The Ghost of Christmas (Squashed)

So I'm sitting on the sofa with my hot tea and my cozy lap blanket and I'm trying to motivate myself to go out into the cold, bleak, damp afternoon and fight the Christmas Eve crowd to shop for a few last-minute stocking-stuffers, when suddenly I hear a THUMP and a CLUMP and a CLATTER and SPUTTER from the chimney and then a lumpy bundle lands in my fireplace, only it's not a bundle but a person, a petite blonde woman clad in a white gauzy gown badly smudged and torn from its progress down the chimney.

"Who are you?" I ask. "You don't look like Santa."

"Santa?!" she says, her voice ringing like a bell, albeit a slightly rusty, dusty, sneezy bell. "What are you talking Santa? Look at the clock. Does that look like midnight to you?"

"Well, you did come down the chimney," I point out.

"Not my preferred means of transport," she says, "but it's murder these days getting a zoning variance to construct a new magic portal ever since all those Harry Potter folks overbuilt and then couldn't manage the upkeep. But chimneys are grandfathered in--Santa makes sure of that. You wouldn't believe the clout that guy wields down at City Hall. Ever wonder why you never hear about Santa's sleigh getting a parking ticket? The Jolly Old Elf keeps more than one list, if you get my drift."

All this time she's brushing the ash off her dress and trying to punch her pointy viewing cone back into shape.

"Back in the day I used to float in on a dust mote," she explains, "but these days I take what I can get, even a filthy chimney. Seriously, when was the last time you got this thing cleaned? You might have a chimney fire in your future. But don't ask me. The future is outside my bailiwick. You'll have to wait til you meet my cousin, The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come."

"Wait, you're the Ghost of Christmas Past?!"

"Present and accounted for," she says, "but I'm afraid I won't be able to show you much. My magical viewing cone took a bit of a beating coming down your chimney and it seems to have blown a gasket. But we can talk."

"About what?"

"Christmas past, of course. Your past."

"But why? I'm not Scrooge! Why, just last week I donated to a food bank to help the needy, and I've got plans to have a joyful Christmas with my family! I wouldn't know how to cook a goose or where to find one, but I'm certainly not planning to settle down alone with a bowl of thin gruel on Christmas!"

"Yeah, whatever," she says, "but what's that I see hanging from the mantelpiece?"

"A Christmas stocking."

"Right," she says, "an empty Christmas stocking. Why haven't you bought anything to stuff it with?"

"Um, well, I forgot."

"Planning to go out and buy something this afternoon?"

"Well, I've been thinking about it, but it's cold outside, and the stores will be mobbed, and I'm tired, and I'd rather sit here and drink my tea."

"You're tired," she says. "Hard to believe. Let's think about all those years when you directed the children's Christmas program at church. You wrote scripts, sewed costumes, organized rehearsals, built sets, and manhandled hordes of fidgety kids until they produced something beautiful and touching that made their parents proud. That would be enough to make you tired--but you haven't done anything like that this year, have you?"

"Well, I--"

"And what about baking? What about all those gifts of fudge and caramels and different kinds of cookies--why, the year your daughter was born on Christmas Eve, you baked fourteen dozen cookies while on the verge of giving birth. And that's not even counting all the fudge. How many cookies have you baked this year?"

"I can explain! We don't have a refrigerator right now, and--"

"And remember all those matching outfits you sewed for your family at Christmas? Those red plaid ties and vests and skirts and shawls, and then another year the plaid was green--all that plaid! What is it with you and plaid?"

"Don't forget about the black-velvet-and-purple-taffeta year."

"I rest my case. How many hours did you spend cutting and pinning and stitching and ironing just to make some cute holiday clothes that the kids would wear a couple times before they grew out of 'em? That's a lot of work for not much reward."

"That's not true! My husband still wears the plaid ties I made for him back then."

"Yeah, but they won't last forever, and how long has it been since you sewed him something for Christmas? You haven't even bought anything to put in his stocking this year!"

"I've got time. I'll go after church."

"But look at the past: you used to sew and bake and direct the children's program and send hand-written cards to all kinds of people and host holiday parties and build a gingerbread manger scene with little gingerbread animals and a tiny gingerbread Baby Jesus, and don't even get me started on the gifts! Remember the year you made a giant Raggedy Ann for your daughter? And your son's cross-stitched Christmas stocking? And what about that beautiful cross-stitched piece still hanging in your parents' dining room? When was the last time you created a hand-made gift? I'm telling you, it doesn't take any effort at all to buy a gift card. And you say you're tired!"

"But I can't do all that! It's too much work!"

"You used to do it all. What happened to your Christmas Spirit?"

"Life happened," I say. "I got older, and so did my kids, and my eyes can't handle all those close-up work any more. If I tried to dress my kids in matching holiday outfits at this point, they'd laugh me out of the room. And I have a job now, a real one that gets really busy this time of year, and then I don't have much energy left for Christmas."

"Hmph," she says. "So maybe you can't do everything, but what about that?"

She points to the stocking hanging from the mantel--empty, flat, forlorn. I still have time to fill it if I get to work, but I look out the window at the dull gray sky, and I know it's cold out there and the stores are full of desperate people, and I think how much I'd appreciate a nap right about now.

And so I pick up the magical viewing cone, dented and dusty but still emitting an otherworldly glow. "How does this work?" I ask.

"Hey, give me that! You're not authorized to operate that--you haven't had the proper training--"

She tries to grab it out of my hands but it's too late: I shove the thing over her head and squish it right down to the floor, where the cone dissolves in my hands, taking the Ghost of Christmas Past with it and leaving behind nothing but a smudge of ash.

I can't do everything and it's futile to try, so I brush the ash off my hands, grab my cozy blanket, and I just settle down for a long winter's nap. (If anyone else comes down the chimney, don't wake me up.)