smiling.

And then, as unexpected as a bolt of invisible lightning, all at once a thousand freezing darts whipped through her thin dress. And the winds came.

Unrelenting and without warning, nearly pushing her off her feet, the chill was like nothing she had ever felt before.

Sitting before her, the woman clutched her package even tighter, shivering as day turned to twilight in a frigid heartbeat. Yet the smile remained, unbroken.

How puzzling, Sarah thought, pondering the eerie scene as she stopped just an arm’s length away from the strange young woman.

“Hel-lo” Sarah stuttered, more out of nervous embarrassment than cold.

Their eyes continued their uninterrupted union.

“Hello,” replied the stranger, as she looked down at Sarah’s sandaled feet. “You must be cold, my dear.”

“Nah – I mean, no ma’am, I’m fine.” Sarah thought for a moment. “Why are you sitting here all alone?”

“Oh, I’m not alone.” The woman adjusted the package on her lap. “I’m waiting for my husband. He’ll be along shortly.”

Sarah smiled, then turned to leave, then stopped. Looking again at the woman, “are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“Oh yes, I’ll be all right, thank you.”

Then – from no apparent outward or external cause – the package moved.

Maybe she was simply adjusting it on her lap, Sarah thought to herself.

No… there! It moved again!

Sarah bent her head down and was very self-consciously staring as the woman pealed back part of the burlap to reveal a tiny hand and arm.

Sarah’s eyes grew big as saucers.

“You have a – a baby?”

The woman smiled. “Yes, I have a child.”

Sarah stammered. “But … isn’t he, isn’t she … cold?”

The woman smiled. “No – we’re doing all right,” as she cradled the package in her arm. Guess it ain’t groceries – Sarah thought to herself – then breathed a heavy sigh as she turned to see her brother far ahead down the road, looking back himself to see what was keeping his sister.

And the wind – the terrible cold – she hadn’t even given it another thought, until now. She took her scarf and wrapped it tightly around her neck and face.

From here, though scarcely a few more minutes walk, home seemed so very far away.

Then she was off – like a frightened cat on the run, Sarah sprinted to catch up with her brother.

Then, just as abruptly, she stopped.

The wind that had so cruelly penetrated her to the bone had also cleared the air – and, looking up, Sarah saw the stars beginning to emerge, one by one; like diamonds against a curtain of grayish-black.

She looked down, shivering as the wind took its toll on her exposed feet and legs. Then, as if in a dream, she turned back again to the woman, sitting on the rock, clutching the burlap “package”.

Sarah walked up to her; and, without saying a word, quickly removed her scarf – “Here. This is for your baby,” handed the scarf to the stranger then ran to join her brother now far off in the distance.

As she ran, tears filled Sarah’s eyes and her heart swelled.

Much as she wanted to, she could not look back.

However – if she had, she would have seen the woman sitting frozen – not from the cold, but in surprised astonishment at a young girl’s act of unselfish kindness . . .

The days became months, which became years – so many years.

Ben had quickly and entirely forgotten the incident, busying himself with his own life and pursuits.

Sarah, likewise, had grown and matured – but had not altogether forgotten that day, so many years before, that day of the frigid wind.

It was on evenings such as this one, as she looked up at the ebony sky, with its sea of glistening stars, holding the child of her own child in her time-wrinkled arms, when she would pause and ponder.

Reflecting on the singular event of years long past, Sarah could still remember how she felt after she handed the woman her scarf; and how often the feeling would return, but only at very special times.

She wondered what ever became of the young woman, who sat by the side of the road, and the package that she held.

Sitting, waiting patiently and faithfully, in the cold at the end of the day, for her husband to join her, as Sarah and her brother made their way from school, as they had done so many times before, to their home . . .

in Bethlehem.

Critique: You have a good idea. I really like the twist at the end. However, in trying to setting a secret until then, you don’t give us near enough sense of place. Your narrative is very poetic in places, but the dialog feels jarring. You have some grammar and structural issues, and we need deeper characterization. You could add more depth to the story and still have Bethlehem be a sweet surprise at the end. The idea has some real potential, but the delivery needs work.

What I liked best: That we’re not sure until the end that it’s Bethlehem.

Publication ready: No. It needs polishing.

Perhaps this may not be considered a story, it may be an event, a happening, a moment in time, it was however, something to treasure in my book of memories. I have decided however to tell this as a cherished Christmas story because it happened to me.

The year had not been a particularly good one, if I mentioned divorce that would fill in all the necessary questions, possibly the answers as well. Let’s say I found myself single, not of my choice. I had been left with the financial responsibility and the task of raising the last two of my four daughters.

The Christmas season was approaching and since this was my first without a real strong financial support besides me things were looking pretty gloomy. Even though I was working two jobs I really did not have the means or the nature to have a lot of Christmas Spirit. The girls and I had moved into a very small house in a medium neighborhood, not fancy or high end, but workable. The girls were both in their early teens and did not say too much about how things were; they just knew it was a rough time.

One particular night I had an occasion to go to a church house for Relief Society board meeting. I was picked up by the President and left my daughter at home with her friend, our Bishop’s son.

Those two had adventures written all over their faces. Mostly during that period of time in their lives it was watching scary movies, making munchies, eating an incredible amount of sunflowers seeds and just hanging out. I had left without any instructions or particular chores to be done just that I would be back in an hour or so.

Like all women that I know, I took the opportunity to visit while going to my meeting and I recall, had even talked about the lack of Christmas Spirit being a part of my home that year. I had always decorated a Christmas tree and we have never gone without some Christmas. However some years were better than others. There was always something under the tree. This was not really a test year to see how we were going to do as a family, just a year when I did not have a lot of hope or warm fuzzes about the meaning of the Christmas season and what it meant for me.

“Anyho” as my daughter likes to say, I was chatting and feeling rather down as we drove home from the meeting and knowing my house was around the corner I looked ahead as we turned down the street to a sight, that to this day, still, brings tears to my eyes when I recall the next precious moments when time stood still.

Ablaze in all of the possible glory that could be had, one house on our block was newly decorated with multi colored Christmas lights outlining the roof. There was no Santa or dancing reindeer, angels were not singing in a heavenly choir, just a beautiful simple strand of lights declaring to the world that Christmas was coming.

A hush fell over me as I marveled at the sight. My tears freely flowed trying to exclaim to my driver, joys of joys, wonder of wonder, that is was my house that was decorated. There was more excitement that I could express that night when I realized it was the two kids I had left watching movies who had dug out our Christmas lights, climbed up on the roof and strung them along the edge. How they ever did it without ladders and in the dark of night I will never know.

The lights gave to me that night the knowledge and hope that life goes on even during trials and tribulations. It was a message of the Christmas Spirit. Giving of oneself and time not necessarily material things but something else that can make a huge difference. It brought peace and comfort and assurance that life does go on.

Like the babe in the manger whose love brought awareness to the world, this also gave to me the knowledge that I too was loved and someone cared enough to give me this simple gift. I began that year a tradition that I have loved and kept every Christmas since. This included some decorations, simple as they might be, and putting Christmas lights on the OUTSIDE of my home. I also now take advantage of driving around the city finding homes and places that display the lights of the season. Finding time to enjoy and listen to Christmas harmonies which can bring thoughts of peace to the world to those who will listen. I enjoy finding places where I can sing along when possible. I have thoroughly enjoyed the songs of Christmas which tell of hope and the happiness of the Christmas Spirit that can be found.

Christmas had become a joy and not a burden to me.

Critique: What a wonderful experience! I’ve had one similar to that and it did, indeed, touch my heart, as it did yours. As for a short story, you’ve got a straightforward narrative here and there really needs to be more in the way of characterization, dialog, setting, sensory imagery, plot. It would need more work to be a true short story. But again, what a great experience and awesome memory for you.

What I liked best: The idea that God blesses us through the actions of others.

Publication ready: No. It needs more development.

by Brenda Anderson

Snow flurries followed Natasha Collins inside the small building that housed the Movie Shack, a modest grill combined with the town’s only movie rental store. A sparse collection of movies lined the walls which were decorated with various handmade trinkets for sale. Natasha stepped past a display of children’s animated shows and up to the worn counter separating the main room from the small kitchen in the back. A petite woman in her late thirties dried her hands with a towel and smiled at Natasha.

“Afternoon, Ms. Collins. What can I get you today?”

“Hello Jaleen. Vanilla today, I think, with a hint of cinnamon.” Natasha watched as Jaleen White spun around to begin assembling her milkshake. Her full brown curls bounced as she worked. Reaching up to pat her own graying blonde tresses, Natasha pursed her lips. Adjusting to small town life has been easier than accepting the intrusion of these gray hairs.

“Here you are.” Jaleen set the milkshake on the counter. Natasha reached in her purse and pulled out a couple of bills. She picked up the shake, but thoughts of the cold weather waiting outside kept her from moving toward the door.

“I don’t know why I buy these when it’s so cold outside. Habit I guess. Never was quite so cold in Phoenix this time of year.

“Sunshine year round?” Jaleen asked as she dried some dishes.

Natasha nodded. “Pretty much. From what I’ve heard, winters there are more like late spring here.”

“Mother Nature definitely takes her time warming things up here. I hope you’ve got plenty of warm clothes.”

“Me, too!” Natasha laughed. “How are those girls of yours doing?”

Jaleen bit her lip and looked down at a stain on the countertop. “Good.” She paused, “I suppose you heard that Kelly’s pregnant.”

“Oh, no, I hadn’t. I’m so sorry.”

Angry tears slipped down Jaleen’s nose. “Father’s run off. I guess he was one of those workers they bus in from the city to work at the casinos. Hasn’t been back in nearly a month, just after Kelly found out.”

Natasha set her milkshake down. “Oh, Jaleen. Come ’round here so I can give you a proper hug.” She wrapped her arms around the younger woman running her hands up and down her back as Jaleen allowed herself a short sob.

“I’m okay,” she said, as she pulled out of the embrace and took a step back, quickly wiping the tears from her cheeks.

Sensing Jaleen’s embarrassment, Natasha searched for a way to change the subject and lighten the mood. She spotted Jaleen’s black suede boots.

“Oh my, those are lovely boots.”

A faint smile lit Jaleen’s features. “Yes, they are quite nice. Took nearly a year of saving to buy them, so I don’t wear them too much. I thought maybe today they’d cheer me up.”

Natasha knelt down and fingered the soft fringes of suede dangling from the cuffs of the boots. “Beautiful. I used to dream about boots like these when I was a little girl. We didn’t have the money then, and when I grew up and starting teaching, they just didn’t seem practical anymore.” She stood up and patted Jaleen’s arm. “You wear them well.”

“Thanks.” Jaleen gestured toward the kitchen. “Well, I’d better get back to work. Football practice lets out soon; I’d better get some burgers grilling. Those teenage boys sure can eat a lot.”

The door opened and Jaleen’s youngest daughter, Katie stepped inside, her arms wrapped around an algebra book. She smiled briefly at Natasha before setting the book down and moving around the counter to help her mother prepare for the afternoon rush.

“And I’ve got papers to grade. It’s hard to believe the semester ends next week.” Natasha retrieved her shake and slipped out the door into the snow.

Natasha wrote a “C” on the top of the last paper and set it with the others. Sighing, she picked up her favorite mug, with a cute, fuzzy cat warning “Keep your paws off my hot chocolate,” and dropped in a few more marshmallows from the plate on the coffee table. She swirled them around before finishing off the cocoa. Her joints protested when she stood up. Not so young anymore. Moving to her living room window, she pushed the curtains aside and looked out.

The bright casino lights that dominated the town’s one major road flickered on the foot of new snow that had fallen. Natasha thought it looked like one of the Christmas postcards her daughter had sent her from Montana the last few years. “Help,” she laughed quietly, “I’ve fallen into a postcard, and I can’t get out!”

She stayed at the window a few minutes longer, watching the light dusting of flurries spiral down from the night sky. Her laughter faded, and she felt very alone. My first Christmas by myself. She thought of Tony, her youngest son, who she’d just shipped off to college in Florida a few short months ago, right before she took the teaching position and moved to a small town on the northern border of Nevada. He’d refused her offer to join her for Christmas.

“Are you kidding?” he’d asked. “Christmas in Nevada? It snows there you know.”

She’d laughed with him then–the holidays were still a long way off. Now they were practically on top of her. Looking down at the dirty mug still in her hand, she started toward the sink to rinse it out. But a movement outside brought her attention once more to the window.

At first she saw nothing but snow covered cars, roofs, and bushes. Natasha felt a pang of longing for cacti: tall, long-armed saguaro, flat-leaved prickly pears, even an ocotillo’s winter-bare, gray thorny arms would be welcome now, its life hidden until spring. Because then she would be in southern Arizona, and nothing would be covered in snow. The dark sky would be sparkling with stars, not dressed in a drab layer of storm clouds without a trace of rumbling or flashing.

The same movement in the night brought Natasha out of her reverie. In the dim streetlight near the main road, a shadowy figure trudged through the snow, leaving a trail of footprints marring the pristine whiteness. Even bundled up, Jaleen’s slight figure was unmistakable. She’s too young to look so stooped and tired. Natasha sighed. She reminds me of me. Oh the dreams I had back then.

She washed out the mug and set it in the drainer, checked on her miniature cactus garden and dressed for bed. Tonight, she lingered over the picture of Anthony she kept at her bedside. The picture was good, capturing the slight crookedness to his smile, the way his dark hair recklessly fell over his forehead. Even as a baby, Tony had looked just like his father, had that same crooked smile that had melted Natasha’s heart the first time it danced across his soft features. But Anthony’s gone. She tucked a lock of gold-gray hair behind her ear. Been gone longer now than we were married. And Tony’s gone too, off in Florida.

Shaking her head to rid it of the memories, Natasha clicked off the light and wriggled under the covers. Footsteps thumped briefly in the apartment upstairs, and then silence settled over her. She could hear only the quiet blowing of air as the furnace worked to heat the room and the low humming of the freezer as it cycled into defrost. They were comforting sounds, her usual lullaby. But sleep eluded her.

After forty minutes, Natasha turned the light back on, dug in her closet for a box of scrap yarn and her crochet hooks and began a chain. By the time she fell asleep, propped up against her pillows with her crochet hook in her hand; she’d finished a scarf and started on a pair of mittens.

School let out three days before Christmas. By then Natasha had used up her scraps and had purchased several large new skeins of yarn. A basket by her bed was nearly filled with her late night work: the scarf and mittens, two baby blankets, some booties, three bibs, three winter hats and a small handbag. When the final bell rang, Natasha watched her twenty-seven sixth graders stream out of the room, energized by sugary Christmas sweets and the promise of two weeks of no school.

As their laughter faded, Natasha grabbed a stack of papers from her desk and placed them in her bag, hoping they would keep her busy over the next few days. She stifled a yawn as she locked her desk and grabbed her ring of keys. Good thing I have a brisk walk home to wake me up.

But her feet didn’t take her home. Natasha found herself instead reaching for the door handle at the Movie Shack, her taste buds craving a strawberry shake. The door refused to open. She pulled at it again, with both hands wrapped around the handle. Nothing. Natasha pounded on the door, suddenly worried that something had happened to Jaleen. She had just turned away, wondering if she should call the police when Katie emerged from the back of the building.

“Sorry Ms. Collins. We’re closed.” Katie shoved her bare hands into the pockets of her worn coat and started down the street that led to her home.

Natasha fell into step beside her. “Is your mom okay?”

Katie kept her head down against the afternoon wind. “She’s fine. It’s my dad. She’s gone into the city to get some medicine for him. Even if Kelly wasn’t pregnant, we can’t handle the snack bar and the store by ourselves.”

Natasha had only met Jaleen’s husband once. Derreck White was a large, big muscled man who spent his weeks working on a ranch across the Idaho border, training horses and repairing fences. On weekends he came home and worked the kitchen of the Movie Shack. The milkshakes Natasha found herself addicted to were made with his recipe.

“Can I do anything to help?”

Katie stopped and turned toward Natasha, her eyes filled with tears and worry. “Pray Dad recovers quickly.” She turned away and bounded up the stairs to her front door.

Like Patricia had when I told her about Anthony. Natasha paused to say a quick prayer for Katie’s father. Only Patti was so much younger. That was when my teaching degree became more than a fall back; the day I decided to set all my dreams aside and make sure Patti and Tony reached all of theirs.

She walked slowly home thinking of ballet recitals, choir performances and dirty football uniforms. And she prayed for Derrick White.

At home, Natasha tried picking up her crochet hook and starting on the sweater pattern she’d found on one of the skeins of yarn, but the process was so familiar that she found herself with too much time to think. So she left the yarn on her bed and went in to the kitchen.

Pulling out a tattered cookbook, Natasha found the worn pages her mother had always turned to when life seemed to be unraveling around her. Soon flour covered her arms nearly to her elbows as she pounded and smashed at the bread dough, taking her frustration, fear and loneliness out on the mound on the counter.

The following day, Natasha awoke confused. The sun’s angle was wrong; it should have been lengthening toward her, not away. She slowly sat up, surprised to see that she was still dressed in the green blouse and tan pants from the day before. Beside her, resting on her untouched pillow was the half-finished sweater she’d started last night, after pulling the last loaf of bread from the oven. Squinting at the clock on her dresser, Natasha realized it was nearly four in the afternoon. No wonder the sun angle looks weird. I’ve slept the day away.

Rising from the bed, she looked toward the basket of finished crocheting projects. “All that crocheting has finally gotten to me,” she told it. She reached for Anthony’s picture and gave it her usual morning kiss. “I’m getting old Anthony. Old.” Setting the picture down, Natasha found her thoughts automatically turning from Anthony to Jaleen, and a heavy weight settled in her stomach.

She showered, dressed, and walked out to her kitchen/living room where her artificial Christmas tree huddled in one corner, decorated so heavily in handmade ornaments that the needles were barely visible, gifts from her children and former students. A red and white crocheted blanket hid the stand from view, but no gifts lurked under the tree’s laden branches.

Turning from the tree’s blatant reminder of her loneliness, Natasha saw the six loaves of bread she baked the day before lined up on the counter. She had wrapped each one in festive plastic wrap and tied them with variations of green, red, and white bows. They, too, mocked her solitude.

“No!” she told the loaves. She spun around to face the tree. “No!” She dug through the box of Christmas decorations she’d left by the tree until she found a fuzzy red Santa cap. With a look of defiance aimed at the Christmas tree, she pulled the hat on her head and emptied her oversized bag onto the table. Then she refilled it with all of the crochet projects she had completed over the last few weeks.

Natasha hooked the handles over one shoulder, loaded the bread into the now empty basket and took it all to Jaleen’s house.

Katie answered the door, her eyes heavy from a combination of sleeplessness and tears. She brightened when she saw the bread.

“This is for your family. Some of the crocheted stuff might be useful when Kelly has the baby.” Natasha looks over Katie’s shoulder. “How’s your father?”

“The medicine seems to be helping. Mom thinks he’s going to be okay, although he’s pretty weak, so it will probably be a few weeks before he can get back to work and stuff.”

Some of the heaviness slid from Natasha’s shoulders. “That’s good news. Well, I don’t want to keep you. Merry Christmas, Katie.”

“Thank you so much, Ms. Collins. Merry Christmas to you!”

On Christmas Eve, Natasha sat on the floor of her living room in front of the Christmas tree. Twinkling white lights glowed around the ornaments, and she’d tuned the radio to a station playing carols. This time she smiled as she studied the tree. She could no longer see the red and white blanket that hugged the tree stand. Instead she saw her picture of Anthony, pictures of Patricia and Tony, her case of crochet hooks and a skein of yarn, a worn pair of fuzzy pink slippers, her mother’s cookbook, a stack of her favorite novels, her diploma, and everything else she could think of that brought her joy and hope.

Except her favorite mug, which she held in her hand and sipped cocoa from as she watched the tree, the room darkening around her. Natasha stayed there until a light rap at her door brought her to her feet. By the time she arrived at the door, unlocked it and swung it open, whoever had been there was gone, leaving only a brightly wrapped package on the doorstep.

She brought it in and studied the tag. It said only her name, nothing more. Maybe I should wait until morning. Have something to unwrap on Christmas day. But curiosity got the better of her, and her hands carefully began pulling the taped sides open. Underneath the paper she found a plain cardboard box. She unfolded the flaps and gasped.

Inside was Jaleen’s pair of black suede boots. Natasha pulled them out and a small card fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, tears stinging her eyes as she read:

“You’re never too old for dreams to come true.”

Natasha wiped her eyes and set the boots under the tree with her treasures. She fingered the soft fringe and turned to Anthony’s picture. “Maybe I’m not that old.” He smiled his crooked smile.

Critique: I love this. I never thought I’d ever say to “tell” us more, but it’s a little confusing about where Natasha is and where she’s come from. We need to know that, and that she’s a teacher sooner. Also, play up the mittens a little more to make the title fit better. (Love the title.) I’d also give Jaleen more children and have the father work at the shop with her. Characterization and writing is great. Love it.

What I liked best: I love that she put the things that brought her joy under the tree.

Publication ready: Yes, with a few minor changes (notes for which I’ve sent you in the story document). Get those changes ready because this will definitely be in the next Christmas anthology!

Way before dawn Christmas morning, my little sister tugged at me, sobbing, “Tommy, wake up! I heard a noise so I snuck down to see Santa. There was a big lumpy ghost floating around the tree!”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I told her. “Maybe you saw Santa’s toy bag.”

“Santa’s bag is red, and it doesn’t float,” she wailed.

“Shh. It would if he brought balloons.” I knew that was a stretch, but I had to keep her quiet. “It must have been a burglar. Keep quiet in case he’s still here. And you’d better hide.” I was out of bed, looking for a weapon, but Jenny clung to me so tight I could hardly move.

Her chin quivered. “Nuh-uh. I’m not stayin’ here alone. Let’s go down and tell Mommy.”

“I don’t think she can stand any more bad news. I heard her on the phone after dinner. She was crying again. . .” I didn’t finish because Jenny knew the reason.

“What are we gonna do, Tommy?” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“We can’t call 9-1-1. We gotta keep Mom from worrying, at least until she feels better. First, let’s make sure the burglar’s gone.” I didn’t tell her my knees were shaking like her lip was.

“Ghost,” Jenny corrected, tightening her grip as we tiptoed downstairs into the kitchen. I grabbed Mom’s rolling pin as Jenny turned on the light. Nobody there.

We checked under the tree. There was nothing left. “The ghost stole it,” Jenny cried.

Jenny’s like that, see? Once she makes up her mind, it stays made up. So I gritted my teeth as we snuck around, checking everywhere else. No ghost but no burglar either. We found zero presents where we saw Mom hide them before and none where we didn’t see her hide them. We knew where they should have been, and weren’t. Mom didn’t know how sneaky we could be.

Jenny sighed, wiping her eyes. “Now what?” At least she’d calmed down some.

“We let Mom sleep while we draw some nice pictures. She won’t know we ever bought her bubble-bath and perfume. She’ll probably like our pictures even better. You know Mom.”

Jenny brightened and then frowned, “What about us?”

“I’ll make you something too. Not a real doll like you wanted, but a paper doll. With real clothes cut from rags. Okay?”

Jenny actually smiled. “Okay, but won’t Mommy ask what happened to the doll she promised Santa would bring? And what about your new bat and ball?”

I thought for a minute. “We’ll say we got up early and already opened Santa’s presents and put them away as part of our gift to her.” That might even shock Mom out of her sadness.

We got to work, sitting at the kitchen table. We were almost finished when the front door rattled. Grabbing both the rolling pin and Jenny, I turned off the light and pushed her ahead of me, upstairs. As we reached the top a floorboard creaked below. I turned just as Jenny’s ghost appeared. Panicking, I hurled my missile and the lumpy white shape dropped.

“Ooooohhh!” it wailed, writhing in very ghostly fashion about half a foot above the floor.

Behind me, Jenny squeaked. “Told you it was a ghost!”

“Uh-oh,” I said. A rolling pin would’ve gone right through a ghost.

“What’s going on?” Mom shouted, charging out of her bedroom. She flipped on the light and started crying when she saw the gifts spilling from the big white laundry bag. Then she ran forward and practically fell all over the man in a camouflage uniform on the floor underneath it. She kissed his dark face and ruffled his darker hair. No wonder we couldn’t see him before.

“I’m home early, honey, trying to bring you the Christmas Spirit,” said Dad. “Surprise.”

I think Dad was most surprised of all. I doubt he’ll try that trick again after learning the hard way—his safe return from the war brought us all the Christmas spirit we need.

Critique: You have a good idea but have some issues with the delivery. Needs a much stronger sense of place, sensory imagery, and some foreshadowing about Dad. As written, there are too many unanswered questions, such as why did the ghost/Dad take the gifts? Why is Mom said? Also, we need more characterization on Tommy and Jenny. Great story idea but needs to be fleshed out.

What I liked best: The ghost. Awesome! And that Dad is in the military. Very timely.

Publication ready: No. Needs work, but this has some real potential.

“You broke another toy, Earl, and Christmas is only a week away,” Santa scolded his favorite elf. His face flushed red, bright like the suit he wore. But Santa could never be mad at Earl for real. Earl knew Santa well and a hesitant smile crossed his face.

“Don’t smile, you little rapscallion,” Santa made a second attempt at genuine anger.

Earl’s smile simply grew as he cleaned up the mess before him. The toy would be replaced and no child would go without. After all, it wasn’t the first time he’d slowed production. Misadventures in Santa’s toy shop were a common occurrence for Earl. He couldn’t explain why, but strange mishaps seemed to occur whenever he was around. Santa needed all his elves working during the Christmas rush so Earl was in the shop all the time. And he was wreaking havoc minute by minute.

Santa directed his favorite bumbling elf, his words now in keeping with his jolly spirit, “When you finish cleaning up your mess, Earl, get back to work. These toys need to be ready in one week.”

When Santa left the busy shop where toys and dolls and all things children love were made Earl waved at his receding figure as a rush of cold air and white flakes rolled into the warm building. Earl took his place among the other elves and resumed producing toys. Smiles on the children’s faces Christmas morning would make Santa happy. Yet Earl’s history did not bode favorably for a mishap free week of production.

Minutes later Earl reached to grab a truck needing wheels, his assigned task for the morning, and bumped into the chubby elf next to him. The truck went crashing to the debris cluttered wooden floor.

“I don’t know how we get any toys built with you here, Earl,” the elf next to him said.

Earl gathered up the truck and responded. “Everything will be done because we all love the children.”

Who could argue with that logic?

“It won’t get done if you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing. We can’t keep repairing broken toys and get done on time.”

Soon Billy, the foreman for Santa’s shop, came over to Earl’s station. “Is everything okay here?” he asked, knowing Earl’s knack for disaster. “There is only one week before Christmas.”

“Santa said that a few minutes ago,” Earl said. “Now you’re telling me and I already know when Christmas is.”

“If you know so well why is there always chaos near your station?” Billy asked.

“I will do better,” Earl promised, successfully attaching wheels to the next truck passing by. “See, I know what I’m doing.”

Toys continued to be built for Christmas morning. Children around the world expected Santa to deliver the toys to their home and place them under the tree. Earl knew Santa could not disappoint a single child and he hoped he’d have no more mishaps. His history, however, spoke of more misadventure. In fact, production would be slowed several more times that very day and Earl would be the culprit each time.

Santa’s shop continued to produce toys despite Earl’s fateful ability to interrupt the process. Toys of all kinds and bicycles, tricycles and wagons found their way into Santa’s huge bag. In just a week the bag would be overflowing and Santa would be happy.

A half hour later the bell jingled in the shop. Lunch break for the elves was signaled. Earl pushed away from his station paying no attention to his surroundings. This frequently got him into trouble. With his focus on lunch he collided with the chubby elf who worked next to him as he hurried to take his place at the lunch table. The resulting carnage was not catastrophic, but more toys crashed to the floor. It would take time for them to be repaired, if they could be repaired. With Earl one mishap followed after another.

Earl knelt down to help pick up the broken toys. “I am sorry,” he apologized.

“Watch what you’re doing, Earl,” the chubby elf replied. “I could have been hurt.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” Earl brushed some debris from the chubby elf’s arm.

As they sat eating Santa came in to speak to the elves. News, not unexpected, reached him minutes before of Earl’s latest misadventure. The time for Santa to light a fire under Earl and the other elves was right now or Christmas would be disappointing for many children. But when you’re known for being jolly and happy all the time and your cheeks are always rosy it is difficult to communicate the needed emotion to make his elves understand his urgency. Santa tried anyway.

“Do you elves know we only have one week to fill the Christmas bag with toys for all the children?” Santa’s voice held the tone of frustration, while his cherubic cheeks spoke of a well known joviality. “And Earl, you must pay attention. We can’t afford any more set backs.”

Earl listened to Santa but he didn’t say anything. He would not cause any more trouble. Santa would not single him out again. He would watch what he was doing very carefully and wouldn’t get in anybody’s way. Earl would be Santa’s best elf. Santa would see.

Work resumed after lunch and soon found Earl in the middle of yet another misadventure. Bright red fire engines built of pine passed by Earl one after another. The paint another elf had brushed on was still wet. All Earl needed to do was attach the wheels. This was Earl’s normal task because Santa felt it was the best chance to keep Earl out of trouble. But Earl naturally attracted mischief against Santa’s wishes.

Earl hurried to attach the wheel to the next bright red fire engine. He looked down the line, becoming distracted. His distraction led to his arm brushing against the moving belt. This, in turn, caused several fire engines to fall off and hurtle to the floor, colliding noisily.

Billy, the elf foreman, came running to see what had happened. “Santa’s toy shop is total chaos with you around, Earl,” he announced. “Maybe it would be better if you just went home.”

“I will not go home unless Santa tells me to,” Earl spoke defensively. “I will do better, I promise.” Once again he bent over to help clean up the scattered toys.

Billy could not stay angry with Earl any longer than Santa could. Earl was simply accident prone and he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. If they could only find something for Earl to do that kept him away from the toys. But Billy knew doing that would break Earl’s heart. He always helped build the toys Santa delivered to the children, year after year. Each year Santa and Billy wondered how they all got built, but each year Santa’s bag was full. Despite Earl’s mishaps children were never left without.

Watching Earl clean up the mess, Billy hoped this year would produce the same results. Earl noticed Billy’s watchful eye and smiled at him. Yes, the elf was full of mischief and misadventure seemed to be his constant companion, but his positive attitude was also contagious.

Earl picked up the last of the fallen fire engines just as Santa entered his shop. “What happened?” Santa asked.

“I accidentally knocked some toys off the belt,” Earl said, quick to accept responsibility for his actions. “I will fix every toy. Please don’t be angry.”

“How can I be angry with you, Earl? I am Santa.”

“Bad things keep happening when I’m around,” Earl continued. “I keep causing trouble.”

Santa placed a firm hand on Earl’s small shoulder. “We have one week to finish building all the toys needed so every child has one under their tree. So we’ve got to get back to work and not worry about the misadventures. Can you do that for me, Earl?”

“Yes, Santa, I can. I will not let you or the children down.” Earl scurried back to his work station.

The next three days went by without incident and many toys were completed and stuffed into Santa’s bag. But the bag still needed more toys and other gifts children loved to please every child on Christmas morning. Santa wanted to be very busy on Christmas Eve.

Two days before Christmas Santa came into his workshop and approached Earl. Earl had not broken anything that morning so he wondered what Santa wanted. When Santa placed his large hand firmly on Earl’s shoulder, as he liked to do, Earl became worried. A shiver ran down his spine.

“I haven’t broken anything this morning, Santa,” he said, trepidation in his voice.

“You’re not in trouble, Earl,” Santa reassured his favorite elf. “I am happy you’ve been careful and I’ve brought you a special project to work on.”

Earl’s eyes began to twinkle with excitement. “I will do anything, Santa.”

“I got a late letter this morning from a little girl and she says she’s been very good. All she wants is a doll with bright red hair and freckles on her face. Cloth her in a pretty pink dress and place white slippers on her feet and make her say “don’t worry” to my little brother who has cancer when I press her hand. Can you build a doll like that for this little girl in two days, Earl?”

“I sure can. It will be the best doll ever built in this shop.”

“I am counting on you, Earl. Don’t let this little girl and her brother down.”

Earl found another elf to take his station and hurried to a table used for special projects to begin working on a special doll. True to his proclivity for calamity it didn’t take long for another mishap to occur. In his excitement he’d forgotten to be careful and pay attention. Luckily Earl’s mishaps were usually minor breaches and easily fixed. This time Earl had cut out two left hands and two left feet for the doll. At least he could fix it and not take too much extra time.

He worked on the doll for several hours to make it just the way the little girl requested. Santa was adamant that children get just what they asked for, especially if they’d been very good during the year. Earl didn’t know what this little girl’s name was, but he knew she’d been a good girl and that was all he needed to know.

Early the next morning, only hours before Santa would leave on his sleigh filled with toys, Earl placed the last strand of bright red hair on the doll’s head. He looked at his creation. It was perfect. Earl was so excited that he tripped over his own feet racing to show Santa the doll. He clutched the doll against his chest trying to protect it from being damaged. The doll, with bright red hair and freckles and a pretty pink dress, pressed hard on Earl’s chest and caused him a great pain he’d never experienced before. The little doll was unbroken, but Earl felt like his heart was broken. It hurt so bad.

Hearing the commotion, Santa rushed to see Earl lying on the floor. Santa turned the elf over and pried the doll from his hands. Other than a few tousled strands of red hair, the doll was undamaged. Earl had protected the doll and now Santa leaned closer to see what he could do for Earl. It seemed like he wasn’t breathing. Santa looked at his chest but couldn’t see any rise and fall. But that couldn’t be possible. Earl, his favorite elf, was invincible. Always a misadventure around the next corner, but he always rebounded and came out unscathed. This time Earl laid still. He was not rebounding.

Santa lifted the small elf into his arms and called to Billy, his elf foreman. “We have to do something for Earl,” he said. “What can we do?”

“Maybe the doctor can do something,” Billy took Earl from Santa and placed him in a wagon earmarked for Santa’s bag to be given to a child who’d asked for a wagon.

An hour before Santa’s sleigh would take him to visit the children with all their toys in an overstuffed bag Billy approached him with red eyes. Santa saw tears of sorrow roll down the elf’s cheeks and soon his own rosy cheeks were stained. “It is bad news, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Billy managed. “The doctor did what he could, but Earl’s heart was bruised beyond repair by the pressure of the doll’s hand. Earl made sure this special doll was not broken when he tripped. His heroic act saved a little girl’s doll. All the other elves are calling him a hero, Santa. I think they are right.”

“I do, too,” Santa said. “And I will make sure Earl is remembered.”

With Earl’s doll and the wagon loaded on Santa’s sleigh, Santa began the long journey he made once every year. He rose into the sky with a jolly “ho, ho, ho.” But his heart was full of bittersweet emotion. Earl would not be in the toy shop when he returned.

The elves waved as Santa’s sleigh rose in the sky and out of their sight. They were shaken by the loss of their fellow elf and friend. They chided him for being a bundle of misfortunes, but they loved him as well. In their hearts Earl could not be replaced.

Santa descended upon rooftop after rooftop delivering toys to deserving children. He smiled at the sleeping children knowing they would awake a few hours later and find what he’d left for them. He also smiled because his elves had worked hard to ensure each child would be happy. A bicycle was placed near one tree, while a fire truck found its way under another. He placed a paint set under yet another tree and a football under the next. The night continued and Santa’s bag grew smaller and smaller. One thing still in the bag was a doll with bright red hair and freckles on her face. Soon this doll would also find its way under a special tree.

Over a small home in the western United States Santa pulled the doll Earl had built from his bag. As his sleigh came to a stop he hesitated. He knew with this special doll there should be a note about the special elf that’d created it. Santa hurried to write down his feelings about Earl and placed them with the doll. He placed both under a small artificial tree in the corner of a living room filled with the scent of mistletoe.

Santa emptied his bag and returned home. He sat down with his suit opened at the chest watching a big screen TV. This part of Christmas meant the most to him. Child after child appeared with smiles on their faces when they saw the toys they Santa placed under their tree. He continued to watch until finally a small girl appeared. She sat with her family in a small circle. Father and mother, a little girl and her younger brother laughed and Santa laughed, too. And then the little girl spoke to her mother and father, “There is a note from Santa with my doll.”

“What does it say?” her father asked.

She handed the note to her father. “Your doll was made by a special friend of mine named Earl. Earl had an accident protecting your doll from harm and he isn’t with me anymore. Will you remember Earl when you play with your doll? Now press the doll’s hand for your brother and listen to the words.”

Santa watched, tears moist in his eyes, as the girl placed the doll near her four year old brother and squeezed her soft hand. “Don’t worry, life is wonderful and everything will be okay. Your family loves you.” The voice speaking those tender words was Earl’s own. His final spoken words would bring comfort a young boy and warm a family’s heart.

Critique: POV is spotty. Stick with Earl in a tight 3rd person POV; do not interject your voice as narrator into the story. Give us more active scenes without the narrative, more sensory imagery, more depth in the characterization, and individualized voices for dialog.

And don’t kill the elf.

What I liked best: I like the idea of the clumsy elf making good on a special project, but that project should be something where his clumsiness actually turns into a strength, rather than a weakness.

Publication ready: No. Needs more work.

by Annaliese Lemmon

“Time to get up, Alexa,” Kelly opened the door to her ten-year-old daughter’s room. Alexa lay on her stomach, with her knees tucked up under her. Her face was pulled back in a grimace. The blankets spilled onto the floor. “Are you ok?”

“No,” Alexa groaned. “I must have eaten some gluten at Olivia’s last night.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. What did you have?” Kelly sat on the bed and pulled strands of Alexa’s brown hair from her face.

“Swedish meatballs and rice, so I don’t know where it came from. Her mom said she didn’t use flour in the sauce to thicken it.”

“Did she tell you what was in the meatballs? What did she use to replace the breadcrumbs?”

“There’s breadcrumbs in meatballs?” She sighed. “I should have known to ask about those too. I hate being a celiac. I wish I didn’t have to worry about every little thing that I eat.”

“I know, sweetie, I know.” Kelly kissed Alexa’s cheek. She worried as much as Alexa, and probably more, that the food she cooked didn’t get contaminated with any grains containing gluten. Her heart ached that this time she hadn’t been able to protect her daughter. “I’d make it go away if I could. Unfortunately, we just have to deal with it.”

Alexa sighed again and closed her eyes.

“What if I made you something special while you stay home from school? What would you like?”

After a few moments, Alexa asked, “Can you make sugar cookies?”

“Sugar cookies? Are you sure you don’t want something chocolate?”

“Rachel is having friends over tonight to decorate sugar cookies for Christmas. I’m definitely not going now, but I thought it would be nice to host my own party where I can actually eat the cookies.”

“That sounds like fun. Though I’ve not made gluten free sugar cookies before. I’ll have to see if I can find a recipe. Do you want anything to eat now?”

Alexa shook her head.

“All right. Just let me know when you’re hungry.”

After Kelly made her husband’s lunch and pushed her son Tristen out the door so he wouldn’t miss the bus, she sat down with her gluten free cookbooks. While they had recipes for other cookies, there weren’t any for plain sugar cookies. Undaunted, Kelly turned to her favorite cooking blogs and searched until she found a recipe. She printed it out and headed to the kitchen.

As Christmas carols played from her smart phone, she tied her gingerbread man apron on and opened the pantry. The recipe called for a generic gluten free flour mix, so she pulled down her rice flour, tapioca starch, and potato starch and measured out her usual ratios. When it was time to roll the dough, it was sticky even after chilling for two hours. Still, Kelly grinned as she pressed the snowman, Christmas tree, and candy cane cookie cutters into the dough. Until now, they had only been used for Jell-O Jigglers. Alexa was finally going to be able to participate in this Christmas tradition. Maybe they would actually leave cookies for Santa this year instead of fudge.

When she opened the oven, she closed her eyes and inhaled the sweet buttery aroma. Alexa wandered into the kitchen as Kelly started removing the cookies from the tray. Kelly handed one to Alexa on a spatula. “How is it?”

Alexa frowned slightly. “It needs milk and frosting.”

Kelly tried a snowman cookie. It had a light buttery taste, but it crumbled to powder in her mouth, sucking up all the moisture. “You’re right.” She poured herself a glass of milk and dunked her hatless snowman in. When she pulled him back out, he was missing his head and an arm as well. After she made some frosting, they spread it on the cooled cookies, but the cookies broke apart beneath the pressure of the frosting knives.

“Stupid cookies,” Alexa muttered as her third cookie dissolved into crumbs on her plate.

Kelly patted Alexa’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll make another batch.”

After cleaning the kitchen, Kelly went back to the blog to see what she may have done wrong. The gluten free mix that they used involved bean flour. She generally avoided bean flour when making sweets, afraid that the beany flavor would come through. But the flavor wasn’t really noticeable when she used the bean flour to make breads. Maybe she was worrying for no reason, and the beans would hold the cookies together. The next day, she made the recipe again, following the flour ratio provided on the site. When Alexa and Tristen got home from school, she had a plate of cookies and bowl of frosting waiting for them.

These cookies held together as they were frosted. But the butter flavor was completely overpowered by the sour and bitter tang from the bean flour. Tristen took one bite and said “My cookies are better” before running to escape Alexa’s arm jab and Kelly’s scolding.

“Don’t worry, I’ll try again,” Kelly said.

Kelly went back to the internet. The only recipes she could find either called for a generic mix, which, as she had found, might not give her the results she wanted, or called for flours like amaranth and mochi that she didn’t have in her pantry. She hated the idea of buying a bag just to use a cup. So she did what she’d done before finding these blogs – she set out to create the recipe herself.

Kelly went to the kitchen with her pink polka dot recipe journal in her hand. She had slightly over two weeks before the kids would be out of school, and then six days until Christmas. Her previous failures told her that this was a recipe that was going to take a lot of experimentation to get right. If she wanted a chance for a usable sugar cookie before Christmas, she was going to have to bake at least a batch a day.

She tried adding more starch. The cookies just fell apart easier. She tried using the ratios found in chocolate chip cookies. They didn’t hold their shapes. She tried nut flours, more eggs, less starch. Some were too grainy. Most crumbled when cool. She tried increasing the xanthan gum, which helps bind ingredients in gluten free cooking. They held together, but had a slight sour taste to them.

After trying the twelfth batch, Alexa asked, “Mom, are you going to be able to get a good recipe before school ends? Olivia’s going out of town as soon as vacation starts.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes it takes a long time to perfect a recipe. Remember those doughnuts?”

“Yeah. That took forever”

“Well, if I can’t get them done for Christmas, I’m sure I can get some for Valentine’s Day. How does that sound?”

“I really wanted to have the party for Christmas. What if I ate a couple of these while everyone else had regular cookies?”

“That could work, but it doesn’t sound fun if you have to force yourself to eat them.”

“I’ll be fine.”

That’s what Alexa had said a couple years ago when she didn’t want to take her gluten free cupcake to Rachel’s birthday party. So Kelly had let her go without it, and as predicted, Alexa came home depressed and hungry. This time wouldn’t be any different if she didn’t get these cookies right. “Let me try a few more experiments. I have three more days.”

“OK.” Alexa dragged out the letters with a sigh.

When Alexa left to do homework, Kelly dumped the cookies into the trash. Not only was she running out of time, but the grocery bills were mounting. How many dollars worth of ingredients had she dumped into the trash? It surely hadn’t surpassed the cost of Alexa’s new video game, right? She didn’t really want to find out, just like she didn’t want the scale to tell her what all these samples had done to her waistline.

Finally, two days before school ended for the year, she pulled a batch out of the oven that had held their shapes. She took a bite. It actually tasted good. It had a hint of almond, and the texture was nice and chewy. A couple hours later, she tried another. It still tasted good, and it didn’t crumble when frosted!

When the kids got back from school, Kelly started washing dishes so she wouldn’t be hovering while Alexa tasted the cookies. Alexa sat at the counter, then took her time in selecting a snowman cookie and slathering it with frosting. She took a bite. As she chewed, her eyes slowly grew round. “This one’s a keeper,” she said as she took another bite. “Can I invite my friends over right now?”

“Go for it.”

As Alexa ran for the phone, she called to Tristen. “These cookies are actually good!”

Tristen came to the counter to try one. “Not bad.” He grabbed a second cookie and headed back to the sofa to watch TV.

In a couple of hours, three of Alexa’s friends had arrived to frost and decorate the cookies. Kelly listened to them chat from the adjacent room. “Are all of these really gluten free?” Olivia asked.

“Yep,” Alexa said.

“I never would have guessed.”

Kelly grinned, the stress from the last couple weeks vanished. She’d hit the gold standard in gluten free baking – where even gluten eaters enjoyed it. But that didn’t measure up to the joy from making something that her daughter enjoyed eating.

Critique: This is a great way to raise awareness of celiac’s, but you need a little more tension and conflict to make it a really good story. It starts good, but slows down when Mom is trying all the recipes. Add some tension there. The ending is also a bit of a so-what. Add something from Alexa about how wonderful the party was and/or something about making more for Santa. And it definitely should include the recipe!

What I liked best: The uniqueness of the celiac twist.

Publication ready: Close. Jazz it up just a little.

Midnight (Mountain Time) tomorrow, September 24, 2011, is your last chance to submit to the 5th Annual LDS Publisher Christmas Short Story Contest!

Every year I get a few submissions after the deadline. Get that email off to me now!

Submission details here.

The clatter of the sewing machine ticked away the seconds as Shauna guided the fabric through the feed dogs. She paused to adjust the fabric and checked the clock. “The kids’ll be here any minute. How am I ever going to get all four pairs pajamas done before Christmas?”

She pressed her foot harder on the control pedal, and the chatter picked up. She finished the seam, and the machine fell quiet, but instead of the expected silence, Shauna heard the roar of the school bus. With a sigh, she shoved the half finished blue and green plaid pajama bottoms in a bulging bag at her feet and rushed out of her sewing room.

About the same time she reached the kitchen, the front door opened, and four bundled children spilled into the house.

“Mom, where are you?’

“I’m in the kitchen.”

“You didn’t start without us; did you?”

Shauna met them in the dining room, wiping her dry hands on a kitchen towel to give the illusion that she had been washing dishes. “What?”

“The gingerbread house,” four voices chimed in unison.

Shauna pushed down the panic that rose up her throat and ran a quick memory check. She’d made the dough that morning and put it in the fridge. She’d bought candies yesterday when she went to the store. There was plenty of powdered sugar in the pantry. She had everything.

Shooting her dumbfounded children a dazzling smile, she answered the original question. “Of course I didn’t start without you.”

She turned to her oldest daughter. “Lacey, will you turn on the oven while I go get the pattern?” She headed out of the room and called over her shoulder, “Emily, you can get the dough out of the fridge. Boys, clear off the table, please.”

In half an hour, the smell of gingerbread tingled their noses as Shauna mixed the frosting, and the kids poured candies into several cereal bowls. When the timer buzzed, Shauna checked the geometric slabs in the oven. “Perfect. They need to cool for a few minutes. Let’s make a plan.”

Six year-old Tony stuck his finger in the frosting and licked off the resultant glob.

“Ah, Mom, we don’t want to plan it. Let’s just do it.”

Shauna frowned at him and pointed to the sink. Tony obediently washed his hands and returned to the table.

“Yeah!” Michael took up his little brother’s argument. “Let’s just do whatever we want.”

Lacy scowled. “You boys will glump on tons of candy, and it’ll look like there was an explosion at the Hershey factory.”

Emily popped a candy in her mouth. “I want to make it pretty.”

All four voices joined the fray, and Shauna’s patience faltered. “Stop it. All of you, be quiet.”

The children recognized the sound of frayed nerves and fell silent. Shauna took a deep breath, restoring her patience with the air.

“The girls can plan how to decorate the house, and the boys can do whatever they want with the trees. Okay?”

By the time Dad got home, the house perched on a foil covered board in the middle of the frosting smeared table. Cookie triangles covered in green frosting and globs of candy surrounded the carefully decorated structure.

Shauna looked up from placing the last gumdrop on the house and gasped at the sight of her husband. “Oh, Dan, is it that late? I haven’t even thought about dinner.”

Tony eyed the house and ventured a suggestion. “We could eat the house.”

His sisters erupted in protests, citing all the work they’d put into it.

Shauna shushed them and then announced, “I think you’ve all had enough candy.” She shrugged an apology to her husband. “I’ll whip something up. You kids clean off all this mess.”

Following a scrambled egg dinner, Shauna talked her husband into loading the family into the car and driving around town to see the Christmas lights. After homework and baths, the kids shuffled off to bed a half an hour later than usual.

Shauna returned to her sewing, and Dan watched a little television. After a while, he popped his head into the sewing room. “Are you about ready for bed?”

“I want to at least finish this last pair of bottoms. I have to do the rest of the shopping tomorrow, so I won’t have time to sew much before the kids get home.”

“Don’t stay up too late. You know how cranky you get when you’re tired.”

“I know. Just a little longer.”

Two hours later, Shauna dropped, exhausted, into bed beside her snoring husband.

In the morning, she gritted her teeth and pushed herself to get the kids and Dan out the door despite stinging eyes and a numb brain. Dan gave her a searching look but demonstrated the good sense to say nothing.

The crowded stores and limited supplies of the season’s most coveted gifts stretched Shauna’s morning of shopping well into the afternoon, and she had just stowed the last of the bags in her bedroom when the kids tumbled in the front door and headed to the kitchen for a snack.

Her feet throbbed from all the shopping, and her back ached from bending over her sewing machine late into the previous night. With four tops left to make, she despaired of getting to bed any earlier tonight. Tomorrow was the last day of school before the break, and then the kids would be home all day. She’d promised to take them to town to do their shopping, and she couldn’t sew with them home, anyway. The color and style of the year’s pajamas was always a surprise. If she got one of the tops done tonight after they went to bed, maybe she could get the rest done tomorrow. She could wrap them in her room later, and they’d be ready for the traditional opening of one gift on Christmas Eve.

Michael came out of the kitchen as she crossed the living room. “Mom, Timmy Booker has the flu, and Mrs. Williams asked me to take his part in the program tonight.” He jiggled with excitement. “Will you help me learn it? It’s the longest speaking part in the second grade!”

Shauna thought of the all the Christmas preparations she still had to work on. If I don’t make the cookies for the church Christmas party tomorrow before dinner, I’ll have to do it when I need to be sewing in the morning. “Maybe Lacey . . .” The look of disappointment on her little boy’s face stung her heart. “. . . can make dinner while I help you.”

Michael threw himself against her, almost knocking her over with his full body hug. She gave the other children directions for making dinner and settled down on the couch with Michael.

“Here’s my part. See, it’s almost a page long, and I have to read the whole thing.”

Shauna put her arm around him. “Let’s get started, then.” She pulled him close to her while he read, helping him with the hard words.

An hour later, Michael stood in front of his audience of one. “. . . Santa hung the last candy cane on the tree. He stood back and looked at his work. One thing was missing. He dug in his bag. It was not there. He looked under the tree. It was not there. He tiptoed down the hall and looked in Tim’s room. There it was. The joy of Christmas was in the boy’s heart. Santa gave him a smile and left the house with a ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’”

As Michael finished, loud clapping from the doorway startled Shauna. “Oh, Dan, we didn’t hear you come in!”

Michael ran over to his father and showed him the paper. “I got a big part in the school program, Dad.”

“Lacy told me. It sounds like you’re doing great.” Dan hugged his son and tousled his hair. “Can you go help the kids while I talk to Mom?”

“Okay.” Michael handed his mother the paper for safe keeping and skipped out of the room.

Shauna eyed her husband with suspicion. “What are up to, and what have you got behind your back?”

Dan smiled at her, but she saw worry in his eyes. He sat beside her, resting a large shopping bag against the couch on the side away from his wife. “Well, I’ve been wondering what I could give you for Christmas this year, and I think I’ve found the perfect present, but I’m afraid of how you’ll take it.”

Shauna scowled. She didn’t have time for this nonsense. She really didn’t care about her own gift. She just wanted to make Christmas special for the children.

“I decided to give you a break for Christmas.” He must have noticed her confusion because he hurried through a speech he had evidently practiced every bit as many times as Michael had practiced his part. “You work so hard to make the holiday special for everyone that sometimes I think you lose the joy that Michael’s story was talking about. I want to give you the time to slow down and enjoy the season.”

“Dan, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t want you to wear yourself out being Santa Clause this year. A grumpy Santa takes the joy out of celebrating Christ’s birth. I only want you to do the things that really bring peace to your heart. That will make Christmas special for all of us.”

Shauna shook her head. “But I have to . . . “

“No, Shauna, you don’t.” He took four blue T-shirts and a scrap of the pajama material out of his bag. Shauna had to admit they matched perfectly. “You can finish the pajama tops later if you want to, but you are going to bed at ten o’clock every night from now until Christmas.” He scrunched up his forehead and squinted at her in his best mock-serious glower. He reached into his bag and pulled out a package of Christmas cookies from the grocery store bakery. “They aren’t homemade, but they aren’t cheap packaged cookies, either. This is what you’re taking to the church party tomorrow.”

“But . . .”

“No buts. You are going to have a pleasant Christmas. I’ve taken the day after tomorrow off, and I’ll take the kids Christmas shopping, so you can stay home and wrap presents at the kitchen table instead of trying to do it on our bed while we’re all in the house. We’re all going to slow down and enjoy the holiday. We’re going to start when we get home from the program tonight. The whole family is going to sit down around the lit tree with the lights off and listen to this.” He took an instrumental Christmas CD from the bag and handed it to her. “We aren’t going to talk. We’re going to think about what Christmas means to us and how we can celebrate Christ’s birth and his life in meaningful ways. This is my gift to you.”

Shauna let the tears stream down her cheeks while she hugged Dan and thanked him for the best Christmas present she’d ever received.

Critique: Good idea. Work on the delivery. Watch out for long and awkward sentences. Add in more personality—I really prefer strong character driven stories. Watch your dialog tags. I think increasing the tension a little, having mother react like she’s frazzled or at least pump up her internal dialog so we know she’s really about to crack, would help a lot.

What I liked best: I love the father’s solution with the t-shirts. J

Publication ready: Not quite. Work on the characterization and I think you’ll have something good.

Blue, red, green, and yellow lights blinked on the tiny tree. Blink, blink, blink. Timmy sighed.

No ornaments decorated the little tree, only a few strands of blinking lights he had found in the dumpster while searching for food to feed his family. Timmy stepped back and gave the tree a once over. It was sparse and tiny this year, not like the Oregon Sliver Tip his family had last year when his dad were alive, but at least they had a Christmas tree.

Blink, blink, blink. With each blink of the multicolored lights he felt a flicker of hope. Timmy remembered what his Sunday school teacher had told him. “Blue is for faith, red is for love, green is for blessings and yellow is for trust.”

Timmy fell to his knees. The cracked concrete floor was ice cold. He didn’t notice the coldness of the room, only the warm glow coming from the blinking lights on the little tree. Blink, blink, blink. The lights sparkled on the tree. Timmy watched the lights as they faded into the tree. He prayed for a miracle. Timmy knew God would answer his prayers.

He prayed for a warm winter coat for his mother. Mama only has a tattered sweater and she’s coughs all the time Lord…

He prayed for a new dolly for his five year old sister Katie. Katie’s dolly has no hair and only one eye Lord…

For his little brother Stevie, Timmy prayed for a miracle. Lord, I am not asking for a toy for Stevie. Let Stevie walk again. Thank you Lord.

Timmy didn’t ask for anything. He didn’t think he needed anything. He loved his family so much he wanted them to have a very special Christmas. Blink, blink, blink. Timmy eyes grew heavy.

Faith and trust is what he had in God. Timmy knew God loved him and would bless his family with a Christmas miracle. Before falling asleep he checked on his mama , little brother and sister. He made sure they were warm. Timmy place another log on the fireplace ,crawled into bed with Stevie and fell asleep.

He dreamed of a magical Christmas. His daddy was there and tons of presents stood high under the Oregon Sliver Tip. The biggest angel stood atop the huge tree.

Timmy awoke to a loud noise. He looked around the room and didn’t see anything, only the lights on the Christmas tree. Blink, blink, blink. He snuggled closer to Stevie to kept warm and fell back asleep.

“Timmy, Timmy. Santa Claus has been here!” His sister jumped on the bed.

“Huh?” Timmy was still half asleep. Santa Claus?

He got up and went to put another log on the fire.

“Merry Christmas Timmy”, his mama wrapped her arms around him.

“Merry Christmas mama.”

“There’s a tree and presents under it too! It’s a miracle.” Her eyes misted.

Timmy ran to the tree and presents toppled from underneath it. His mama walked over to where he stood. Timmy reached under the tree for a present. Katie ripped open her present. Inside the pretty pink paper lay her doll. Timmy started to cry.

“Mama, your next,” he placed a present decorated in purple paper into her lap.

She opened her present. It was her winter coat!

Timmy placed the big box next to his little brother. What could be in Stevie’s box? Stevie ripped his present opened. Braces.

Stevie got braces so he could walk again. How?

Timmy didn’t see the last present under the tree.

“Here Timmy”, his mama handed him a present.

Timmy carefully opened the present. Nestled inside the white tissue paper lay a copy of Treasure Island. He couldn’t believe that somehow he also received a special gift; a copy of his favorite book. Timmy knew a special promise had been kept, not only by himself to his dad, but from the Heavenly Father to him.

Timmy fell to his knees, wept and thanked the Lord.

“Heavenly Father, thank you for the Christmas promise you kept.”

Critique: To make a fully developed story, you need to flesh it out more. We need more characterization and a better defined sense of place. We need to know more about why the family is in this situation. We need to know what promises were made, when, why. You’ve got plenty of word count left. Use it to add depth and originality to the story. You also need to work on how to designate dialog.

What I liked best: The blink, blink, blink of the lights.

Publication ready: No. Needs work.

Bill pulled his sled through the darkness, his cleats clicking and crunching on the ice as he made his way across the frozen lake. Above, high cloud cover blocked out the starry sky. Up ahead, a small fire was a bright spot in the night, it’s light an unexpected beacon on Bill’s destination.

Well, thought Bill, I guess I’ll have some company out here. And maybe I won’t even have to make my own fire!

He aimed his headlamp at the distant bright spot and clicked his way through the gloom.

When he arrived at the fire he could see the other man’s set-up. There was a small folding camp-stool in front of the cheery little fire, with a pile of collected firewood lying on the ice next to it. There was a big, antique looking sled, the kind with runners, with the man’s equipment box attached on top of it. Lying on the ice in front of the sled was a gas-powered auger, and spread out across the ice in an X pattern were the man’s traps, each about 20′ apart from each other. Each one had a small light attached to it so that he could see when they went off in the dark.

Sitting on the camp-stool in front of the fire was a big man. Ok, Bill thought, he’s a fat man, but big is the PC term nowadays…

“Hello there, neighbor!” Bill called as he approached.

“Greetings and salutations, fellow fisherman!” the man called back, in a deep, jolly voice.

“Mind if I set up near you? This is one of my favorite spots.”

“Not at all!” came the booming reply. “There’s plenty of lake left, and if you pull up a chair I think you’ll find that even I can’t use all this fire by myself!”

The man rose ponderously to his feet, tall as well as wide, and came a few steps closer, his own cleats crunching on the ice. As he leaned forward to direct his gaze toward Bill’s equipment, his face came within the circle of light thrown by Bill’s headlamp. Bill could see that the man had a ruddy face framed by thick white hair and a matching bushy beard, and that while his body was clad in a red suit of state-of-the-art ‘Arctic Armor’, he had an old fashioned stocking cap on his head complete with a tassel!

“It’s getting late, friend,” the fellow said. “Why don’t you use my auger to punch some holes? It’ll be faster than your hand auger, and the faster you get those traps in, the faster we can settle in by that fire to swap fish stories. If you like, you just tell me where you want the holes, and I’ll punch ’em while you start setting up traps.”

Bill looked out at the dark ice where he intended to set his holes.

“Deal!” he said. He stripped off one glove and held out a hand.

“My name’s Bill, and thanks for the help.”

The big man in red also stripped off a glove, engulfing Bill’s hand in a paw the size of a catcher’s mitt.

“My name’s Chris, and I’m just thankful for the company.”

Working as a team they had Bill’s five traps in the water in about fifteen minutes, each with it’s own glow-stick waiting to pop into the air to announce that the trap had been sprung. They were sitting by the fire, Chris on his stool and Bill on the lid of his bait-bucket.

“Well! Thank you again!” said Bill “That was much faster!”

“Don’t mention it! Glad to help.”

Bill squinted at the power auger as it lay on the ice again.

“I do have to say, I’d love to have one of those augers. My hand auger is good, but once the ice is a foot or more thick it is a little slow… I’ll get one someday, but I just can’t afford it right now.”

He looked at Chris.

“…And, I have to say that I didn’t expect to have any company out here tonight, especially with it being Christmas Eve and all. I haven’t got any family around here, and I had nothing to do, so I decided to get some night fishing in out here at my favorite spot. What’s your excuse?”

Chris’s smile looked odd, lit from above by his headlamp like that, but it was undeniably broad.

“Oh, this is my busy time of year, so I try to take my breaks when I can get them. I had a few hours where I really didn’t need to be doing anything, so I snuck out here for some fishing. This is also one of my favorite spots, but I don’t get to come out here much at all.”

“Well, you must get out somewhere,” Bill said. “You have some of the nicest gear for ice-fishing that I’ve ever seen. And you sure handled that auger like a pro.”

Chris smiled even more broadly.

“Oh, I love to fish. And where I come from, if you want to fish you learn to ice-fish!”

“Ah!” said Bill, raising one gloved finger in the air, “you must hail from up North, in Canada!”

Chris nodded.

“I come from up North, yes. But, tell me, you say you fish here often?”

Now it was Bill’s turn to nod.

“Well, let me just break out this thermos of coffee for us and you can tell me about the biggest fish you’ve taken out of here. Like I said, I don’t get out here often, and I’d like to hear how the place is doing.”

The evening passed, with Chris asking the questions and Bill supplying the fishing stories. They kept the fire going, passed the coffee thermos back and forth, and even caught some bass. Chris caught three while Bill only landed two, but one of Bill’s two was the biggest of the night. Each time they released their catch and returned to the fire. Eventually, Chris looked at his wrist, found that there was no watch, and asked Bill if he knew the time.

“Yep. It’s just going on 10:00.”

Chris’s eyes widened.

“10:00? Oh no! I was having such a good time I never realized that it was so late!I have to go!”
He jumped up and started folding his stool.

“Is something wrong?” Bill asked, worried by his new friend’s sudden alarm.

“Well, I… uh… I have some people waiting for me. I’m supposed to meet them, and didn’t know I was running late!”

He thrust the stool and his bait-box in to his sled, muttering “My wife’s gonna kill me if I keep the whole crew waiting…”

“Let me help,” said Bill. “I’ll pull the sled while you take out your traps, we’ll see if we can get you out of here quicker.”

“Thanks Bill!” said Chris, and he took off toward his first trap at a run, cleats crunching and clicking. Bill grabbed the pull rope on the big red sled and followed along behind. Chris got all five traps out in record time, pulled off a glove and shook Bill’s hand again.

“Thanks. I have to run, but it was great meeting you, Bill. We’ll have to do this again sometime!”

Without waiting for a response, he took off across the ice at a trot, clicking along at a good clip. Soon he was just a point of light in the distance, moving toward the boat ramp. Bill wondered about that, since he knew that he was the only one parked at the boat ramp.

But, he thought, who’s to say he’s not on a cell phone right now calling for a ride?

He watched the light get to the parking lot, and then it hung about for a couple of minutes. Suddenly, the light took off down the road paralleling the lake, moving at a really good clip. It was like Chris had been picked up by a car after all, but there were no headlights, just that one light from Chris’s headlamp. Just as Bill was wondering about this, the light flew up off the road and took off across the sky! It looped around and flew right over the lake! With the dark and distance Bill couldn’t make out anything but that light, but it was definitely flying as it disappeared in the distance… heading… north?

Shaken, Bill put out the fire and pulled out his own traps. He made his way along the same route Chris had used, eventually getting to the boat ramp and his pick-up truck, parked alone in the lot. As he pulled his sled along-side of his truck, he noticed a shape in the cab, on the seat. He beeped the door-locks off and opened the passenger-side door. And he stared.

On the seat, inside his locked truck, was a brand-new, still-in-the-box, Strikemaster Lazer-Mag power auger with an 8” bore. There was a bow stuck to the box with a note tucked under it. Bill pulled the note out from under the bow.

“Bill – Sorry I had to run out on you like that, but I REALLY have a lot to do tonight! Thanks for the company and the stories. Merry Christmas! – Kriss K.”

Bill swallowed hard, and looked at the bottom of the note.

“P.S. – Same time next year?”

Critique: You’ve got a few grammar and sentence structure issues, but not much. We need just a little more backstory for Bill. But otherwise, AWESOME!

What I liked best: I love that it is the Santa Incognito tale, but it’s not sappy or manipulative. Great story.

Publication ready: Yes! With a few minor fixes, it could be a great fit for the next Christmas collection.

Higher than all the surrounding mountains, Mount Snowtopia stretched into the clouds. The people who lived on the mountain were called Snowtopians. Everything in their mountain village was made of snow and ice. They lived in houses carved from great blocks of frozen water, which were plastered daily by heavy snowfalls. They sat in chairs and slept in beds hand-crafted from packed snow. For breakfast they crunched their frosty-coated cereals out of crystal bowls so cold you had to wear thick gloves to prevent your hands from freezing.

Direct sunlight on the mountain was banned, and no artificial heat was allowed. Any rise in temperature, Snowtopia’s scientists predicted, and the school, the church, the shops and the houses, all constructed from snow and ice, would melt. Consequently, all year round the mountain had one season only: winter.

To survive the low temperatures, the Snowtopians wore furry coats and hats woven from the wool of mountain sheep imported from the people who lived in the lower hills. Permanent winter on the mountain meant that no vegetation grew, and with no plants on which to feed, wild animals stayed away. Well, all except one creature: Ookpik, Grandfather Frost’s pet snowy owl. As his top scout, Grandfather Frost sent the owl on regular visits to the mountain to ensure all remained stable on Snowtopia.

Only one month to the Yuletide celebrations now and the snow-covered mountain looked like an elaborately decorated Christmas cake. Perched on the very top of the mountain, the ice palace hotel sparkled beneath the moonlight. The villagers depended on the visiting tourists, their income and the industry brought in by the hotel. But this year was the coldest anyone could remember. And, as no fires were permitted on Snowtopia, the weavers and tailors busied themselves with orders for clothes with thicker lining and extra wool.

For the mountain villagers, accustomed to extreme cold, the new woolly garments kept them almost as warm as snow leopards adapted to sheltering in caves during a fierce blizzard. Not so the tourists. The hotel catered for over five hundred visitors but with less than thirty days to Christmas, there were nine guests made up of one family and a newly wed couple. And both parties had informed Mikhail Alexandrov, the hotel owner, of their intentions to leave as soon as the latest cold spell lifted and a sled and dogs could be used to whisk them safely down the treacherous mountain path.

Like the hoary breath that had turned the snowfall on the mountain to a treacherous shroud of ice, panic gripped the mountain people, turning, it seemed, even their thoughts to frozen and impenetrable fear. People regarded each other through eyes that didn’t appear to register. They listened with ears that couldn’t hear beyond their own sense of impending dread. Only one man, the owner of the ice hotel, remained calm. Time to call a meeting, he decided.

Dressed in their extra warm coats, capes and hats, the Snowtopians arrived to the hotel meeting room. Those living close to the hotel trudged through the heavy snow on snowshoes; some on snowmobiles, while others came on sleds pulled by anxious huskies that yipped and yapped. Little conversation did they exchange together beyond how relaxed Mikhail Alexandrov looked. And, indeed, nobody could recall the hotel owner ever looking any way other than at ease with himself and the world in all the years they had known him.

The mummers petered out when Mikhail climbed the steps to the stage and stood before a microphone.

Without introduction or explanation, he opened with just three words: “The snow leopard,” he said, paused, smiled, stepped back from the microphone and let his eyes wander around the puzzled crowd. He then stepped forward. “The snow leopard is the solution to our problem, my friends.”

The Snowtopians turned to each other, shook their heads and frowned. “His brain has seized up,” said a mechanic who specialised in snowmobiles.

The snow-carpenter agreed. “Mikhail’s head has finally turned to sawdust slush,” he said.
Before he went on to give them a short lecture on the snow leopard, the hotel owner drew his audience’s attention to a very special guest who had just flown in from the faraway and ancient woodland of Veliky Ustyung: Ookpik, Grandfather Frost’s pet snowy owl.

The crowd turned round to see Ookpik perched high up on the ceiling’s chandelier made from a thousand diamond-shaped ice-cubes. Mikhail Alexandrov invited Ookpik to join him on stage.
“Hooo-uh, hooo-uh,” Ookpik said, left his perch and sailed on silent wings over the heads of the Snowtopians and came to rest on a frozen tree-stump placed for that purpose next to Mikhail Alexandrov’s lectern.

The crowd applauded.

Now that he had their full attention, Mikhail Alexandrov told them of his ingenious plan to bring back the tourists to Snowtopia. The leopard, he explained, was perfectly adapted to a freezing mountainous environment, exactly like the conditions on Snowtopia. The animal’s body was stocky and its fur dense, its feet wide to distribute body weight on soft snow, and, most importantly, the cat’s tail was so round and thick, the leopard used it like a blanket to keep its face warm while it slept during particularly bad weather.

By the looks on some of the faces, Mikhail Alexandrov believed his plan already beginning to stick and whiten, spreading like fallen snow.

“It takes about six snow leopard skins to make a fur coat,” he said.

Around the hall the crowd exchanged looks of horror. They nonetheless applauded. For everyone knew how ruthless Mikhail Alexandrov could be in business, but the idea of killing the snow leopards was lunacy.

A wink from Ookpik in their direction, however, reassured them that Grandfather Frost would soon be aware of their troubles.

For now they didn’t dare show any disapproval. The livelihood of every man and woman on Snowtopia depended on Mikhail Alexandrov and his ice palace hotel. In the past a few Snowtopian’s had disagreed with him about the permanent ban on sunshine. Without discussion, Mikhail Alexandrov had banished these men to the lower hills.

So, for their future’s sake, the audience cheered, whooped and clapped their hands.
Mikhail nodded. “Yes,” he said. “You understand me. We can offer our guests coats, hats and moccasins fashioned from the animal whose fur is thick enough to live all-year round with Grandfather Frost, if he so decided.” He shifted his attention to Ookpik beside him and raised his eyebrows. Ookpik blinked his huge yellow eyes, but showed no emotion.

One of the tailors in the centre of the crowd, a normally quiet man, put up his hand. His bloated face seemed ready to implode.

“Yes sir,” Mikhail said.

“The tails,” he said. “The tails will make wonderful scarves.” The tailor had no intention of fashioning scarves from the animal’s tails. He just wanted to please the hotel owner.

“Exactly,” Mikhail said. “We’re driving in the same blizzard you and I.”

Not used to compliments, the tailor chuckled, pressed his hand to his mouth, and glanced about for further approval.

Mikhail Alexandrov then explained that he had learned from a guest one time that there was around three and a half thousand snow leopards left in the world – a sufficient number to fashion more than five hundred coats and other garments: plenty for his hotel guests. Getting hold of these leopard skins, he said, would be difficult. For one thing, there were no guns in Snowtopia. Without creatures to hunt, weapons were unnecessary. Besides, a single rifle report was likely to start an avalanche. So all weapons, like the sun, were banned.

He had considered purchasing the hunting equipment from the towns and villages in the lower mountains. But the Snowtopians were a private people and, beyond trading with outsiders and catering for their visitors, they kept their affairs to themselves as best they could. No, he had an alternative plan: the job of tracking down and capturing alive the snow leopards would be given to the husky trainers and handlers. The handlers were the only Snowtopians ever to move through the world outside Snowtopia. A necessity when they travelled to collect their dogs.

These men were experienced in the ways of animals. They lived with them, knew their dietary and physical requirements. They understood them. And if they could learn the ways of one creature, they could learn and master the ways of another.

Like everybody else, the dog trainers and handlers valued their jobs, and so agreed to carry out the hotel owner’s plan. Besides, as soon as Grandfather Frost learned from Ookpik Mikhail Alexandrov’s crazy plan to turn the snow leopards into fur coats, no harm could surely come to these elusive creatures.

Mikhail Alexandrov’s theory about the dog handlers and keepers’ knowledge of animals proved right. Within a few weeks, they returned from far-flung places like China, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Nepal and India, their sleds crammed with nearly three thousand snow leopards thrust up like deer with ropes made from sheep’s wool around their legs.

The meeting room in the ice palace they used as a temporary communal cage to await the arrival of the butcher from the lower mountains. No choice had Mikhail Alexandrov at this stage except to let an outsider know about the – up till now – very secret project. Off he sent by moonlight a dog musher, his sled and team for the lower hills, ensuring that he keep secret from the butcher the need for his services until his arrival in Snowtopia.

On his journey downhill and across the jagged hills and open tundra, the musher in his loneliness and guilt cried out for Grandfather Frost’s help.

From their beds of snow in their icehouses, the Snowtopians could hear the wails and growls made by three thousand snow leopards coming from the ice palace. They too, unable to sleep, awaited Grandfather Frost’s arrival. Filled with doubt, they imagined terrible possibilities: maybe Ookpik got caught up in a snowstorm and never made it home to Veliky Ustyung. What if Grandfather Frost’s beautiful daughter the Snow Maiden was ill and he had to stay by her bedside? And a million other tragedies they imagined through the long, dark night.

Just before dawn something strange began to happen. The dry coldness of their beds was replaced by a warming wetness; and from the ceilings fell droplets, at first intermittently and then steadily. Everything was melting. There followed shouts and cries around the mountain as people called out to neighbours their horror at the brightening mountains below them.

Overnight the snow had completely melted. The lower mountains appeared as they did in springtime: lush and green.

Baying dogs turned the Snowtopians attention to the dog handler and the butcher arriving at a slow pace through slushy snow.

Mikhail Alexandrov quickly informed the butcher as to why he had been summoned. But asked him even more speedily for his ideas on this strange phenomenon.

The butcher shook his jowly face. “Oh my word,” he said. “You’ve ruined us all. Oh my word.”

The hotel owner told the butcher to calm down, and granted him that he would accept responsibility for whatever harm he may have caused, but what exactly had he ruined and how?

“Winter,” the butcher said. “With most of the snow leopards removed from the mountains, Winter has been fooled. He believes it time for him to go on his holidays and has left to join his friend Autumn elsewhere in the world.”

But how could that be? Grandfather Frost controlled the seasons. The consequences, however, for Mikhail Alexandrov, were as stark as a whiteout. Springtime, confused too, seemed to have got excited and travelled on up in to Snowtopia where she must have heard the mews, hisses and growls of the snow leopards.

To all listening to the exchange between the hotel owner and the butcher, a realisation, like the North Wind’s breath laced with icicles, swept over them. Every head twisted towards the mountaintop and the collapsing ice palace, followed by three thousand snow leopards charging and bounding down the mountain.

Men, women, children and dogs, shouted, screamed, yelped and scattered while the leap of leopards sprinted, slipped and slid by them back to the freedom of their own lands.

When all had finally settled down, they watched a large figure and a smaller one approaching from the ruined ice palace: Grandfather Frost and his daughter the Snow Maiden. Dressed in his red and gold heel-length fur coat, Grandfather Frost stepped back to allow his daughter arrive before him.

“Happy Christmas,” she said to Mikhail Alexandrov, and held out to him something small and white.

Mikhail accepted the gift.

Everybody gasped at the thing given Mikhail by the girl.

Never had they seen anything so wondrous. Such perfection. Like a snowflake before it came to rest and bled into a thousand others, but what was it?

“It’s a snowdrop,” the Snow Maiden said. “I guess it’s been sleeping under the snow forever, just waiting to wake up.”

Mikhail Alexandrov let his head droop into his own chest. “I’m so sorry,” he said to Grandfather Frost. “My need to save the hotel and the livelihood of all of Snowtopia left me snow-blind to the rights of other creatures.”

Grandfather Frost touched Mikhail’s shoulder with his magical staff. “There are those who make mistakes and learn nothing,” he said. “You have learned well. Now, come. It’s Christmas. I have a gift for you and your people.”

A piercing whistle screeched from the air, pulling the Snowtopians’ gaze skyward.

“An eagle,” Grandfather Frost offered without being asked. Ookpik, on his shoulder crouched and clacked his beak as a warning to the eagle.

Hearing the eagle’s cry, the Sun stirred and pushed aside the grey clouds.

The rays from the Sun on the people’s raised faces caressed like a mother’s touch.

By nightfall Winter, a little embarrassed at being duped by Grandfather Frost, had returned to Snowtopia. As he passed the retreating Springtime, both seasons were too ashamed to acknowledge the other with even a glance.

But, following Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden, Mikhail Alexandrov and the mountain people were already nearing the lower hills to live a new life and celebrate their first Christmas where the Sun shone, flowers bloomed, the eagle soared, and where the snow leopard, wearing his beautiful coat, roamed free and let the seasons know their time to shine.

Critique: The story moves too slow at first. The narrator and Mikhail tell us too much that would be better revealed in dialog and action. The part from the capture of the snow leopards through the end goes way too fast. Need more time spent on the appearance of Grandfather Frost and his daughter and more details on Mikhail’s character change.

What I liked best: A story line I’ve never seen before. That’s good. I like the imagery of the frozen village, the greed, the repentance. The little dialog you do have is fun.

Publication ready: No, but it has potential. Could be a nice picture book.

Here we are again, the end of summer, fall is just around the corner.Before we know it, Christmas will be here.

I have been requested to write a Children’s Christmas story.

As I worked on this story, I was reminded of a little girl, with only one wish for Christmas…..
(She wanted an Elf of her own.)

Now being an Elf, working all year long on toys, gifts and goodies for all children of the world, I have decided that this year you will all receive the story as to how we Elves came to live with Santa and Mrs. Clause.

Box 11
1rst Street
North Pole
Canada
H0H 0H0

A wise person once said, “If you need help, just ask and you shall receive”

Well years ago, the world as we know it was not as populated as it is now, there were not as many families with children, as there is now at Christmas time.

Santa and Mrs. Clause, built all the toys themselves, as the years went by , Santa became increasingly busier and busier. Toy making was being started as early as New Years day, just to make sure all the children would have their Christmas wishes come true.

Every year, more and more families had children, making it harder , for Santa to keep up.
Until one Christmas eve, he was so tired. He actually missed a tiny village on his midnight run around the world.

Santa had returned to the North Pole without realizing his mistake, and had directly went for a nap.

Dasher one of his trusted reindeer, Mrs. Clause and Ralph a stable hand were cleaning up the sleigh when they discovered some magic left in the Santa sack.

Well now we will have to wake Santa up, and let him know what has happened.

Comet in all his glory stood up and suggested that they do the delivery, and let poor old Santa sleep.

However try as they might, they could not get the sleigh off the ground without Santa at the reins. Even Mrs. Clause, tried but her hands were to small to hold the reins properly.

Well, this is a fine pickle she announced, I will just go and get Santa up from his nap.

Mrs. Clause went into her kitchen, and began whipping up Santa’s favorite foods. There was chocolate cake, Sundays, Gingerbread and four different kinds of Cookies, she knew as soon as he smelled the treats , he would wake instantly, and want to snack on them.

To her surprise he not only woke up , he was so hungry he ate everything she had prepared. While Santa was filling up on goodies, Mrs. Clause hurriedly explained what had happened on his flight around the world. Santa was shocked, how could he completely forget a whole village.

Now in the stables there was a commotion going on……Ralph the stock hand and the reindeer knew Santa was getting way to busy to keep up with all the toy building and a one night flight , to ensure all boys and girls would get their Christmas wish.

The reindeer and the stalk hands reached for the radio, and even though it was the middle of the night and all hope seemed lost, they put out an emergency call that was heard around the world by the ears of all who were awake to hear it………….

Well at the time of the night there are no that many people awake in the world.

The night sky was dark and the wind whipped around the sleigh, making it hard for the reindeer to stay on course, using a little of the magic, to keep them flying straight.

As they were flying a message came across Santas radio. It was Mrs. Clause informing Santa , that a little village just outside the south pole had heard of their request for help.

Now this really upset Santa , for this was the same small village he had forgotten on his first flight of the night.

The winds were up and it was so cold that ice was forming in front of them , making it hard for them to see. Almost there he calls out, as the reindeer, start their decent , veering a little to the right so as not to land on a polar bears head.

The ground was frozen , the reindeer, practically slid down the lane into the village, stopping in front of the town hall.

Santa knew the village well, his gift to them every year was wood and coal to keep their houses and families warm. Jumping out of his sleigh, he realized that he was much to jolly to enter the front door of any of the buildings. He grabbed his sack and with some magic, he was able to go down the chimney, onto a cold bed of ashes.

Once inside, he looked around at all the tiny faces,

Before Santa had a chance to speak, an elderly elf stepped forward, with an outstretched hand , introducing himself as Tony , The Toymaker, Town Mayor. This is my wife Estella he said proudly , and my children, Eva, Elgin, Everett, Ellouise and the twins babies Evelyn & Eliotte. Stepping aside the rest of the villagers came up and introduced themselves and their families.

Now Santa being a bit upset over his own mistake, knowing that this little village was the one he missed on his earlier flight, walked across the town hall to the door…….he needed time to think, and went outside , settling his rump in a snowbank.

Ralph his stable hand, then informed that this tiny village, had been the ones to answer the emergency call.

Santa immediately jumped to his feet, went back into the town hall, as he approached Mr. Toymaker, he said…..Tony there is a way to we can all help each other.

I seem to need more and more help each year,, just getting all the toys built and ready for Christmas. I would like for you and your village to come back to the North Pole with me.

Now Tony did not think this was such a good Idea, for the Elves could only live where it is cold and snowy all year round, and the North pole, well he did not know anything about it.

As elves we have special diets, of candy, cookies, snow cones and sweet sugary syrup. It keeps our energy up and going and we are able to withstand just about any storm the winter can throw at us.

Santa was not discouraged, he assured the Elves , the north pole , covered in snow, would be ideal for their village, as for the sweet and tasty diet you need , that too is not a problem.

All the villagers crowded around Santa, and Tony , wanting to go to the north pole, with a few well placed pleases and excitement on every little elves face…………Tony gave in and accepted Santa’s offer.

Letting everyone know that this decision cannot be changed, as they rushed from house to house, each packing a suitcase.

Ralph the stable hand stuck his head in the door and announced that the moonlight would soon be gone and the reindeer were worried that the flight back, may not be safe in the daylight, for the brightness of the rising sun could hurt their eyes, which means they may have to alter their flight plan, Taking the long way home would mean they would need more magic for the reindeer to fly the sleigh.

Santa and Ralph lifted every child into the sleigh and created room for all the adults, and were soon on their way, having enough time before the moon started setting. The headed due North.

What a shock for Mrs. Clause when the sleigh pulled up on the snow covered driveway, weaving a bit to the left , and knocking down the snowman she had just finished building.

All the Elves scurried down off the sleigh and set to fixing the snowman, while Santa explained what was happening.

Well then , lets see if we can make room for our guests then , said Mrs. Clause, as she set about producing little beds, linens and preparing dinner for all of them.

As Santa had promised, we found the north pole perfect for us, we built our village and a huge toy factory. We work all year long with Santa, making all the newest and best toys for all the children of the world to enjoy every Christmas.

Critique: First the bad news. Punctuation, spelling, grammar, POV, characters, plot, structure all need a lot of work. But the good news is, I think it has potential. I’ve sent extensive notes to the author and if rewritten, it could be a really cute picture book.

What I liked best: The idea of Santa needing help and the elves coming to the rescue.

Publication ready: No. This needs work before it’s ready to publish, but it has a whole lot of potential!

by Kasey Eyre

Savanna Clark winced as she flipped through the stack of bills on her desk and compared them with the amount available in her checking account. The numbers didn’t add up. Clicking her mouse a few times, Savanna reluctantly transferred money from their dwindling savings account to cover the bills. After writing the checks and getting everything stamped and ready for the mailbox, Savanna pushed herself up from the desk and then wandered into the kitchen.

Looking at the calendar above the phone in the kitchen, Savanna noticed it was only ten days until Christmas. Usually, Savanna had Christmas planned out months in advance; the gifts were all purchased well before Thanksgiving, hidden away in her closet where her curious boys couldn’t find them. But the past two years had changed all that. It had been difficult with all of the pay cuts her husband had received at work and this year wasn’t looking any better. Last Christmas had been small with simple gifts, but the boys hadn’t seemed to notice, thankfully. Savanna was worried about this year, though. She still hadn’t bought any Christmas gifts because there was no longer extra money at the end of the month. Savanna felt tears of frustration prick her eyes as she thought about her three boys waking up Christmas morning to no gifts under the tree.

Savanna shook her head and took a deep breath, determined not to cry. She wasn’t going to let herself get down. Despite their financial troubles, Christmas was still the family’s favorite time of year and she wanted to make sure everyone enjoyed it as much as they could. She knew her and her husband would figure out something for gifts for their boys. In the meantime, Savanna started humming a Christmas carol to try and put herself more in the spirit of the season as she put away clean dishes and tidied up the kitchen. When she heard the front door open a few minutes later Savanna frowned. It wasn’t time for the boys to come home from school yet.

Savanna walked through the kitchen into the living room to find her husband slumped over on the couch, his head resting in his hands. She walked over to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Michael, why are you home so early? Are you sick?”

Michael looked up at Savanna and with pain in his eyes replied, “I got laid off today.”

After dinner that evening Michael and Savanna sat at the kitchen table while the boys were in their bedroom playing a board game. They had papers scattered on the table, a calculator in the center of the mess.

Michael wrote something down on a piece of paper and then punched some numbers into the calculator. “We have enough in savings to pay the mortgage and bills for the next two months, but that’s it. We can’t spend even a penny on anything extra.”

“But what about Christmas?” Savanna’s voice trembled as she tried to hold back the tears.

Michael shook his head. “We can’t afford gifts. We can barely afford groceries. Hopefully I can get some handyman jobs until I can find something permanent. But with the way things are now, I might be out of a job for a while. Let’s just pray the boys understand.”

Savanna felt fear and uncertainty creep into her. She was scared about what was going to happen, but she wanted more than anything to give her boys a good Christmas. They deserved at least a little Christmas joy. But it seemed hopeless. She and Michael didn’t even feel right asking their parents for help. It seemed everyone was struggling this year.

Michael placed his hand over Savanna’s and smiled weakly at her. “We’ll figure out something. We just need to have faith.”

Savanna nodded and smiled back. Faith. With it being Christmastime that should be something that came easily, but it seemed like the more faith she tried to have the worse off they were.

The boys came running into the kitchen then. Savanna wiped her eyes and smiled while Michael picked up the papers and calculator and cleared the table. The boys were hungry and wanted a treat, but Savanna looked through the almost-empty cabinets and couldn’t find anything to give them.

“I need to go grocery shopping,” she admitted, thinking of the small amount she would have to spend on food.

Michael clapped his hands together. “Well, I’ve got something for you. When I was little your grandma would make something that we always thought was a special treat.”

The boys sat at the table while Michael busied himself at the kitchen counter.

“Dad, what are you making?” ten year-old Brad asked, craning his neck trying to see around his father’s large frame.

Michael grinned as he came to the table with three plates. He placed the plates in front of each boy. “Here you go! This is Grandma’s special recipe for sugar cookies.”

The boys looked at the slice of bread on their plates with doubt.

“It’s just bread and butter and sugar,” Will frowned and poked the bread with his finger.

Trent took a bite. “Mmmm. It’s good Dad! Grandma was a good cook.” His wide smile showed off his two missing front teeth.

Everyone laughed. The boys ate their treat while Michael told them stories about growing up on the farm and Savanna made hot chocolate for everyone. After the stories they played a game and then got the kids off to bed. Savanna stood at the doorway to the boys’ room and felt a swelling in her chest. Earlier that day she had felt so dismal, their financial worries taking over. But now, looking at her boys all snuggled in their beds sleeping peacefully, she had joy in her heart. She was going to have faith that things would work out. For these boys she had to.

Savanna was about to leave for the grocery store when Trent came bursting through the front door.

“Mom! I found a dollar!” He waved the green bill in his hand and ran up to her. “I was walking back from the park with Dad and Will and I found a dollar on the street. Dad said I could keep it. Can I go to the store with you and spend it? Please?”

“Calm down,” Savanna said holding up her hands. “Yes, you can go to the store with me. What are you going to buy?”

Trent twisted his mouth as he thought. “Maybe a candy bar or a pack of gum. Then I can share it with Will and Brad.”

“Go get in the car. You can figure it out on the way there.”

When they got to the grocery store, Trent skipped through the parking lot chattering on and on about what he wanted to buy. He stopped suddenly when he saw a man dressed as Santa standing outside the entrance to the store ringing a bell.

“What is that Santa doing, Mom?” Trent asked.

Savanna pointed. “See that bucket? People put money in there and Santa gives the money to people who need it so they can buy food for Christmas dinner.”

“You mean some people don’t have money to buy food?”

Savanna nodded, feeling a knot in her throat. “Some people don’t.”

Trent took the dollar bill out of his pocked and looked at it carefully in his hand. Then, he marched up to Santa and put the bill in the bucket. Savanna felt her eyes fill with tears as she watched her son give up something he wanted to help someone else. Savanna reached into her purse. She didn’t have very much money for groceries that day, but she knew she had more then some people. Pulling out a few bills, Savanna placed them in the bucket as well.

Santa rang his bell and smiled. “Thank you and Merry Christmas!”

Five days before Christmas Savanna was in the kitchen making dinner when Brad came in from outside.

“Did you finish pulling weeds in Mr. McGill’s yard?” she asked her son.

Brad nodded grabbing a clean cup from the dishwasher and filling it with water from the tap. “Dad is still over there. He had a leaky pipe or something so Dad’s fixing it.”

Michael got home just as Brad was setting the table for dinner. Savanna pulled a casserole dish of macaroni and cheese out of the oven.

“Brad, go tell your brothers that dinner is ready.” Savanna placed the casserole dish onto the table.

Michael was washing his hands when the boys ran into the kitchen and tumbled into their seats. Michael sat down, but before saying a blessing over the food he turned to Brad.

“What did Mr. McGill say to you when you went in the house to get a trash bag?”
Brad shrugged. “Just that is was nice to have some company.”

Michael shook his head. “I think he’s been awfully lonely since his wife died. He talked non-stop while I fixed that pipe.”

Brad jumped up from the table. “We should take him some dinner. We should all go over there and eat with him.”

Savanna started to protest. The macaroni and cheese, frozen peas and canned peaches wasn’t much of a meal to share with someone. But the determination on Brad’s face stopped her. “Let’s get this food packed up and head over.”

The boys shouted and laughed as they put foil over the food and grabbed something to carry. As they walked down the street to Mr. McGill’s house they were full of cheerful chatter. They reached the old man’s house and Brad proudly knocked on the door. When Mr. McGill answered there was a surprised look on his face as he saw the entire Clark family on his porch holding dishes of food.

“We wanted to bring you dinner and thought we could all eat together,” Brad said.

Mr. McGill gasped, his hand covering his mouth. “What a wonderful surprise,” he replied. Opening the door wide, Mr. McGill ushered the family in.

After dinner that evening, Mr. McGill pulled Savanna aside as the boys and Michael cleared the table. “Thank you. This is the first home cooked meal I’ve had in a long time. You were an answer to my prayers.”

Savanna reached up to give Mr. McGill a hug. “You are welcome for dinner any time,” she whispered and Mr. McGill could only nod his reply.

On Christmas Eve, Savanna stood in the living room and stared at the blank space under the Christmas tree that was usually full of gifts. What surprised her most of all was that her three sons had not once asked why there were no gifts under the tree this year. She wondered if they would be disappointed the next morning. She wished there was something she could do to give them at least one gift to open.

Savanna’s thoughts were interrupted when she saw Will rummaging around in the hall closet.

“What are you looking for?” Savanna asked.

Will stuck his head out of the closet. “Where is that Christmas wrapping paper from last year?”

Savanna’s heart leaped. “What do you need it for?” she asked carefully.

“I was over at Jake’s playing and he told that for Christmas this year their family was taking gifts to the kids at the women’s shelter tonight. I thought I could give some of my toys.”

Savanna walked over to the closet and found the paper high on a shelf. “What are you going to give?”

Will shrugged his shoulders. “I have lots of toys. I was thinking maybe I could give my baseball and mitt or one of my board games.”

Savanna gave her son a hug. “I think that’s a good idea.” She handed Will the wrapping paper and watched him run off to his room. Savanna went into her own room and closed the door. She knelt down beside her bed and started to pray. Even though her boys seemed to be fine, she was still the one running low on faith.

Christmas Eve dinner was usually ham and scalloped potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls with cranberry jam, Will’s favorite Jell-o and pumpkin pie for dessert. This year Savanna made rolls and placed them on the table along with fixings for ham sandwiches made with cold cuts she found on sale at the deli. She did have a pumpkin pie, even if it was store bought. It was cheaper to buy an already made pie then get everything she needed to bake one herself. She hesitated calling the boys for dinner, but was surprised when they came to the table excited at the prospect of making their own sandwiches.

“Can we eat on the floor in the living room with just the Christmas lights on?” Trent asked.

The family settled on a blanket, their sandwiches on napkins and cups of water sitting on the coffee table that had been pushed aside. As they ate they told stories of past Christmases, the boys reminiscing about their favorite gifts. It was next that Trent finally told the secret he and his brothers had been keeping for the past two weeks.

“We didn’t write letters to Santa this year,” he blurted out, getting dirty looks from Will and Brad.

“You weren’t supposed to tell!” Brad shouted.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked. He looked from Brad to Will to Trent. Brad, the oldest of the three spoke up.

“We heard you talking one night about not having money for gifts. So we decided we wouldn’t ask for anything, even from Santa.” He shot a look at Trent who started to frown.

“We thought because Christmas was for Jesus’ birthday we’d do nice things for other people, instead of being sad about not getting new toys,” Will added.

This time Savanna didn’t stop the tears from falling. She grabbed her sons and pulled them into a hug. “You’re my three little miracles this year.”

Michael stood up from the floor and clapped his hands. “Let’s go caroling!”

“What?” Trent asked raising his eyebrows.

Savanna laughed, “You hate singing,” she teased.

“Well, these boys have put me in the Christmas spirit. Everyone grab your coats and shoes. We’ll make our way down the street and then stop by Mr. McGill’s and invite him over for pie.”

When everyone was bundled in their coats the Clark family walked outside and started singing Christmas carols. They walked to their neighbors on either side of them and then across the street. At one house they were handed a plate of homemade goodies as a thank you for the caroling. At another home, the neighbor handed Savanna a bag of old toys she had been meaning to bring over for the boys. Her kids no longer played with them and she thought the Clark boys would like them. By the time they made it to Mr. McGill’s house Savanna’s arms were full of things from their neighbors.

Michael knocked on Mr. McGill’s door and the boys started to rambunctiously sing “Jingle Bells”. When Mr. McGill came to the door he was laughing.

“I could hear you when you were all the way down the street,” he chuckled.

Savanna invited him over for pie and Mr. McGill happily accepted their invitation.

They stayed up late that Christmas Eve, eating pie and the treats from their neighbor, drinking hot cocoa, singing songs and telling stories. Before Mr. McGill left for the evening and the boys went to bed. Michael read the story of Jesus’ birth from the Bible. As she drifted off to sleep that night, Savanna felt peace for the first time that Christmas season. Her three boys, her Christmas miracles, had reminded her that Christmas was more than having a pile of gifts under the tree; it was about giving.

The next morning Savanna woke up to the excited whispers of her boys. She shook Michael and together they stumbled into the living room to see why their boys were up so early. Michael and Savanna found their three boys sitting in front of the Christmas tree, the lights casting a warm glow on their faces. Under the tree was a small stack of gifts. Savanna gasped and turned to Michael. He just shrugged.

“I have no idea where those gifts came from,” he whispered to his wife.

Savanna knelt down in front of the Christmas tree to examine the boxes. There was one for each of member of the family.

“I guess Santa brought gifts, after all,” Savanna said.

Trent reached for the gift with his name on it and shook his head. “I think this year our gifts came from Jesus.”

Critique: Watch out for passive voice. Give us a little more personality in the family and for Savanna, deeper characterizations. Both of those issues could be helped with a little more dialog. Needs more sensory imagery. A couple of plot issues but has potential.

What I liked best: The sweet Christmas feeling. The children being so willing to give to others and to go with the spirit of the holiday and the family bringing their elderly neighbor into their celebrations.

Publication ready: Not quite yet. There are some characterization issues that need to be worked out and it needs to be tightened up. But overall, it’s close.

Snow had been falling for two days, transforming the dark and gloomy December streets to a dazzling whiteness. Wrapped up in thick winter coats and scarves, men and women shuffled passed glowing shop windows, while children slid along icy patches on the pavement and threw snowballs at the slow moving cars and busses.

In early afternoon the snow stopped falling and the sky cleared to a cobalt blue, revealing a bright star that burned from the east. Those who stopped in the street and raised their heads to admire the Magi’s legacy all saw flash by what looked like a silhouetted sleigh.

“It’s him,” said a small boy, his forehead a fierce frown. “It’s Father Christmas. Look.”

His pal, who had been too busy compacting a snowball round a stone, squinted upwards.

“No it isn’t,” the taller boy said. His body seemed longer than his legs, and his head too small for his body. “There’s no such thing as Father Christmas.”

A third boy, younger than the two pals, who’d been left outside the entrance to the town church a long time ago, in his hands a sheet of paper rolled up to make a kind of begging cup, stared hard into the darkening sky. “Father Christmas,” he whispered, and he tried to smile. But the freezing weather had chilled him beyond chillness and it felt as though his cheeks cracked. He brought his numbed hand to his face. But just then a snowball slammed into the side of his head.

The beggar boy slumped forward into the snow, which turned slowly pink in a halo about his head. Next to him, the unrolled paper cup danced like a leaf on the wind, and the spilled coins given him by passers-by burrowed into the soft snow.

The first two boys, who, strangely, had only now noticed the beggar boy, looked at each other and then around the streets. Nobody had seen what had happened.

“Quick,” the taller boy said. “Get his money.”

The smaller boy hesitated, but his pal pushed him forward. The two scrabbled in the snow, working their dirty fingernails beneath the coins. Before dashing off, the older one heaved the beggar boy over onto his back and searched the boy’s trousers’ pockets. Apart from a curious looking pen made from a feather, they were empty.

In the tiny church garden behind the beggar boy, there perched a robin redbreast atop a single holly tree. Helpless, the little bird watched the child lying in the snow. From its throat came a trembling, high-pitched, warbling lament. And into its breast bled a deep crimson.

Another bird had also witnessed the scene in the street. On a white-capped gargoyle that sprouted from a flying buttress, a raven cawed his deep-base caw after the two boys melting into the distance.

Slate-grey now was the sky and the snow had begun again to fall. Like a billion sheerie, those tiny, evil fairy spirits of dead, unbaptised children, the snowflakes whirled and chased each other round the street lamps.

Spiralling upwards, though, through the blizzard, was a giant snowflake, the white page used by the beggar boy as a cup, which might have been a goblin disguised, intent on causing misfortune or fatality to the living.

The robin and the raven watched the corpse-coloured snowflake climbing skyward until it disappeared into the blackness.

Unseen by mortal eyes, the sheet of paper transformed first into a snowy owl and flew on silent wings until it could go no higher. It then took on the shape of an eagle, its plumage blacker than black, until it too reached its flying limitations and contorted into a thunderbird, powering on towards its destination.

When the thunderbird could make out in the farthest distance what it had been seeking, the sleigh moving across the night sky, it revealed itself as that creature of seasonal peace and calm, the halcyon bird.

Too late, however, did the halcyon bird realise its mistake. The sleigh did not belong to the genial one known to many as Father Christmas, and to others as Grandfather Frost. And the sleigh was a chariot, its owner the Goddess of Winter, the Snow Queen.

The Winter hag, the Snow Queen, her hair a blizzard and her blue eyes colder than an iceberg, reached out of her chariot and grasped the halcyon bird by the neck. At the Snow Queen’s petrified touch, the bird became what it had been in the beggar boy’s hands, a sheet of paper.

The Snow Queen read the header written in black at the top of the page: ‘NAUGHTY AND NICE’. And in small print: ‘Final Report by Alabaster Snowball December, 2010.’

“Hah!” the snow queen said, the death rattle of her icicle necklace sounding like a million souls gurgling and fluttering for release from imprisonment in her throat. “Grandfather Frost and his elves have saved me time.”

She dragged her frozen fingers down the page until she came to the last names and addresses on the list. Quicker than a lightening crack, her winter-chariot twisted in the night-sky and sped towards the earth and the street where two ragged boys, one crying the other laughing, rounded a corner.

She brought her chariot to a halt before the boys so suddenly, the two slid and slipped into the gutter.

The snow queen recognised at once the one destined to be hers.

“You,” she said to the taller boy. “Come with me.”

Mesmerised, the boy obeyed the snow queen’s order and beckoning finger, and climbed into the carriage. The smaller boy backed away and shook his head. The woman, to him, appeared the way a perfect mother should: striking, tall and scary. Never having met his mother, he decided then that the strange woman in the carriage was how she would have looked – beautiful and terrifying. Her skin, whiter than the freshly fallen snow, seemed to glow in contrast to her mouth as red as the berries on the holly tree in the church garden. But for him her eyes showed no interest. As blue and uncaring as the sky he awoke to that midwinter morning where he’d slept the night in a doorway, her eyes were filled with indifferent cruelty.

A jingle jangling in the sky turned the heads of the two boys and the snow queen upwards.

“Father Christmas,” a voice called from up the street.

The small boy turned round. Running in his direction from the church he recognised the beggar boy. But he ran in strange short steps, as though his legs were shorter than other boys’ legs, and his clothes were different. On the beggar boy’s shoulders perched a robin. Then over their heads and into the carriage flapped a bird darker than a moonless night. The raven.

“Away,” the snow queen commanded, and her chariot carved from ice took off and sparkled as it rocketed through the sky.

The beggar boy and the small boy watched from the street the snow queen’s chariot shrinking among the stars. But just as it shrunk to a dot, it appeared to grow again and was zooming back to earth. But was it?

The jangling and jingling of reindeer bells peeled through the night sky before the boys in the street saw the silhouetted reindeer, behind the animals’ splayed antlers the bulky figure seated in his sleigh.

Quicker than a streaking comet, Father Christmas reached the earth and brought to a halt his sleigh in the same place the snow queen had parked her chariot.

“Whoa there Dasher, Prancer, Vixen,” he called to his reindeer team.

The reindeer, excited after their long journey, pawed the snow with their hooves, lifted and raised their heads, plumes of steam snorting from their nostrils.

“Alabaster,” Father Christmas addressed the beggar boy. For that is who he was, Alabaster Snowball, in charge of Father Christmas’s Naughty and Nice list. “Your work here is almost done, my little friend. Take the boy home.” And over them he sprinkled stardust. Within seconds the small boy was in a single-roomed house with an old woman shivering in a tatty armchair.

“Grandmother,” the boy said.

“Oh,” the old woman said, tears streaming from her swollen eyes. “You’ve come back.”

There blew through the room a gust of wind as the elf departed through the chimney, and in the empty hearth blazed a fire that would burn till springtime.

At that very moment, far away in the Land of Permafrost, the Snow Queen’s chariot had arrived. Out of her palace of snow and ice rushed her goblins. They seized the tall boy and brought him to join the countless others that had gone missing that Christmas Eve, destined to suffer forever the unbearable misery of perpetual winter.

Critique: You mix too many myths into one story—Magi, elves, Santa with modern reindeer, Grandfather Christmas, Snow Queen. I’d recommend you drop all but the Snow Queen and keep the tone eerie and gothic for a truly luscious and dark holiday story. It wouldn’t work for this collection, but I bet you could find a home for it somewhere.

Watch out for sentence structure. Deepen the characterizations. Use your extra word count to give us smoother transitions, a more satisfying ending, and more of that wonderfully creepy imagery.

What I liked best: The gothic tone.

Publication ready: No. Needs reworking and tightening up, but it has potential.

I’ll start posting the Christmas stories for this year’s contest in just a minute. I’ll post them two a day—in the order they were received—or more frequently as submissions increase. So far, I have 6 submissions but if this contest follows the course of the others, I’ll get more throughout the week. Keep them coming!

A few quick reminders:

DO TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THE CONTEST! There is still time for them to submit their stories—and we want lots of readers.

DON’T TELL PEOPLE WHICH STORY IS YOURS! We want the stories to win based on merit, not on personal popularity.

VOTING STARTS SEPTEMBER 26th. Feel free to leave comments any time, but comments made before 9/26 will not be part of the voting tally.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 24. That means you still have plenty of time to get your story in. See Submission Guidelines here.

Okay, here we go…

P.S. I’ve been re-sending the 2010 Christmas Story Evals, as requested. The Book of Mormon evals will have to wait because they’re on a computer that I won’t have access to until October 1st. Sorry.

Next week, the plan is to post all the Christmas story submissions…

So far, I only have TWO.

I guess that’s what happens when you take an extended hiatus from your blog and then jump right into a new contest.

Please, please please—help me spread the word. And get those stories submitted!

There’s still time to submit your Christmas short story to the 5th Annual LDS Publisher Christmas Short Story Contest!

Deadline is September 24, 2011.

I’ll start posting submissions on Monday, September 19th.

Details here.

Why not write a Christmas short story and submit it to the 5th Annual LDS Publisher Christmas Short Story Contest!

I know some of you have been working on your stories all year because you’ve asked me about the contest.

Well, it’s time!

Details here.

It’s that time again! Announcing the 5th Annual LDS Publisher Christmas Short Story Contest.

I know I said this would post on Monday, but I just realized I’ll be out of town then. So here we go!

And, YES, we’ve done five of these contests. I can’t believe it.

The best stories of the first two years were compiled into a collection, Stolen Christmas and Other Stories of the Season.

I’m hoping we’ll have enough great stories this year to add to those from 2009 and 2010 to produce a second collection.

Submission Rules:

• FOLLOW rules carefully! I hate it when I have to reject a story because the submission rules were ignored.

• Write a short Christmas story in any genre. Stories should be positive and family friendly. I reserve the right to refuse any story I deem inappropriate for this blog/book.

• Maximum word count: 3,000; no minimum.

• Story must be previously unpublished. Stories published anywhere other than your personal website or blog are ineligible. (That includes books, magazines, e-zines or other contests.)

• Stories submitted for previous years’ contests are also ineligible for this contest. (But may be selected for publication in the book.)
  

• Paste entire story into an e-mail. NO ATTACHMENTS, please.

  —Put “Contest: Title of Story” in the subject line of your e-mail. (Example: Contest: A Christmas Gift for Mary)

  —At the top of the body of your e-mail, type your name, mailing address, phone number, e-mail address, word count and whether you are a published or unpublished author (defined below). (Example:

  LDS Publisher
  
  123 My Street
  
  My Town, ST 00000
  
  123)456-7890
  
  ldspublisher@gmail.com
  
  word count: 1990
  
  published author

  —Skip a line, then put the title of your story

  —Skip a line, then paste in your story.

• “Published”—as in published author—is defined as someone paid you money or comp copies (in the case of magazines) for any story or book written by you. (So either a publisher paid you, or you self-published and people bought your book.)

• If you are a published and/or agented author, check with your publisher and/or agent before submitting. They will want to know the information listed under “Book Details”.
  

• You may submit more than one story. Send each submission in a separate e-mail. Include all your info, as outlined above, with each e-mail/story.
  

• SUBMIT your story any time between NOW and Saturday, September 24, 2011.

• I will post the stories beginning on September 19th, in the order that they arrived. Comments will be turned off on these posts until time to vote.
  

• We will have Reader Voting for the best stories, as we have done in previous contests. The winner is guaranteed a spot in the book. Voting will take place September 26–30th. I will post voting rules then.

• You may tell your friends that you’ve submitted a story and to please go vote, but DO NOT tell them which story is yours. We want the stories to win on merit, not personal popularity.
  

PRIZE: Publication in the next LDSP Christmas Anthology

• There will be four winners:
  
  Readers’ Choice/Published Author
  
  Readers’ Choice/Unpublished Author
  
  Editor’s Choice/Published Author
  
  Editor’s Choice/Unpublished Author

  These four winners are guaranteed a spot in the anthology.

• As usual, I reserve the right to not award one of the Editor’s Choice awards if I feel none of the stories deserve it.

• Other stories in the anthology will include my choices from this and previous Christmas contests held on this blog, selected based on providing a variety of stories and book size.

• Anthology will probably be published for Christmas 2012, depending on the number of quality submissions received. All authors to be included in the book will be notified before publication.

Book Details (Read Carefully):

• By submitting a story to this contest, you are agreeing to all the conditions below.

• Authors shall give LDS Publisher One-Time Publishing Rights for inclusion of story in the as yet untitled Christmas story compilation. This is the non-exclusive right to publish your story in this compilation, in various formats, and to retain your story in the compilation until LDS Publisher takes the compilation out of print.
  

• Authors shall retain all other rights and copyrights to their stories and may sell this story to any other party with a publication date after release of the compilation.

• Compensation for use of story in this compilation shall be: one free e-book copy of the published book sent to author upon publication; author’s name listed in the Table of Contents and on the first page of the story; and rights to use this compilation as a publishing credit. No royalties, advances or other monetary compensation will be given to any author. Author may not print or sell the e-book files.
  

• Compensation exception: If sales of the book exceed costs to produce it, LDS Publisher shall notify authors and arrange an equal royalty split between all authors, illustrator and typesetter. Conditions and terms of royalty and payment shall be determined at that time.
  

• LDS Publisher shall assume no rights to any future works by author.

• LDS Publisher shall have full editorial rights to the stories included in the compilation, including, but not limited to, title changes, editing for space and content, design and layout of book, title of book, and book cover.

• The compilation will be available for purchase online in both print and e-book formats at a TBA future date.

• The compilation may or may not be made available to bookstores at discounted pricing, but in any case, no marketing will be done by LDS Publisher to guarantee placement in any bookstore.

• Authors agree to help spread the word about the contest and the book by any or all of the following methods:

  —Word of mouth to friends and family

  —Website/blog buttons, links, posts, etc

  —Facebook, My Space, Twitter, or other networking sites or forums
  

Help spread the word! Post about the contest on your blog, in your forums, and e-mail all your friends.

Buttons for your blogs: