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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of holiday short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

2750+ Holiday Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Whether you’re looking for a wintery cup of cheer or a ray of sunshine during a summertime festival, our holiday short stories will have you feeling the spirit in no time.

Holiday Short Stories – Page 3 of 184

Solitude (with the Spectral)

Submitted to Contest #284

Hoarfrost crystalised the valley. Early this morning, as the front rolled through, I shivered under my heavy electric blanket, the howling wind shrill as a lonely coyote. The sudden drop in temperature froze the rising fog, and now, white ice clings in puffy clumps to naked gnarled oak branches, giving an illusion of softness to the ridge. It’s impossible not to admire. Even as it solidifies I will spend Christmas alone. Just me and the ghosts.  Part of me wanted this. The dark parts. The cynical demon who made pie crusts, gravy, and m...

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The Hour of Christmas

Submitted to Contest #284

It was her favorite time of year. Snow fell steady beyond her window, puffy, heavy flakes that glittered in the Christmas lights. The sidewalks would be dusted with a healthy covering by this hour, though the carolers singing merely a few doors down didn’t seem to mind. The world outside her home was barely above a whisper of movement; there was no honking of horns or traffic of any kind, no angry people shouting in the streets, and hardly any clanging or banging from her neighbors. It was peaceful. Or at least it had been for a moment. He...

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Wavering Faith

Submitted to Contest #284

Wavering FaithChristina Cooper I should’ve known better. The moment I walked down the stairs to see that the living room was empty, and he wasn’t there, my gut hit the floor. How could this have happened to me? Everyone told me the truth, but I didn’t believe them. I have no idea why, I just didn’t. For some reason, I just wanted the fantasy to be real.I had spent weeks altering my behavior so he would be happy. I changed my habits, tried to get out more and speak to people more; I tried to be more social when all I really wanted to do was ...

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Curse of the Nutcracker

Submitted to Contest #284

He stood in the shadows, by the old, shriveled man's hospital bed--pensive, listening to the beeping of the monitors, the steady breath of the ventilator, keeping the man alive. He tried to reassure his conscience of the inevitable: this man was going to die soon anyway. His mouth was parched. His hands--trained to save lives, not take them--shook with fear and guilt. As he filled the syringe with morphine from the glass vial, Dr. Brad Telman wondered how things might have been different, if he hadn't opened that damned box.It was the day be...

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One Good Turn

Submitted to Contest #284

As I walked into the restaurant, the aromas attacked my nose. I smelled various meats, fish, and fried foods in this place. Man, it reminds me of home. My Mom and aunts cook the traditional Christmas Dinner, or more specifically, closer to my heart is dinner on Christmas Eve. I left home two days ago and was assigned this tiny spec of a base in the Midwest. I do not know anyone. I barely know the people I work with. I only met one person, and they are on leave till after the new year. The term skeleton crew is a severe understatement at...

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Passing Time in Silence

Submitted to Contest #284

The distant sound of a closing door and its metal locks woke me. Blurry eyed and dazed I grasped at my blanket as I slowly removed it from me, body shivering as winter chill ran its hands over me. With a grumble I let my feet hang over the bed's edge, reaching for my slippers that I had haphazardly kicked off last night before I had settled in.  “Of course.” I placed my feet down on the cold wooden floors and leapt to my slippers, sliding my feet into them as fast as I could. As I grabbed my padded hoodie from the bottom of the bed fram...

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Red Walls

Submitted to Contest #284

Going home for the holidays always feels strange, and as a second-year college student avoiding home as much as possible, this was no exception. But turning down the street this Thanksgiving, I felt a new strangeness. It was the same house, the same curved driveway, opening to the garage to the right of a creaky front porch that barely passed as such. There was the same tree in the yard, the same missing shingles on the roof, the same fence with a broken lock… but the scene was all together oddly unfamiliar.At first I admired the difference....

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Thanks to his Dog

Submitted to Contest #284

After a month in the hospital, it was odd to wake inside his own bed. Waking up in his house made the fact of his family being gone that more painful. Even with all the injuries crawling over his body, it was his soul and heart that caused him the most pain. As he lay in the bed, filled by the void left by his late Wife, he found himself dreading walking out into the rest of his house. But with his dog laying down staring at him, he knew it was time to get up and let him out. The man laid there a few more heart beats before he managed to get...

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The Man Upstairs

Submitted to Contest #284

                         THE MAN UPSTAIRS Patricia divorced me last month. She said I was a wastrel and was not good enough in bed to compensate. I needed money and I needed a holiday. I could just about afford Ireland. A mate who ran pubs in Central London came from a small place in County Limerick; I’d been there a few times and decided to revisit, reckoning on a bit of judicious gambling. An oxymoron perhaps- Patric...

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Train Ride Home

Submitted to Contest #284

Train Ride HomeBy Halle Giannelli It had been years since Ellen’s last train ride. An Amtrak from Birmingham to New Orleans, and a quick trip home from boarding school. She’d only taken a few short days for her father’s funeral and then returned to her studies. She’d associated trains with death ever since. Her only comfort on that trip had been Bill’s company. He’d insisted on escorting her, though her mother disapproved, as they weren’t married yet. Those types of things used to matter, but not so much anymore. There was a time when Ellen ...

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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...

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You don't get something for nothing

Submitted to Contest #284

It was a couple of weeks before my father's anniversary of his death and Christmas was just over a month away.This could not come at a better time .I had just moved into my new place with my 3 children, this was a fresh start .I received a call from my friend with an amazing deal, "How would you like to go to Grenada for a week, no expenses, you just have to pay for the name change?" "what's the catch?" I said , "no catch, just a name change, it's a guy I know , I'll pass you his number so you can chat to him" he replied.This sound...

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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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The Serpent We Know: A Holiday Tale of the Arts Department

Submitted to Contest #284

“Could I get mansions covering ten thousand miles, I’d house all the poor scholars…”Du Fu “By the way, we’ve got New Year’s plans,” Wei Zhao announced as she pulled into the long drive in the campus fringe of Mulberry. Wei heard the entomologist sink into the upholstery.“I thought we were doing a peaceful evening of Huluween horror, Sichuan Palace and Papa John’s, and bringing 2025 in with a bang or maybe three,” Will sulked.“Now, that’s a Hallmark movie I’d watch,” the University’s youngest tenured prof mulled, waiting out the ailing garage...

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Aunt Carol

Submitted to Contest #284

Thanksgiving at Aunt Carol and Uncle Dean’s comes around as often as the Olympics. If the two events were to be compared, the one adjective that could apply to both is spectacle. Unlike the laid-back football focused years at Uncle Robert and Aunt Cece’s, or the understated yet budget breaking Martha Stewart cross Meghan Markle aesthetic at Aunt Janice and Uncle Logan’s, Aunt Carol stops at nothing for a memorable meal. In typical Aunt Carol fashion – always ridiculously early and fastidious in her expectations – she set the Whats App famil...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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