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Center your story around a character spending their first holiday alone.

Posted in Short Story on Jan 3, 2025

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✍️ 66 stories

A Light in the Cold

Shortlisted for Contest #284 ⭐️

A Light in the Cold A drop of tea leaped over the thin wall of the china cup and onto her walnut coffee table as she knelt to sit on her couch. “Crap,” she uttered softly. She placed the teacup securely on her mandala coaster and walked back to her kitchen to grab a paper towel, shaking her right hand to relieve the heat it had absorbed. As she returned to the cup of homemade masala chai, notes of cardamom and ginger entered her nostrils. She picked the teacup up gently, turned it around so the Rumi quote embossed on the rim was visible, and...

31 likes 9 comments 9
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I Won't Be Home For Christmas

Submitted to Contest #284

CW: This story contains themes of physical violence and suicide.Life can be messy. Complicated. Difficult. Sometimes you can just lose yourself in all of it, and in the process, you can lose sight of the things that actually matter. And then one day a storm comes out of the clear blue sky and you get blown overboard by the tempest, and all is lost in the blink of an eye.This is what happened to me. I just got caught up in all of the things that don’t really matter. Money. Career status. An address in the right part of town and elite private ...

24 likes 44 comments 44
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Veils of December

Submitted to Contest #284

For a moment, the Christmas Eve atmosphere felt tangible. It enveloped Mia with an ineffable coldness, lingering in her softly flowing veins and biting lightly at her quivering bones. Soft, dull kisses of falling snowflakes settled in Mia’s brunette hair. She stood clothed only in a knit sweater, blue jeans, and tattered checkered Vans. The streets were pale, anticipating light foot traffic as families gathered in warm brick houses for the holidays.From across the street, she watched her middle-aged father take a drag from his Camel cigarett...

13 likes 4 comments 4
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The Wooden Figurine

Submitted to Contest #284

Outside was a different world from where Meggie sat, perched on a once-loved bench next to a window that should glow red and green by now. Her heart simply wasn’t in the festive mood. In truth, she was lonely.  As she peered through the frosted window, a lone snowflake drifted from a dark sky as if to say hello, I am alone too. But, of course, a snowflake isn’t alone for where one lazily spins, so too does another not far off. Meggie read once that snowflakes were all unique and she imagined a lone figure sitting in the clouds high abov...

12 likes 3 comments 3
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Lucia

Submitted to Contest #284

Lucia Abotti rose with the morning sun brazenly shining through her window, illuminating the many wrinkles on her weathered face. Beginning her day in the kitchen, she fixed herself a coffee with milk and nibbled on a round almond flavored biscuit. Looking at her calendar—she crossed off the 24th of December, 1911. She’d forgotten to do it yesterday. So much work needed to be done today. Starting with the pasta, she began. She had made tortellini pasta exactly the same way her mother had taught her sixty years ago. She made the dough and the...

12 likes 4 comments 4
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The Box

Submitted to Contest #284

The BoxEveryone will tell you that they are in a "better place". I mean, it is true really. Being up high in the heavens with our Lord and Savior is a better place than here on the Earth. But that does not take away the pressing ache in my chest, or the overwhelming tears that fall along my cheeks at just the thought of you. It is December and it is the first time in nearly fifteen years it is snowing so close to Christmas."It's going to be white Christmas Babe." I whisper while gazing out the tall picture window of our bedroom.I pull down t...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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Okay Kids

Submitted to Contest #284

Okay Kids! “Okay kids, I hope that you have all your stuff together for the trip. It is time to get into the car and drive to Lake Francis for a wonderful time in the cottage that we always rent at this time of year.” As soon as he finished saying those words both inside his mind, and outside it with a loud voice, Lloyd sighed. “Who am I kidding? I am going to the lake and to the cottage all by myself for the very first time. My son and daughter are grown up now and both moved far, far away a few months ago to get th...

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12-13 naps

Submitted to Contest #284

Dec 26th, 2024 — Day 7 Since She’s Gone Away Finally getting out of the house today. I meet Toby at our usual corner place. He seems strung out, his scraggly ginger hair more scraggly than usual. “God, do I hate the holidays. I got chased by fucking Barbara’s psycho kid the entire day yesterday.” Trance-like, his eyes are intensely fixed on a tiny bird that just landed on the tree across the street. I am thoroughly bored by the vision. “I feel empty, devoid of any masculine energy,” he continues. I roll my eyes. He shakes his head and seems ...

10 likes 6 comments 6
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The Light of Luminaea

Submitted to Contest #284

The Light of LuminaeaPrincess Aveline sat alone at the dining table, the flickering glow of candles casting her shadow onto the high stone walls. The Luminaea Solstice had always been her favorite celebration—a time for renewal and hope during the year's darkest night. Yet this year, hope felt as distant as the stars.The gilded hall shimmered with decorations meant to inspire cheer. Silver banners embroidered with phoenixes hung from the vaulted ceiling, and crystal lanterns lined the long oak table, their warm light reflecting off plates la...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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The Lonely Christmas Birthday.

Submitted to Contest #284

Erin stood at the empty front door and gazed at the dimly lit porch swing. In a wave of memories, her sister's smiling faces gazed at her while they gently pushed the swing back and forth. If she closed her eyes she could still hear them laughing. Everyone gathered together, on the front porch of all places, to play a game of spoons. Her sisters, Jean and Leigh, were relentless. She could feel a phantom ache in her right hand from trying to pull that stupid metal spoon out of one of their hands. A chilly gust of wind brought her back to the ...

9 likes 1 comment 1
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Just Another Day

Submitted to Contest #284

I sat on the couch watching the credits roll on a Christmas movie I had already forgotten the name of. It was cute in its own way, but so like any other Christmas movie I could have recited it from memory before even pressing play. “Ten days,” I exclaimed incredulously to the golden retriever snuggled up next to me. “She has only known him for ten days and she gives up her job, apartment, everything to be with him.” Nellie lifted her head from my lap and slowly blinked. Her face was silvered with age all the way up to her ears. “I bet they b...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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A Map to Christmas

Submitted to Contest #284

The winter sun hung low in the sky, casting pale beams through frost-laden windows. Eleanor sat in her living room, wrapped in a blanket David had always draped over their laps during cozy winter nights. The tree before her sparkled faintly, its lights blinking with a cheerfulness that felt hollow. The ornaments hung delicately on the branches, each one a memory of Christmases past, but the star lay untouched in its box. David had always been the one to place the star. Even last year, though the cancer had weakened him, he had insisted on cl...

9 likes 0 comments 0
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Where's My Baby Jesus?

Submitted to Contest #284

Prompt: Center the story around a character spending their first holiday alone.Where’s My Baby Jesus?The rain was pouring down like a waterfall as I peered outside the window of my rickety bamboo hut. No one would guess this was a few days before Christmas. Being in the tropics had its advantages, but this time of year I was at a loss to find any. There were no decorations inside my spacious tropical villa. Nor were there any in the tiny, remote village I was stationed at in the Fijian Islands. My first year of ...

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HERE ON THIS NIGHT

Submitted to Contest #284

Dropping his keys once, and then again. An unsurprising end to an even more unsurprising day. A deep breath, and success-access granted. As jerry entered his apartment, he was more than ready for a warm greeting from Leanne, but upon walking in, he had forgotten, she was not here on this night. Jerry walked over to the window and gazed upon the street below, the people wearing sequence top hats, a child riding on his fathers’ shoulders, and the weather almost magical-large chunky snowflakes falling in a windless and somehow mild evening. It ...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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The Solitude of Grace

Submitted to Contest #284

Grace adjusted the strap of her suitcase as the train pulled into the small seaside town of Whitlock. The journey had been quiet, save for the rustle of newspapers and murmured conversations. The whistle blew, sharp and final, as she stepped onto the platform. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming. No friends, no family. After long thirty-eight years, finally she was spending Christmas alone.The air smelled of salt and cold. Whitlock was as she remembered it – stoic cliffs, worn cobblestones, and the sea, its waves rolling like distant thund...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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