A quote: “Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.” ~~ Dale Evans
I’ll start with a story …
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Listen now, child, as I pass you the story that was passed to me.
Early in the Before Times, people passed across the land in wooden wagons pulled by oxen. They had packed up everything they wanted but learned way out on the crossing, everything was too much. So other people coming along the same way might see a piano along the road, or a big dining table.
It was something remembered by your great, great gran when the Troubles came and leaving The City was a life matter. She knew exactly what to bring. The family’s Good Book, family photos she sewed into her coat lining and this. One very small Christmas ornament.
Hold your hands out … careful now … yes, it is very light. That’s why, even so fragile, she was able to save it. Even packaged tightly in a small wood box, it weighed nothing. Certainly not a like a piano! Now it is ours. To be put on the tree, for the remembering of the Before Times and our Christmas blessings, and of the child and his family who had to flee on a moment’s notice, too.
Someday, you’ll pass this story to your own children. Never forget.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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.featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Cameron says: It was a cheap plastic ornament on a pile of others like it. I couldn’t even tell you why I put it in my cart. Back then, my focus was on my immediate survival. I dropped out of college to care for dad, the two jobs I worked to help care for him left little for myself and my apartment was a studio in a war zone.
But I heard a voice in my head when I touched it. It will get better. So I bought it and placed it on my pathetic tree. Christmas ended and it joined the other ornaments in a storage box, forgotten until the next December.
Four years later, I was in a nicer neighborhood. I’d finished my degree, landed a job that paid more than the two dead-end ones that I had, dad’s health rebounded and food wasn’t a luxury item. I brought out the box from my storage unit and that Santa was the first thing that I saw. I picked it up and heard that voice again. And did things get better for you?
I smiled. “Yes, they did. Thanks for the reminder even if I wasn’t interested in listening to you.”
Darleen Click says: Oh! I like it! Merry Christmas to you and yours. Happy New Year and thank you for participating. I so enjoy your stories.
Cameron says: I’m glad to contribute. And it was a Merry Christmas. Now to show up at work tomorrow…
How do you celebrate Christmas on a world with no seasons, a world that’s tidally locked to an M-class star that creates a tiny rim of habitable zone between the burnt sunside and the frozen nightside? It’s so unpromising that the Kitties didn’t even bother to name it, just listed it as a sub-number in a star catalog. There’s a big dust cloud between its parent star and Earth, so it’s not even on any of humanity’s star catalogs, so we decided to call it Horse-eye.
We can’t even be 100% sure when it’s Christmas Day back on Earth, because the technology that enables information and physical objects (including living creatures) to slip the bonds of Relativity means dipping ever so slightly into paratime. Since time between systems can never be perfectly synchronized, we finally decided to settle on point in local time that roughly corresponded with where Christmas would fall and go with it.
So here I am, putting together a “Christmas tree” made out of fronds from the local vegetation. At least this species doesn’t have nasty sap like some plants around here, but I still need to wear gloves and eye protection when I trim the parts to fit, because it has a sort of “skeleton” made of silicon dioxide instead of cellulose, and cutting the stems can create dangerous shards. At least it’s not so fragile that casual handling will break the cut fronds, but I’m still careful to put it where it can’t be knocked over.
Now that’s done, and I can start decorating it. We didn’t even bother bringing our strings of lights because the Kitties use an incompatible system of electrification, but we did squeeze in a small box of ornaments, including some that have been passed down through the generations. Like this little die-cast metal Santa Claus, cheaply enameled — but if Grandma’s story is true, it goes all the way back to World War II, when a very small number of ornaments were allowed to be made to help keep spirits up on the Home Front — which is all too appropriate now, because we are now a part of the Kitties’ centuries-long existential war with a hive species that finds our kind detestable.
Darleen Click says: Merry Christmas, Leigh. I look forward to all these stories — your world building is wonderful. Have a great New Year!
Thanks.
I have one short story in that ‘verse available on a number of distribution platforms. I’m hoping to release several more in 2026, maybe even put them together into a collection (along with a few flash fiction pieces that are too short to be released individually).
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