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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#281: The Fright Before Christmas

Don’t forget to use the hashtag #ReedsyHoliday to share your stories (and potentially get featured on our social accounts)!

With less than two weeks left until Christmas, I’ve been filling my days with cozy activities that are perfect for the festive season. While baking, caroling, and wrapping gifts are pretty standard for this time of the year, I also enjoy doing something a bit unexpected with my friends: holding creepy holiday movie marathons.

With that in mind, here are five prompts inspired by eerie holiday classics like Krampus and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Snuggle up with your thickest blanket and get started on a tale of regret, longing, love, horror, mystery — whatever you fancy! Good luck, and happy holidays to all those who celebrate!

This week's prompts

Write about a mysterious guest who arrives at a party — but no one knows who they are.

Dramatic – 60 stories

Start or end your story with someone receiving a strange — and possibly sinister — gift.

Dramatic – 54 stories

Write a story from the POV of a non-human character.

Short Story – 103 stories

Set your story during the coldest day of the year.

Short Story – 52 stories

Write a story that includes the line “Be careful what you wish for.”

Dramatic – 40 stories

Stories

“Inebria” by Gary Grissom

Submitted to Contest #281

InebriaBy Gary E. Grissom Thomas Collins, a young alcoholic, was driving home from what he believed was the best New Year’s Eve party he had ever attended. Unfortunately, Thomas was inebriated from drinking too many Margaritas. He had received a DUI a few years ago and he’d had his license revoked. He had even gone through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous; but now he had gone off the wagon because he felt he could certainly handle the effects of only one Margarita. Of course, the one Margarita led to two others before a friend reminded h...

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“The Hottest Cold Day” by Aimee Lavigne

Submitted to Contest #281

(Note: some foul language) It’s literally 80 degrees in my classroom right now, Mrs. Ferris texted her principal. She looked over her class of 3rd graders. Winter coats and holiday sweaters littered the floor, despite the hooks in their cubbies designed to hold such items. It was the day before winter break started. They just had to not melt for two more hours until they could flee into the parking lot and bus loading zone at 2:25. I’ll try Maintenance again, Principal Beck texted back, but they stopped taking my calls two wee...

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“That night in Central Park” by Monika Denham

Submitted to Contest #281

Closing my Manhattan apartment door behind me, I had no idea what I would be in for this beautiful September evening. I was ready to tackle my regular three mile run in Central Park. It was a routine I followed three evenings a week after work, and I’d found that I didn’t function very well if I skipped it. Tonight, however, I should have done just that. As I entered the not so well-lit area of the park that I always hated running through, I heard footsteps running away from me, into the trees. This made me very suspicious and a little bit a...

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“A Chance for Things That Never Were” by Ashlynn Altman

Submitted to Contest #281

Lizette reluctantly pushed the last pin into her cork board. "For Sale by Owner" read the bold, red poster font plastered across her two-story's photo. Re-entering the housing market was something she'd never imagined doing again. This was intended to be her and Charlie's forever home, but the house wasn't the same to her anymore.The corridor walls she and Charlie had once personally draped in pastel green paint now seemed to be more of a muted sand color. The rooms no longed boasted the echoes of the children's laughter, but rather the clic...

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“My Secret Life” by Alan Hancock

Submitted to Contest #281

My Secret Life Alan Hancock 20242,660 wds When I put this story together I was wondering where to start. And I thought, let’s start at the beginning, a long time ago in another place a very long way from here. So, to start from the beginning. When I was a boy I loved stories about people who had a secret. Some of them were true stories and some were made up. But it didn’t make any difference to me. They were all just as good, as long as they had a secret. I read this story about a gang of kids ...

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“My Santa Wish” by Deb Dobbins

Submitted to Contest #281

"I wish I could have just one Christmas without all the drama! No fussing and arguing with each other, no complaining and no dogging each other out for doing or not doing something." I said, in response to Santa asking me what I want for Christmas. The company I work for always has a Santa for employees and their children to have pictures and tell him what they want from Santa for Christmas. One of my co-workers, Tom, helped me alight from Santa’s lap. “I’ve never seen you partake of the whole Santa thing before. What did you ask for?”I told...

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“A Christmas Wish” by Nina Rose

Submitted to Contest #281

The laughter started softly at first, toying somewhere between joy and restlessness, but by midnight, he thought his parents’ faces would split in two. Echoes of their cheer filled the empty house, relentless and jagged, bleeding with a disturbing insincerity. Deep smile lines pressed into his dad’s cheeks as though calved from fingernails. His eyes, glassy and unmoving, fixated somewhere on the bookcase. Mum clutched her sides, splayed on the couch seat like a marionette with loose strings, gasping as she howled and laughed without pause.&n...

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“Ashes of the Sun” by Akshaya J

Submitted to Contest #281

Perfection should not exist theoretically. But against all forces of nature, it did, and not only did it exist, it lived and breathed in the body of Cyrus Egner. Cyrus was the sun. Everyone around him were mere rocks that orbited his presence. Everything about it was infuriating. But even more frustrating was the fact that I could not hate him for it. I was only 6 when I first met him. My mother had been making Tamales in the kitchen, and I had clung to her legs, begging her to let me try as well. Someone had knocked on our front...

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“Be careful what you wish for... eventually, it will come true!” by Stefanie Anna Kremser

Submitted to Contest #281

I just wanna be like them. Different. But not me. That’s for sure. It just doesn`t feel right. It hurts so much. The pain in my chest. No one prepared me for that. Oh my god, it's tearing me apart. Ripping in half. I wanna get rid of my skin that feels so strange. But it doesn`t work. I tried so hard. If you could see me now, you would see the scars. She is the one who doesn’t love herself on top of the world or in the depths of despair. She feels lost caught up in her fears of not being perfect. Looking into the mirror means seeing a stra...

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“The Ruined Wish” by Myla Christides

Submitted to Contest #281

CHAPTER 1the partyEvery year, the town of Goldbrook throw a party for Last Night. Some people call it New Year’s Eve. It’s a small town but a big party. Everyone goes, people dance, they eat, they chat; but mostly, they party. Past grievances are forgotten as they celebrate the end of one turn and the beginning of the next. It’s a joyous time for everyone. It has been for centuries. This one should be no different, yet Sapphire Dove couldn’t shake the feeling of unease for that evening. It was clear no one else felt it, everyone was having f...

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“Yuletide Boots” by E.N. Triggs

Submitted to Contest #281

Since I was old enough to lick the spoon, mom and I have baked nan her favorite Yule cookies, then we’d pull on our cloaks and stroll through the forest to deliver them before the end of Mother’s Night. This year, mom is too sick to come with me but said, “Esyllt, twelve is old enough to make the journey on your own – as long as you leave before the moon rises so Gryla, the child-nabbing Yule Hag, doesn’t scent you.” So, go on my own I did.Ice-kissed winds whistle through the trees as I trudge through Grymmwing Forest. This is what Yule...

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“The Uninvited Guest” by Charlie Christmann

Submitted to Contest #281

The temperature plummeted to record lows on Christmas Eve as the quaint New England town of Havenwood was preparing for its annual celebration. Frost crept across windowpanes in delicate patterns, and breath emerged in visible puffs as townspeople hurried through the streets, arms laden with last-minute party preparations. The town hall's warm lights beckoned like a beacon through the gathering dusk.Inside, twelve-year-old Lily Morgan helped her mother arrange cookie platters, sneaking a snickerdoodle when she thought no one was looking. "Mo...

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“Tom's or John's or Steve's or Mike's Friend” by Elizabeth Rich

Submitted to Contest #281

The house was lit up inside and out. A ten foot tall Santa stood moored to the front yard, inflated and lit up from within. He was surrounded by a ring of 24-inch wooden elves, each one raising both arms skyward, as if they were worshiping this guy who wore a strange red getup, trimmed out in white fur, who stole into people's homes in the dead of night. He must have been in cahoots with the man who drove the ice cream truck in the summer or some creepy guy in a white panel van who cased neighborhoods for unsuspecting children. How could thi...

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“Smoke and Lights” by Li'l Sushi

Submitted to Contest #281

CW: Death, PTSD VE Day, 1945. Somewhere in London. The pub is drowning in the light. The stench of strongly-scented perfume and cigarette smoke seems to seep from its pores, filling up every corner in a manner that should be suffocating, yet is instead somehow liberating, just in its very existence. Jazz music plays at the side and champagne flutes clink, pulsing in sync like a collective heartbeat. Florence weaves in and out of the exuberant crowd, inhaling the elation, the freedom. She plucks empty glasses out of strange hands th...

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“In Return for the Gloves” by Zachary Thomas

Submitted to Contest #281

It was two weeks before Christmas, and Marty Blevins had just finished installing the last LED bulb above his fireplace, which was now lit up like a shrine. It was the final accomplishment, the final brush stroke, on his home remodeling work of art. Calling it “art” was probably high-minded, but Marty knew he was standing in a large new living room that had once been just a dirty old carport. Marty’s wife Gloria had been busy arranging chairs around the tables and fumbling with the stereo remote, to get the music just right. She wore a ...

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$250

Prize money

309

Contest entries

154

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Dec 20, 2024 EST

Won by Karissa W 🏆

Title: The Counter and the Coal

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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