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Christmas is coming, The goose is getting fat! For the December competition, I would love a Christmas story. The theme is Christmas in any way, shape, or form. Make it sad, make it happy, naughty or nice. Make it ghostly if that tickles your fancy. Make it commercial or spiritual. Feel free.
550 words max as it’s Christmas. Entries by the end of New Years Eve.
Nativity Mystery – A lighthearted tale
540 words excluding title
Miss Farthing sighed wearily and then screamed ‘Be quiet!’ She could stand it no longer. This was the last rehearsal of the Nativity play at Priory Primary School before the performance in front of parents and governors and it was utter chaos. Some children had swapped costumes. Now shepherds were wise men and vice versa. Joseph and Mary had exchanged head dresses as a joke. No-one was keeping to their designated places and there was much giggling. The supposedly sensible narrator – a boy in his final year – was nowhere to be seen.
The shock of hearing the usually calm Miss Farthing shouting so loudly did bring quiet to the assembly and a shame faced narrator from behind a side curtain.
The teacher adopted her sternest voice to bring them to order. She almost pleaded, but not quite, even though she had been near to tears. They took a break to calm down and to give the mis-dressers time to change into their own costumes. The narrator managed to stop his hiccups which had been brought on by his stifled laughter.
Finally, all were back on stage and this time the dress rehearsal went smoothly and Miss Farthing regained hope that all would be well on the afternoon.
All was to go well with the play itself, but Miss Farthing could not have foreseen the strange happening at the end of the afternoon.
Parents, governors and teachers filed into the hall on Friday afternoon, the last day of school before the holidays. They took their seats – rather hard wooden chairs – and settled down, anticipating an uplifting performance.
Behind the curtains Miss Farthing was giving a pep talk as the children took their allotted places. The baby doll was nestled in the wooden crib. Joseph stood proudly beside a seated Mary, who wore a beatific smile quite different from her usual impish demeanour.
Miss Farthing exited into the wings as the curtains went up. There was a round of quiet applause from the audience, because the scene on stage was indeed enchanting.
All went splendidly and there was great applause as the Nativity play came to an end. Then Miss Farthing stepped forward to the front of the stage and invited the audience to join in a Christmas carol to end the afternoon on a jolly note. The lyric sheets for Jingle Bells were under their chairs.
The children stood up, Mary cradling the doll in her arms. The music began – Mrs Lovatt at the piano and Mr Grimes wielding bells to ring at the appropriate moments.
More applause and laughter before a moment of silence into which a baby’s cry penetrated. The school head had requested that only adults should attend. Miss Farthing scratched her head. The crying was coming from behind her. She turned and there in the crib was a baby.
She lifted the tiny boy to show everyone and, from the back of the hall came a cry of astonishment.
‘That’s my little Henry! How did he get there? I left him at home with my mother!’
She dashed forward to retrieve the child.
No-one could answer her question, but all agreed it was a Christmas Miracle or perhaps just a Christmas Mystery which would remain unsolved.
Running the Christmas Gauntlet
Brace yourself, girl. Everywhere is going to be madness today. Most of the throng will be feeling much the same way … which means shouting and kids screaming; means shoving and pushing … but take a deep breath. Concentrate on the list. You’ve successfully run the Christmas shopping gauntlet before.
The vegetable aisle greets me with an abundance of colour. Carrots, spuds, parsnips – tick. Hell, will it really ruin Christmas should I ‘forget’ the sprouts? The air would be sweeter, much as Dad likes his musical farting competitions.
Oh, get them in the trolley and stop whinging.Bakery next. Hey, those mince pies could be passed off as homemade at a stretch. I could call them my secret recipe. Mustn’t forget fruitcake either, marzipan picked off for his-nibs: more for yours truly.
Cans – tick; packets (not forgetting Paxo) – tick; cheeses in pretty boxes at twice the price – tick. Appetizers … but who wants a battered prawn on a stick? A mini pie with pea topping? – before Turkey – really? And for how much? Brussels pate on Ritz it is and you can shut your mouth, Santa. This part is my show.
The trolley mountain rises. I’d like nothing better than to uninvite Aunt Belinda and Uncle Gary, who insist on seeing Mum and Dad on the big day, at my expense of course. With them come Paula and their grandchildren, who join my terrors in racing round the sofa, sneaking drinks, the cheeky little sods.
Aw, come on, Mrs Grinch, get into the spirit of Christmas.
Talking of spirits, I’d best replace that bottle of cheap Baileys and the spiced rum that his-nibs claimed to have sprung a leak. My phone pings. Mum: can I get in some what? Advocaat? I’d tell her it’s sold out, but to whom? The guy next to me is arguing the same. The rest of us have been hearing their domestic from the frozen aisle on.
Oh no! To cap it all, I’ve been *Whammed!
I see others playing the same game and laugh with them.Yeah, let’s laugh at each other. At ourselves.
That’s right, missus, bring on the visitors – isn’t this about joy and togetherness after all?386 words
* challenge is to avoid hearing ‘Last Christmas’ for as long as possible (if at all).
A never-forgotten Christmas
The telegram sent by my new-made grandfather, telling my father of my safe arrival, at five minutes to midnight on the twentieth December (and, according to my great-grandfather’s fish scales, weighing 6lbs 4 ozs) is explanation enough of why I don’t remember my first Christmas.
To establish whether it was my second or third Christmas I’d have to do some research on the comparative height of dining tables and eyelines of ‘tall for her age’ two and three year-olds to be sure which it was I have such a strong and still vivid, both visual and emotional memory of. Not just of the dining table, nor of the pile upon it, (as tall again as me) of a multitude of pretty-wrapped parcels. Nor is my memory merely visual, because, sandwiched between table and the semi-circle of suspense-filled, adoring, anticipatory aunt, grandparents I was strongly aware of the weight of expectation; the requirement for me to react appropriately. And also of the presence of my mother, from whom I sensed a complexity of disapproval, of resistance, of unhappiness, familiar as ever as yet another skirmish in the ever-present rivalry for my attention. An ill-tempered, resentful battle, begun from when my father, newly discharged from the RAF declared his intention to marry my mother, exacerbated when poverty, through lack of employment necessitated his moving wife and child (soon children) into their house to live.) .
All of which, ever familiar, flicked through my head, to be speedily dismissed. I can only add that I have not the faintest memory of unwrapping any of the pretty paper, nor what gifts it concealed, but I can still conjure that first impression of surprised curiosity. And being surrounded by love. [285 words]
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