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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#21: That Holiday Feeling

This is the fourth holiday season that our short story contest has been around! And it's become something of a tradition for the Christmas-themed prompts to very loosely relate to a favorite holiday movie. This year, we're challenging you to either write from the perspective of a movie's secondary character, or to simply reimagine the general premise in a whole new light.

Can't get enough holiday stories? Check out some of our reading guides:

Or maybe you're still searching for the perfect gift for a book lover, and don't want to add to their "to be read" pile? We've got a list for that too 🎄

This week's prompts

You live in a neighborhood where lots of people go out of town for the holidays. But lately, this has been resulting in an increased number of break-ins.

Holiday – 23 stories

Just before Valentine's Day, a long-lost relative you've never heard of enters your life.

Valentine's Day – 53 stories

Write a short story about a work Christmas party that goes... awry.

Winter – 26 stories

Write a short story about an inn-keeper wondering whether this will be their last holiday season in business.

Holiday – 33 stories

You are a bartender working a night shift when a group of people come in on a Valentine's Day pub crawl.

Valentine's Day – 33 stories

Stories

“Thing of Chance” by Savannah Berry

Submitted to Contest #21

It was not always this way you know. Easthaven, North Carolina used to be just that: a haven. A place where families would be excited to take their children and their children would be counting down the days to go. A quaint little town with beautiful beaches, family owned restaurants, and bed and breakfasts that were always active with people. It was the kind of town that had the perfect balance of things to do while also being an oasis away from the everyday hustle and bustle. Now, it is more like a ghost town.Brighton Bed and ...

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“Last Christmas” by Jess Wood

Submitted to Contest #21

The emptiness he had placed in his pocket weighed his jacket down with untold heaviness. His weathered hands reached and fumbled subconsciously with the material, paralleling his mind which he couldn’t drag away from the things he would rather forget.Just for tonight. He would ignore everything just for one last night.The innkeeper placed his hands on the worn oak counter that stretched wall to wall. Candles on each table emitted a warm glow which couldn’t stretch to the bar, although it tried. Tinsel and bells and lights adorned the walls a...

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“A Bartender's experience in vacation” by Hamim Ziauddin

Submitted to Contest #21

On June 03.2016 …… it was a normal day. my shift at the bartender was between 6 pm to 12 pm.but for some reason I have to stay late at night. Generally working in a place like this we met new people with different varieties. Some came to refresh their exhausted bodies. Some people came to enjoy the holiday session and some came to enjoy our new arrivals.The bar that I worked situated in Bali. It's a great place for refreshments and people from all over the place visited here.on that day in June while I was in my night shift I saw a group of ...

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“The wave of night” by Sandra Gudino

Submitted to Contest #21

It comes and goes in waves. Things got crowded and then they settled, the occasional party reservation, the teasing walk in, the questionable flirt, it all happened every now and then. Days became defined by buyer personas, you see, only certain type of people show up at a bar at 2 o´clock on a Tuesday, or at 4 on a Wednesday without any special going.People had warned him, routine permeates every profession, change is a constant as much as routine. He could now read people from behind the bar, their small gestures, their drink of choice, th...

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“A Moonlight Pub Match ” by Mahalia Mehu

Submitted to Contest #21

Its been a year since that night and I can hardly believe it…. but its that time of year again and just like every other Christmas Eve I’m working a double shift at the pub. It’s close to midnight and the place is pretty quiet so I settled in for an easy Christmas Eve with Sinatra crooning in the background and the regulars without family nursing their Irish whiskeys. Of course Mickey’s acting up, but then every year he yells at the Snoopy Christmas program like that’ll change anything… its the same every time so I and the other b...

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“ONE LAST GAME” by Jean Lagacé

Submitted to Contest #21

You are a bartender working a night shift when a group of people come in on a holiday pub crawl. It has been a slow night. Mondays are usually that way. Everybody goes back to work, the weekend’s abuses fast forgotten. Even the few customers left, my regulars as I call them, are not much of anything, sipping a beer while doing crosswords, playing chess or drowsing. Like Charlie in front of me who has not touched his drink for the last fifteen minutes and decided to take a nap after telling me of his recent troubles with the wife. God ...

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“Ho Ho Ho ” by Sally Martin

Submitted to Contest #21

It’s been quiet in here for a few days. I stare a lot, at the window of my side bar. Ho Ho Ho Ho is spray painted on the window. But whichever waitress wrote it, did it the wrong way, so it reads oh oh oh inside, for the audience. Funny. No one passes the outside of that window, it faces another brick wall, of a bank. It’s not even where the smokers go. I think it was the new girl. I’ve been drinking on shift. Sneaking shots of a local vodka every time I have to bend down to get something off the shelf. I’ve filled up the olive swords,...

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“A Typical Shift” by Rebecca Shapiro

Submitted to Contest #21

The clock above the corner booth says 9:37 PM, but my body is feeling closer to 3 AM. I sigh. My head is just not in the game tonight. I’ve accidentally overpoured the stocky gentleman slouched over the counter, though I’m hoping this last drink will get him pliable enough for the doorman to escort him out without a problem. His eyes are drooping, and I can clearly see the work he has to put in to tilt his head up. He shifts in his seat and locks his foggy eyes on me, a smirk pushing up against his tired jowls. He takes his time starting to...

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“Snowed In” by Charlie Diaz

Submitted to Contest #21

Ever since Evan grew up, the holidays had lost much meaning. When he was younger, there was the excitement of gifts, food, and movies. Now the most exciting part was being able to make fun of the weird holiday cards he got. It was Christmas Eve and he didn’t have anything better to do than go into work. Some may call it sad but work was like a second home to Evan. As trashy and bare-bones Neonprisim was, it had a lot of memories. Since it was a bar the memories were mostly making and drinking alcohol, but they were memories he held dea...

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“Jewels of the Night” by AARUSHI ATRI

Submitted to Contest #21

"The clouds are slowly crawling towards the winter cold moon... and..so am I, towards my last nectar...""Mr. Brandon, why don't you understand, I cannot leave my son alone today"!"Mrs. Brady, I need to spend this Christmas while protecting my 'loved ones'. I don't understand why I have to do this shift, even after informing you about my inability to do so, beforehand.""protecting?""nothing.""Mr. Brandon, I am extremely sorry for the current situation, but I don't have a choice." "Goodbye."I felt a chill within me, not the one that cold-...

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“I don’t know why they keep doing it” by Jimmie Perry

Submitted to Contest #21

For the past few years my neighbors (everybody in town considering there are only about 2,000 people in Shubawshubaw) have all been going out of town for the important holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Mother’s Day (would’ve said Easter but I stopped really caring about it when I got too old for my granma to give me a basket). They’ve been going out of town and whle most of them have been able to step right back into living their normal lives some of them have been forced to completely redecorate their homes. Usually redec...

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“Hindsight 2020. ” by Boston Chandler

Submitted to Contest #21

Hindsight 2020. The windows are boarded up like the Starbucks Reserve on Mayday. It’s not a hurricane and the Storm aren’t around anymore. Someone stealing your Amazon packages from your doorstep isn’t considered a break-in, is it? I’ve heard they are called Porch Pirates. That’s a stupid name. It’s like Jean Valjean except the bread is AirPods. I mean Santa breaks into everyone’s house, doesn’t he? And no one has a problem with that. Just because he leaves gifts instead of takes them doesn’t make it any less of a break ...

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“The Safest Neighborhood” by Paul Forster

Submitted to Contest #21

I don’t like to travel on holidays and Christmas is the worst, but the job in Sicily was too juicy to pass up. A nice half million profit for two days work made getting back on the solstice worth it. I saw him Saturday about midnight turning into my driveway. He stood out crouched behind Steve’s hedge across the street, the black he wore was different than the blacks in the hedge. I watched him check out several homes over the next five nights, but the Simpsons seemed his favorite. &...

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“Familiar stranger” by Soraya Raza

Submitted to Contest #21

She was tall, she was slim, she was blond and she looked a lot like my mum. Mother had died 2 years earlier. A bout of pneumonia, they say, but we think it was her broken heart. May be that's what we like to think as it came suddenly. 52 years old, 3 children all still at home and then a husband who deserted her many years ago.Dad was an enigma, a memory you are not sure was real; did we dream him. No, that can't be right. we are living proof there was a dad, but he was not there to teach us to swim, fix the fridge or ready us a bed time sto...

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“A Special Message” by Kathy Bellini

Submitted to Contest #21

It was going to be a difficult Christmas, what with mum no longer with us and my recent separation from my husband. My children were angry and wouldn't talk to me and my ex husband was making life hell. What I really needed was a distraction or something to help keep my mind off my problems. I really needed to have a better Christmas than last year. Last Christmas was a disaster. I didn’t see my children and my ex husband was alienating them from me. They refused to talk to me or even see me. You see I had left the family home 8 months ...

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$50

Prize money

168

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Dec 27, 2019 EST

Won by Oceania Chee 🏆

Title: This Simple Phrase

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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