I’m a day late getting this up here, so if you’re following the other Fondue Writers (which you should be!), you’ve probably already seen a few of them comment on Dr Paul Bennet’s strength in moral character relative to my own. Which, of course, is true. We all know that’s true.
Listen, each group of people has different types. There’s the good one, the weird one, the loud one, and the scary one. The rest of the writers might fluctuate from character to character, but there are two stalwarts among us. Dr Paul is the Good one, and I, dear reader, am the scary one. Which is why I so love our Halloween Flash Fiction Explode-A-Ganza. This is MY time. I can pretend to be a good hearted moral person at Christmas, Thanksgiving and the rest of the stupid holidays on the calendar, but Halloween is when everyone else has to try (and fail) to be me.
Try as he might, Paul expertly fails at being me in this short story. Which is a good thing, but he 100% succeeds at being Paul. He’s got another wonderful story this week, entitled, “Under the Infernal Sky.” Check it out.
f you have the time, please check out the sites for ALL of the Fondue Writers: Joseph Courtemanche, Jamie D. Greening, Kathy Kexel, Derek Alan Elkins, Rob Cely, and Dr. Paul Bennet. If you like what you see, why not pick up a few copies of their books? It covers the cost of everything, and it gives us hope in those long, dark nights when we’re dreaming up new stories, wondering if the monsters in our heads matter only to us, or if one day they might come out of the dark to terrify you as well.
If you’d like what you see, you might also check out our first collection of short stories, The Covid Quarantine Catina, written during the first months of the Covid-19 lockdowns. It’s available in Kindle, Paperback, and Audio formats.
Kathy Kexel will be back on Monday with another Halloween story. Until then, stay safe, watch out for monsters in your closet, and, as always, don’t break anything.
Ladies and Gentlemen. The Quasi-Annual Holiday Explode-A-Ganza is upon us. The Fondue Writers have cranked up the word-whammer machine and we have begun spitting out free (FREE!) short stories for all of you.
Today’s story is from the Senior Vice President of Insanity and Bad Strangeness, Mr. Joseph Courtemanche, and he’s got an answer to the age-old question: “What happens when you mess with the big dogs?”
The answer: You get messed with. That’s what happens. Check out the happy, fun time clown to visit Courtemanche’s website and read his story: It All Started With An E-Mail.
If you have the time, please check out the sites for ALL of the Fondue Writers: Joseph Courtemanche, Jamie D. Greening, Kathy Kexel, Derek Alan Elkins, Rob Cely, and Dr. Paul Bennet. If you like what you see, why not pick up a few copies of their books? It covers the cost of everything, and it gives us hope in those long, dark nights when we’re dreaming up new stories, wondering if the monsters in our heads matter only to us, or if one day they might come out of the dark to terrify you as well.
Jamie D Greening will be back on Wednesday to fill you with dread and psychic wonderment. Until then, don’t break anything.
It’s been a year since Mom passed away. A whole year. I can hardly believe it. There are a thousand stories I could tell you about her. Some serious. Some funny. Some disturbing. Some all three. .
Here’s one…
When I was a kid, she convinced me to be a part of the church Christmas play by saying to me one day, “Joey. Would you like some ice cream?”
“Yes!” I said, because I loved ice cream. I still love ice cream.
“Great! Get in the car. Let’s go.”
She drove me to Forrest Park Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio – our church at the time – and told me to get out of the car.
“Mom? I thought we were getting ice cream!”
“We are. Just as soon as you’re finished with play practice. You meet twice a week until Christmas, and don’t think about backing out, now that you’ve committed.”
“But I…”
“Have fun!”
And she drove off. We ended up getting ice cream that day, but I was wary of her invitations from then on out. Sometimes, they came with thick strings attached.
Here’s another one …
When I was about ten years old, Mom took my sister and me to the Greenhills pool one summer afternoon. We put our towels down on the hill overlooking the concourse because all the chairs were taken, and we spent a few hours swimming.
Normally, my friends and I would play dodgeball in the grass next to the pool during adult swim when us kids weren’t allowed in the water. But on this day, none of my friends were there. One of the kids in our group – Jack was his name – had a birthday party, and everyone was invited but me.
So I sat moping on the beach towels on the hill overlooking the pool, and refused to talk to anyone. Mom sat next to me.
“I just thought of a story,” she said.
I didn’t respond, so she continued. “This friend of yours…”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Okay. This kid. He wakes up the morning after his birthday to find that he’s got big, donkey ears.”
Silence.
“Donkey ears and a tail. And every time he speaks, he brays like a mule. And he smells like a sewage plant.”
“And people stop calling him Jack. Instead, they call him Jackass.”
Instead of scolding me for the dirty word, she laughed.
“Right. Jackass. He’s the biggest Jackass in greater Cincinnati.”
“Everywhere he goes, people say to him, they say ‘Watch out, everyone. There goes that gigantic jackass again!”
We laughed hard at that for a while, I felt better about missing that Jackass’s birthday party, and from there on out, every time someone made me angry, I would invent stories in my head about them being part of the Jackass family.
That family is pretty big now.
Then there was the time we ran out of money and mom had to sell her piano to make ends meet. I was very young at this point; four or five maybe. She loved that piano. She had all kinds of sheet music, and she would play from her big book of songs in the summer afternoons when it was too hot to do anything else. It would somehow make things cooler.
The guys in the moving truck came, and took her piano away. She stood at the screen door, crying, for a good long time after that. At the time, I remember thinking she must have liked that piano more than I thought. I understood that more as I got older.
Still more.
When I was in high school, my friends and I loved to play frisbee golf. We’d go play the courses in Cincinnati and, if we returned to my house, Mom would loudly proclaim: “Don’t get your jizz on the carpet, guys!”
“Yeah, Joe,” my friends said. “Stop jizzing on the carpet.”
We told her what it meant, but she didn’t believe us. She had to ask her friends at work the next day, which just made things all the more awesome. We laughed at that for a good, long time. We never stopped laughing at that.
When I was in middle school and my sister was in high school, our one landline – remember landlines? – our one landline was almost always tied up by my sister, talking on the phone with her then boyfriend.
That’s probably not exactly true. It might have only been a few minutes a day, but to me, it seemed like always.
Anyway, whenever my sister was on the phone, Mom would sneak into the bathroom with one of the other phones, plug it in, and then spy on my sister’s phone call. As if neither of us knew what she was doing. Caryn and I made up all sorts of fake stories with our friends and respective love interests just to drive mom into wild fits.
Mom had a hard time when Caryn left for college. Part of her light seemed to grow dim for a while. I left two years later, and I have to imagine the same thing happened then, too, although I never saw it up close like I did when Caryn left.
My oldest son will be in eighth grade next year. Blink, and he’ll be in college like we were, and I can imagine some of my light dissipating for a while, too. I’m starting to figure that out.
One of my favorite things Mom did was to wake us up for church on Sundays. She’d sneak into my room, and gently prod me awake. I’d pretend to be asleep. Or annoyed, Or asleep and annoyed. But, eventually, I’d get up and we’d get going. She never forced us to go, but she laid a good foundation for my sister and me. She always spoke openly about God in a way that showed her deep faith and love for the Lord, but was not overbearing. If you disagreed, that was okay. She still loved you. Loving you was more important that you believing what she thought was right.
I struggle with that sometimes.
Mom tried to get me to go to the hospital to see my Grandpa Shaw when he was nearing the end of his life. I didn’t. I kept telling myself that he was just getting something fixed, that there would be more time, that this wasn’t the end. But it was. And when I went to his funeral, I couldn’t believe I had missed my last opportunity to say goodbye.
When Grandma Shaw died a few years later, I was there to say goodbye. Mom was right there with me, holding my hand. She told Grandma I was there to say hi, and Grandma turned her head slightly and tried to smile. I had to leave the room. I had never been that close to someone who was dying before. It was hard to see.
When my Grandma Amrein was killed in a car accident, Mom asked if I would read Grandma’s favorite scripture at her funeral. Psalm 121. I will lift up mine eyes to the hills. From whence commeth my strength.
I made it halfway through before the lump in my throat took over and I couldn’t make the words come out anymore. The pastor had to finish for me.
A few months later, the girl who killed my Grandma spoke at one of the local schools. Mom went. Afterward, she approached the girl and said that she forgave her. It was a touching moment (you may have heard me speak about it before). That girl went on to marry into a family that’s famous in Cincinnati for a certain brand of cookies. As far as I know, Mom never bought those cookies again the rest of her life, despite her having forgiven the young woman.
Which just goes to show that forgiveness is an easy thing to say, but a hard thing to do.
Mom was over the moon excited as we prepared for the birth of our first kid. Jen was in labor for a good, long while and mom, having grown suspicious that we had neglected to let her know when he was born, called all my friends and the hospital multiple times, asking what was happening.
Many years later, knowing that we had been trying to have a girl, Mom settled into the idea that Shaw Kid #5 – SK5 – was going to be a boy. That’s what the Doctors said, after all. They had been back and forth for a while, but the final ultrasounds all said Boy, so that’s what it was going to be.
We called her after everything calmed down. Mom asked “So … what’s his name.”
“Phoebe,” I said.
“Phoebe? That’s an odd name for a …. Wait?”
“It’s a girl,” I said, and she cried open tears of joy in celebration.
There are so many stories. So very many stories. I could sit here for hours recounting them. If you knew her, you know. If you didn’t … well, you really would have liked to know her. The light dimmed sometimes, but it was always there, and she was always willing to share it.
A few years ago, mom started having health problems. It got worse and worse. I remember I was driving through a wetlands park here in Florida, when I spoke with Mom after she had come home from yet another trip to the hospital.
“The doctors say things are looking better,” she said.
“Mom. I think you need to get some new doctors. I don’t think these guys know what they’re doing.”
“I’m fine where I am,” she said, and that was that, although I think that’s when she knew things weren’t going to get better.
We spent many evenings from there on, talking late into the night: her on her back porch in Greenhills, Ohio and me on the front porch, sweating through another summer in Orlando. We talked about old friends. We talked about the kids. We talked about politics and faith. We told stories.
Exactly one year ago today, we stayed up late, chatting. I was preoccupied with my latest attempt at changing the world through a TEDx talk, and she just listened. She said the doctors wanted her to go into the hospital again for a simple procedure to help fix the swelling in her legs.
“It’s only an hour or so,” She said, “It’s nothing.”
Mom and Dad called the next night from the hospital to let me know when the surgery was planned. They had been looking at new places to live. Making plans for the future. She told me she loved me. I told her I loved her, too. She seemed happy. Hopeful.
This was the last time I would speak with her on this side of the veil.
The following morning, she had her surgery. She came through, but crashed shortly afterward. I flew up. By the time I got there, she was mostly out of it. Dad was there. Caryn was there. My cousins Sandy and Michelle were there. I held her hand for a while. Then the doctors said it was time to remove the medicine keeping her alive. They gave her morphine, and what little bit of her presence that had hung on long enough for me to get there, melted away a few minutes later.
We sat with her in the hospital room, late into the night as her breathing slowed, rasped, and then eventually stopped. There didn’t seem to be much pain. She was there one moment, and the next she had just slipped away, almost without us noticing, even though we were all quietly watching and waiting.
I stopped by the field that used to be our house where I grew up. They tore it down a few years back. I walked into what would have been our living room and I remembered the stories. I could still see us laughing about my friend, the Jackass. I could still see the piano being loaded up and carried away. I was hoping maybe to feel something Big and Important. But I didn’t. All I felt was numb. All I felt was the hole in my life she once filled.
There have been many times in the last year, where I’ve caught myself wanting to tell mom another story. Something the kids did. Something that happened at work. Some struggle I’m having. Another Jackass who’s entered the fray.
Then, I remember. She’s not there to answer. She’s with God now and I will see her again one day, and that’s all well and good. But right now, she’s out there somewhere and I can’t share with her these things I am so used to sharing. It’s been a year, and that part still hasn’t gotten any easier.
Mom didn’t want a funeral. She wanted everyone who loved her to gather in my aunt Nancy’s backyard and have a party. She wanted us to laugh and tell stories. She wanted us to enjoy ourselves, to not mourn too much. We did that, more or less. Family and friends flew in from all over. We grilled some food, drank some adult sodas, laughed, and told stories. The little kids ran around screaming. Exasperated parents chased after them, knocking over plates of food and various, assortments of toys and sporting equipment. Mass chaos. Just like every family gathering I can remember. Shortly thereafter, we all went back to our daily grinds and life just kinda … moved on.
But we haven’t moved on. When you lose someone you love, there is no moving on. You just move forward. That part of your heart that was ripped out, that piece of your light that dimmed; it will always be that way. The wounds remain. You just learn to work around them.
That’s a hard thing. It’s good, because it means there was a lot of love there, but that doesn’t stop it from being hard.
Some friends have asked what I would have said at Mom’s funeral had I delivered the eulogy. My first response is usually, “I probably wouldn’t have done it. My family still hasn’t forgiven me for screwing up Grandma’s.”
If I had done the eulogy, though, it might have gone something like this …
The last things I said to you, Mom, right as you passed were “I love you” and “Thank you.” Thank you for the stories. Thank you for the inappropriate jokes. Thank you for the mad attempts to get me involved in things I didn’t want to be involved in. Thank you for steering me away from the things I needed to avoid.. Thank you for always being excited about the Next Big Thing happening in my life. Thank you for teaching me to be a responsible human being, despite my limitless capacity for irresponsibility. Thank you for always pointing the way back to God in all things you do. That’s been a stronger compass in my life than nearly everything else. Thank you for giving me the freedom to fail at so many things, and the joy to share when I succeed at one or two of them. Thank you for showing me strength in failure and humility in success. Thank you for showing me what it’s like to be a servant, to continue loving people even as your life wound down. Thank you for so much wild, reckless love for me, my wife, my kids, my friends, our family, everyone. So much so that it’s almost embarrassing, and I don’t get embarrassed.
Thank you for everything. I love you and I miss you, and I can’t wait to see you again. There are SO MANY Jackasses I need to tell you about. You have no idea.
Also: don’t get jizz on the carpet. I hear God doesn’t like that.
We’ve made it to the end of another Holiday Explode-A-Ganza with the Fondue Writers Club AND Bar & Grille AND Laudromat. What better way to polish off this one than to end with a story from Santa Claus himself, Joseph Courtemanche.
Here’s a wonderful story about communities and the Spirit of Christmas. It’s called “Santa Claus is Here”
Thanks for checking out our stories. We have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stories as well, if you’re interested. It’s been a wild ride this year. We hope you had fun. We know we did. Have a Merry Christmas everyone. Have fun, Stay healthy, and please don’t break anything.
If Kathy Kexel were a baseball player, she’d be Ted Williams. She’d be Hank Aaron. She’d be Joey Votto. Every time she steps to the plate (literarily speaking), something exciting happens.
Kathy’s got a new story up today. It’s call “Christmas Fair,” and there are a lot of German words in there. Which is fine by me, because I grew up in a town with a lot of German roots. All drinking and food and dancing and music. No Fascism.
Check out Kathy’s story, and see if you can’t find the same kind of Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz I felt when I read it.
Thanks for checking out our stories. We have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stories as well, if you’re interested. Santa Claus his ownself will close us out tomorrow with the last Christmas Story. See you then. As always … Have fun, Stay healthy, and please don’t break anything.
Rob Cely has a knack for creating engaging stories that keep you wanting more. Today, he brings it back to what everything is all about with his Christmas short story, The Christmas Spirit,
Thanks for visiting with us! While you’re at it, why not check out our new book of short stories. It’s called THE COVID QUARANTINE CANTINA, and it’s available in Paperback, Kindle, or Audiobook.
Thanks for checking out our stories. We have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stories as well, if you’re interested. Yours Truly will be with us tomorrow for another Christmas story. See you then. As always … Have fun, Stay healthy, and please don’t break anything.
Paul Bennett writes stories like you’re sitting on a porch in the winter, sipping hot cocoa and reminiscing about the past while you watch the snowfall. His Christmas story, today is no different.
Thanks for checking out our stories. We have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stories as well, if you’re interested. Kathy Kexel will be with us tomorrow for another Christmas story. See you then. As always … Have fun, Stay healthy, and please don’t break anything.
After my Thanksgiving story, people started asking if something was wrong with me.
The answer is “Yes. There is a lot wrong with me.” But that is neither here nor there.
People were concerned that I am incapable of writing a story where nobody dies and nothing extremely tragic happens. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. Here’s my Christmas story:
Charlie Miller Hates Christmas
Charlie Miller hated Christmas. Every kid at William Howard Taft Middle school loved Christmas. It was their favorite holiday. But not Charlie Miller. Charlie Miller hated Christmas.
It had been that way since he was a little kid. Back then, his parents both worked second shift jobs, so he spent most of his Christmas Eves alone in his room, watching cartoons and eating too much candy. Just like he did every night.
Even in the years when his parents made a go of it, things turned out bad. There was the year a water pipe burst, flooding the living room, destroying the floor, all the presents, and the discount fake Christmas tree his parents bought at McAlpin’s department store the previous January.
“They were practically giving them away!” Charlie’s dad said, when he came home with not one but five fake trees. “I can sell them next year and make some money.” Charlie had to get rid of most of his Lego collection to make room for the trees, most of which finally sold around Thanksgiving.
Then there was the year all of Charlie’s aunts, uncles, and cousins drove to Tampa to visit Grandma Joan.
“I don’t wanna go!” Charlie said. “I can’t hang out with my friends, Florida is too hot, and who puts Christmas lights on palm trees? It’s just weird.”
“This is Grandma Joan’s last Christmas,” his mother said. “And anyway, wouldn’t you like to go swimming in the ocean on Christmas day?”
“And get all that sand in my pants? No way!”
They went anyway. Of course they did. Not only did they not get to go to the beach on Christmas Day – it rained the whole time – but Charlie had to sleep on his grandma’s brown, shag love seat.
“Thing looks like it’s straight out of a skin flick,” Charlie’s uncle said. Charlie didn’t know what that meant, but he was too tired to ask because he hadn’t slept in four days.
The worst Christmas, though, was the year his mother convinced him to be a part of Forrest Par Baptist church’s annual play. Charlie wanted a new bike, and his Mom said she’d get it as long as he played the part of Gabriel.
“Stand on a stage. Say a few lines. And BOOM! Free bike!” Charlie said to himself. “Easy peasy.”
One Christmas Eve, Charlie put on his white gowns and stood with the rest of the “actors” backstage. When it was his moment, he walked into the light to say his lines.
What Charlie was supposed to say was this: “His name will be Jesus Christ: the savior of all mankind.”
What Charlie actually said was this: “His name will be … Fudge, I forgot my line.”
Only Charlie didn’t say “Fudge.”
A wave of shock and disbelief swept through the audience. Parents covered their children’s ears. The blue-haired octogenarians grimaced from the back. An older gentleman in the second row burst out laughing, then stopped again after his wife hit him with her purse.
Two things never happened again that night. First: the play never started up again. In fact, it would take several years before the church elders would allow it.
The second: Charlie Miller was never welcomed back to Forrest Park Baptist Church again.
Which was fine by him, because he’d already been on the fence about the whole Christmas thing. This just solidified it for him.
From then on, Charlie’s hatred of Christmas grew to immense proportions.
First, it was just Christmas songs. Charlie had comebacks for each of them.
“If it’s supposed to be a Silent Night, why do I hear you singing?” And. “Who wants to ride in a one-horse open sleigh? The horses stink and it’s cold outside.” And. “Why does this ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ song feel like a couple of months?”
“If I hear someone scream ‘FIVE GOLDEN RINGS’ one more time, I’m just gonna lose it,” Charlie said.
In fact, the moment Christmas started rearing its ugly head – earlier and earlier each year, by Charlie’s estimation – Charlie would question loudly, “Why does Santa keep sticking his fat butt into other holidays? He’s got the whole month of December. Why must he take over Thanksgiving, Halloween, The Fourth of July? This keeps up, we might as well parachute him in during the Super bowl halftime show and start the whole mess over again.”
Yes. Charlie Miller hated Christmas. Charlie Miller hated Christmas very much.
But this year, the year Charlie Millr turned fourteen, was turning out to be the worst on record, and it had nothing to do with Santa or presents or Christmas Carols. This year, Charlie Miller hated Christmas because of Emily Campbell.
More specifically, Charlie hated Christmas because of what his friends said about him and Emily Campbell.
Charlie went to the middle school homecoming dance with his friends back in September. At first, they hung out together in a corner dancing and making jokes about how their principal, Dr. Rivera, looked like a Manatee. But when the DJ put on the first slow song of the evening and the dance floor split with boys on one side and girls on another, Charlie, in a moment of rare courage, stepped across the dance floor and asked Emily Campbell to dance.
She said yes, and they slow danced in the middle of the floor through three whole songs while every other kid at William Howard Taft Middle school looked on in jealousy and disbelief.
They were officially an item after that, whether they wanted to be or not. This, of course, meant that Charlie Miller’s friends constant hounded him.
“Did you kiss her yet?” they asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“Are you afraid?”
“No?”
“Well, I’d be afraid, if I were you,” one of his friends said. “My brother went out with this girl once. He went in to kiss her at the end of the night and he said it smelled like Salt and Vinegar potato chips and rotten cheese.”
“Gross!”
“What did he do?”
“He kept going. Had to at that point. It would have been rude not to.”
“True,” they all said.
“I’m sure it won’t be that bad, Charlie,” another kid said. “Just stick your tongue in her mouth the next time you see her. See how it goes.”
It was the same thing every time Charlie and Emily went anywhere or did anything.
After a date at the movies: “Did you kiss her?”
After going with Emily to see her older sister’s college play: “Come on! Kiss her!”
When Charlie walked her home from school just before Thanksgiving break: “Seriously, dude. Just stick that tongue in her mouth when she’s not looking. She’ll love it. Trust me.”
Charlie wanted to kiss her, but he never really had a chance to. Almost every time they went somewhere, it was with other people. The one time he took her to the movies, Emily’s Dad insisted on going with them. He sat two rows back, and Charlie could feel him staring daggers into the back of his head the whole time.
Other than that, they were usually with family or friends. The last thing Charlie wanted was for him to finally work up the nerve to try to kiss her, only to have one of his friends interrupt to say, “Dooooood. Toooongue!”
The truth, though, was that Charlie Miller was also a little afraid. He’d never kissed a girl before. What would she say if he did it wrong? He was the man in the relationship, Charlie told himself. He was supposed to know these things.
But he didn’t. That scared him.
When Emily asked him to join her family for Christmas Eve dinner, Charlie hoped maybe his parents would be up for another trip to Tampa to visit Grandma Joan – who STILL hadn’t died, even all these years later. They had their usual work shifts to contend with. He tried to get one of his friends to plan something, but they weren’t having any of that. He asked his friends at Forrest Park Baptist if maybe he could come to the play this year.
“Absolutely not!” they said. So Charlie reluctantly accepted Emily’s invitation.
Charlie’s friends sat him down for a talk.
“Look, dude. It’s now or never. You have to do it. You don’t have a choice.”
“Right, Charlie. It’s been months. People are starting to ask questions.”
“Who?” Charlie asked. “And what questions?”
“Nevermind. You need to focus. It’s the fourth quarter, your team’s down by three runs, and the shot clock is running out. But the goalie left an open net. All you have to do is slide that puck across the ice!”
“What?” Charlie said.
“Focus,” they said. “Complete the mission.”
“Okay,” Charlie said, resigning himself to the idea whatever happened at this Christmas dinner, it was going to be bad, because Christmas is bad and Charlie hated it. “I’ll do it.”
The night of the Christmas dinner came. As Charlie’s dad drove him there, he closed his eyes and made up his mind.
“Tonight’s the night,” he said to himself. ”We’ll find a moment alone, even if we have from her dad. I’ll kiss her, get it over with, and then all this insanity comes to an end.”
Emily opened the door to greet him and nearly thirty members of the Campbell family greeted him in unison.
“Merry Christmas, Charlie!” they said.
“I hate Christmas,” Charlie said, and stepped in site.
It was as awful as Charlie expected. There were songs and Christmas stories, little kids running around throwing toys every which way, and old men talking about politics and work while drinking too much wine. All of it gave Charlie a headache.
Just before dinner, Emily’s aunt Delia brought out a box and made an announcement. She’d found a treasure trove of Christmas sweaters in the discount bin at WalMart, and she brought one for everyone. Charlie’s had a reindeer dancing with what looked like a clown on the front of his. They took pictures and immediately posted them to social media, tagging everyone there, including Charlie.
“I can’t wait for this to show up next year,” Charlie said.
Seeing him in the reindeer and clown sweater made Emily laugh. That made Charlie smile just a bit, too.
“Wanna get out of here for a minute?” she asked.
“Um … Yeah. Sure”
She took his hand and led him to the steps leading to the second floor. After checking if the coast was clear, she led him upstairs.
“This is it,” Charlie told himself as he walked up the steps. “Do it, get it over with, and move on.”
Charlie could hear the family starting into “The Twelve Days of Christmas” from the dining room as they walked.
“As if this could get any worse,” he thought.
When they got upstairs, Emily led him into her room. Charlie had never been into a girl’s bedroom before. He was surprised to see that it was a lot like his. A desk. A bookshelf. A comfy chair next to the window. Her bed had a pink comforter, but that was to be expected.
Charlie didn’t want to appear over-eager, so he pretended to be interested in her books for a moment.
“Jane Austen,” he said. “Nice.” Personally, Charlie thought any collection that did not include Jane Austen was a good collection, even if had no other books. But even at fourteen, he knew better than to say that out loud.
“Charlie?” Emily asked from behind.
“This is it,” Charlie steeled himself. He closed his eyes, turned around, and prepared to make his move.
But before he could do that, Emily ran toward him, wrapped her arms around him, and gave him the biggest, wettest kiss he’d ever seen or heard of.
“Waaaa!” Charlie said.
Emily pulled back.
“What,”she said. “Did I do it wrong?”
“No,” Charlie said. “No. It’s just … I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I’m sorry. My friends keep pushing me. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Charlie laughed out loud, then he saw Emily lower her eyes, and he explained.
“My friends have been doing the same thing.”
“really?
“For months. They’re relentless.”
They shared stories of their friend’s antics. Emily laughed when he shared the part about the tongue guy.
“I think I might like that,” she said.
And for the second time since they’d met, he plucked up his courage, took her in his arms, and kissed her. Only this time, because they weren’t so nervous, it was wonderful and exhilarating, and beautiful all at the same time.
“Maybe Christmas isn’t so bad after all,” Charlie thought.
A few minutes later, Charlie and Emily walked downstairs. Emily’s Dad eyed them warily, but Charlie smiled back and asked if they were done singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
“We’re on the tenth day,” Emily’s mom said. “Join us.”
Charlie held hands with Emily and sang the Twelve days of Christmas with all his heart. He sang extra loud on the Five Golden Rings part. After that, he led the chorus on Jingle Bells, and smiled all the way through Silent Night.
Emily’s Dad drove Charlie home that night and Emily walked to the porch with him to say goodnight. He kissed her again, even though he knew her dad could see them from the car.
He watched her walk down the sidewalk to her car and step in. Charlie saluted her father as they drove away and went inside his house to wait for his parents to come home.
From that moment on, Charlie loved Christmas. Christmas was Charlie Miller’s favorite holiday.
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Thanks for visiting with us! While you’re at it, why not check out our new book of short stories. It’s called THE COVID QUARANTINE CANTINA, and it’s available in Paperback, Kindle, or Audiobook.
Thanks for checking out our stories. We have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stories as well, if you’re interested. Yours Truly will be with us tomorrow for another Christmas story. See you then. As always … Have fun, Stay healthy, and please don’t break anything.
Family Fueds are a terrible thing. They destroy the bonds that keep us together, and they throw families and friends into utter turmoil.
Throw zombie elfs into the mix, and things get exponentially worse.
Today’s Christmas Story from the Fondue Writers comes from Jamie D. Greening, and it’s got all of the above. And then some. Check out “Banished.”
While you’re at it, why not check out our new book of short stories. It’s called THE COVID QUARANTINE CANTINA, and it’s available in Paperback, Kindle, or Audiobook. Check out more of Jamie’s work at his website: https://jamiegreening.com. He’s got some books for sale at his Amazon Author Page as well.
Thanks for checking out our stories. We have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stories as well, if you’re interested. Yours Truly will be with us tomorrow for another Christmas story. See you then. As always … Have fun, Stay healthy, and please don’t break anything.
The Fondue Writer’s Club and Bar& Grille and Laundromat is back, this time with some Christmas stories to salve the soul.
Batting leadoff is Derek Alan Elkins, who writes the kind of stories high school kids would read under their desks in English class while the teacher was trying to get everyone excited about Shakespeare or John (bleeping) Steinbeck or something.
Today’s story is a cross between the traditional Christmas tale and the Ultimate Christmas movie: Die-Hard. Check out Krampus vs Santa: Dawn of Righteousness. Yipee Ki-Yay!
While you’re at it, why not check out our new book of short stories. It’s called THE COVID QUARANTINE CANTINA, and it’s available in Paperback, Kindle, or Audiobook. Check out more of Derek’s work at his website: https://derekaelkins.com.
Thanks for checking out our stories. We have some Halloween and Thanksgiving stories as well, if you’re interested. Jamie D Greening will be with us tomorrow for another Christmas story. See you then. As always … Have fun, Stay healthy, and please don’t break anything.
