I set myself a little writing challenge for December.
Could I conjure up thirty 100-word stories to fill your festive stockings?
Halfway through the month I sent out the first batch (I’ll pop a link at the bottom of the page in case you missed it or, if like me, you like all the same things in the same place).
This like a HUGE box of chocolates filled with your favourite flavours (but it is a box that never empties and you don’t have to share!).
16/30
Tree Wise Men
“Psst, hello, can you reach the chocolate box from there?”
“I don’t think he can hear”, said the drummer boy. “Maybe the Herald Angel could pass on a message?”
The elf, known for his love of very rich dark chocolate, looked puzzled. “How come you can hear me, but a reindeer just two branches down can’t”.
“Maybe I can hear you perfectly well”, muttered Dancer, “but I choose to ignore you and keep the Quality Street for those of us who’ve been decorating this tree for more than one Christmas, Mr Elf”.
“Fair point, Rudolph”.
“My name is NOT Rudolph”.
17/30
Fill That Pantry
Housekeeper at Tittersham Hall for forty years. THE worst Christmas. Blame Terry the pantry boy.
“Did you actually read the shopping list, Terry?”
“It’s like this, Mrs H, I had a headache like twelve drummers and eleven pipers partying”.
“His Lordship will be a-leaping if you’ve got this wrong”.
“Well, nine girls checkout girls helped”, he grinned. “I got eight cartons of oat milk but not even Waitrose had swans. Six geese, check. Five rings of black pudding for breakfast! No idea about calling birds but three bio chickens, easy. Pigeons for lunch but partridge is scarce so it’s pheasant.”
18/30
With thanks to Caro Henry whose prompt ‘Hibernate’ popped up at exactly the right moment:
Nuts
He’d filled the workshop because she never went there. He hid there but he’d still heard her scoffing at his ‘acorn sculptures’. But it gave him time to himself in the winter months and space to call his in the network of spaces they called home. There was a plenty of nighttime noise but he didn’t really give a hoot. Once the workshop was filled to overflowing, he designated the spare bedroom as a storeroom. But he was piling up trouble. As the secret cupboard burst open she screamed, “Are you nuts? How long will you be hibernating, Mr Squirrel?”
19/30
Right Move
“What about this one? Five bedrooms, porch, huge holly bush and a den”.
“Really? You’re starting again? I’m happy here.”
Click … scroll … click.
“You’ll love this. Look at the workshop?”
He broke away from the leather work he always struggled with in the cramped poorly-lit corner he called his ‘workshop’. Damn reins, always fraying on the runners.
“It does look spacious”, he murmured, already imagining where his tools would hang.
“Three garages and stables with eight stalls”. She had that look, the one he couldn’t resist.
“But moving at Christmas”, he moaned.
“C’mon Grumpy Santa, it’ll be fine”.
20/30
My Precious
The publisher’s leather chair creaked ominously. The metronomic ticking of a towering grandfather clock weighed heavily on an already tense atmosphere.
“So, Mr Tolkien, these children …”
“Hobbits”.
“Ah yes, the hobbits. Hairy toes, you say, and two breakfasts?”.
“Yes, yes”.
“And over one thousand pages so they can throw a ring in a fire? They couldn’t just do that in this Shire?”
“No, of course not. The quest is important. You see it don’t you; fate v free will; good and evil; courage and fellowship”.
“Yes, but five hundred thousand words about hairy toes, dwarves and dragons?”.
Tolkien sighed.
21/30
Running Short
Repair garages have got that smell. Spilled oil and tension. Men who know nothing about their broken vehicle are pressed into close combat with experts who can knock them down with a well-judged intake of breath.
The bearded old man flinched as the young mechanic rubbed greasy hands with a filthy rag.
“You’ve picked a bad time to try and get that fixed. With all this snow, you just can’t get new runners. Maybe in the new year.”
The old man hunched deeper into his huge red coat. “But you don’t understand, young man. Ho-ho-how much to do it sooner?”
22/30
Snow Joke
They called him Mr Bah Humbug!
He’d heard the sharp-edged gossip, and the hushed silences when he clumped into the village store.
It was impossible to escape the whispers about his lack of community spirit. They had tried for years to get him to share their enthusiasm for Christmas lights and gaudy decorations. He loved the winter but he’d always preferred something simpler, more traditional, for Christmas. He preferred to feel wonderment at the pristine blanket of white seen from his window as snow melted from his boots. He liked that no-one knew it was him who cleared their paths.
23/30
Who’s That?
It was bitingly cold in Who-ville that Christmas. Icicles grew icicles. A bitter wind howled through the town, sharper than the resentment left by recent rent rises. The absence of a named landlord to complain to heightened the rancour and on the night before Christmas the mood among stallholders was sullen. The ice machine was out of action and Mr Sprocket had been forced to close the garage, something of a wrench. By the time the decorations were stolen, the townsfolk had had enough. Even Cindy Lou was fed up. “Maybe we should invite Mr Grinch, dear”. “No way, Mum”.
24/30
Lively Debate
Every year the negotiation became less one-sided. What had started out as an immovable assertion softened while time ebbed and flowed. Victim became protagonist, debate became discussion. The time of year never changed but the timings altered subtly. Sometimes it was last minute. Others, it resembled a long patient campaign with a series of skirmishes. Both parties learned to feint more carefully. Both learned to polish arguments and bite sharp edged tongues. To and fro. The manoeuvrings began early this particular year.
“Ten”.
“Too many, we’ve talked about this”.
“Okay, eight?”
“I was thinking five”.
“Fine, five sprouts it is”.
25/30
Strict Rules
She swept into the sitting room. He looked up, eager as a child on pocket money day queuing to buy penny chews at Bon Bon’s.
“Is it time yet?”
It was their second Christmas together. He had such fond memories of last year. He loved that she had strict rules. Certain things at certain times. She’d made him wait, heightening the anticipation until he was fit to burst.
“Not yet, darling; patience”.
He groaned. They were surrounded by gifts, torn gold paper abandoned behind the settee. But it was the stockings he craved.
She always looked so good in them.
26/30
No Pain, No Gain
Every pedal stroke was an excruciating version of cycling torture. It felt medieval. Sharp burning sensations, searing pain with every breath, knots of agony in his back. Still he pushed on, fighting it, forcing himself through the torment. The howling wind, constantly in his face, like icy fingers poking at the gaps between protective layers. Pushing him backwards, toying with his resilience. Headwind in his headspace telling him to give up, to turn around and slink home, beaten. Up out of his saddle, thighs on fire, pushing, pushing. Slumped over his handlebars, gasping, he grinned. It’s all downhill from here.
27/30
Wrong Turn
He’d promised to shake things up.
He emerged from the tube station and turned left. Why not? Then right, and over the crossing. Down the alleyway, past the off-licence with its shutters down. Plastered with weird graffiti. “Follow the white rabbit”, it said. And “the revolution will be live streamed”.
Three men in hoodies stared at him as he hurried by. Turned right, and right again through the warren. White rabbits. He heard the footsteps but couldn’t look. He hurried on, heart pounding in his ears. Bursting into bright light, eyes frantically scanning. Tube station ahead.
Start again.
Turn right.
28/30
Happy Never After
It was a bitterly cold day. As Goldilocks skipped through the forest, fog wove itself into the outstretched branches of slender pine trees. Her breath mingled with the sharp winter chill. The little girl broke into a run as the cottage emerged from the gloom, smoke lingering above the red brick chimney. The front door was tantalisingly ajar. The heat of a roaring fire offered a warm welcome and after polishing off a large bowl of ‘just right’ porridge, she curled up to sleep. This was where the solitary, ravenously hungry and especially grumpy ‘house-swap’ Grizzly found her. Ah, supper!
29/30
Nursery Crime
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
He’d been determined to get the best view of the parade so he’d taken a stepladder from the shed and teetered up it. He had no head for heights and the cheering crowds and bright uniforms made him dizzy but he felt like the ‘king of the castle’. He waved at Nurse Florence who was looking up at him anxiously. He stood to perform a most flamboyant bow.
As he tumbled, all the kings horses and all the kings men trotted by.
The last thing he heard was the King’s Chef shouting, ‘Omelette Tonight’.
30/30
Bugged
TEN, NINE, EIGHT,
Party like it’s 1999, they said, and now we’re living our BEST lives. Silver disco pants aren’t everyone’s taste but the girl by the fridge seems interested.
SEVEN, SIX,
Act casual. I raise my glass in a ‘cool dude’ style.
She nods, I think. Maybe it’s the flickering lights?
FIVE,
Millennium Bug, ha, no-one believes that shit.
FOUR,
Did that blender just move behind the girl? Damn these pills!
THREE, TWO,
Cher, I Believe, banger of a tune. Screaming louder!
ONE!
If the power’s gone how come the fridge is eating my girl while the blender howls?
A sterling collection, Barrie! Best three lines:
"Tolkein sighed."
"Five sprouts it is."
"Slumped over his handlebars, gasping, he grinned."
A TRUE Christmas story: SNOW JOKE
As for the grizzly's supper and the Humpty Dumpty omelette - Eew.!