My Christmas present to you: a cute story.

What follows is fiction.  It is not based on me or my family.  We know what happened to our wise man.

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    I carefully unwrapped all the pieces for the nativity set before I arranged them into a scene. My husband was helping the kids with the outdoor decorations, which gave me a chance to create the scene my way. The kids would rearrange it every day between now and Christmas. I’d stay out of the discussions about whether the lamb should be under the roof to stay warm, how far away the donkey belonged, and if it made more sense to put Mary and Joseph together or on opposite sides of Jesus. I’d simply do it my way first and listen in on those debates later.
    My husband had given me the set the first Christmas after our wedding. This would be its 20th year on the same mantle. It was still in excellent condition except that a wise man had been missing for years. What happened to him was still a mystery. There were plenty of theories, some more fun than others. My oldest daughter believed one of her siblings broke him and hid the evidence. My youngest daughter insisted he refused to ask for directions and was off somewhere following the wrong star.
    I started with the little shepherd in the field. I wished we didn’t have to imagine so much of his flock. I set the open stable against the wall and centered the holy family within it. I was standing the remaining wise men in their places when my husband came in looking exasperated.
    “The kids are still arguing over where to put the lights,” he said, “and they have six strings left. I think it’s going to take us all afternoon.”
    I nodded my lack of surprise.
    “Looks like I’m just in time,” he said. He opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out something lumpy wrapped in red tissue paper. “Here. Open my present now.”
    The size and shape of the item, along with his comment on timing, suggested it would fit my nativity set. But I did not get my hopes up. We’d tried and failed to find a wise man that matched two Christmases after he disappeared. I unwrapped it slowly, wondering if I should pretend to by happy with one that clashed horribly with the rest or refuse to display something that would bug me.
    The front door slammed as our oldest son entered the house. “We need a ladder to get lights on the roof.”
    I looked up from the present. “We don’t have a ladder tall enough to reach the roof.”
    “And we’re not buying a ladder just for Christmas lights,” my husband added. Though he shot me a questioning and slightly hopeful glance as he spoke. The man was usually one flimsy excuse from a trip to the hardware store.
    I tore away the rest of the tissue paper.
    “You found him!?” our son exclaimed.
    In my hands was an exact copy of our missing wise man. I felt similar shock.
    “We can pretend he’s the same one, but I actually lucked into someone on ebay who has broken several pieces and was selling the remaining ones individually.”
    “Cool. I’ll tell everyone you said we have to put the lights on the porch.”
    I watched my son retreat to the front door without correcting him on what I’d really said. He was a wily teenager who had likely volunteered to ask about the ladder because he knew we didn’t have one. Then I turned to place my present in his place as I said, “I guess I can’t pretend he’s off tending his camel anymore.”
    “You can pretend he’s faster than those other two,” my husband said. “Lazy wise men haven’t even started unsaddling their animals and his camel is already taking a nap.”
    I laughed, and I hugged the man who could still make me laugh, the man who had evidently kept looking for something I wanted years after I’d given up.
    The front door slammed again. “Mom!? Did you really say I can’t put any lights on the mailbox?”
    I felt my husband sigh as he turned towards the disturbance. It was my turn to give him something. “Let me get my coat,” I said, “and I’ll help you all sort out the lights.”

Puzzle #1 – Is the woman in the story arranging nativity set A, B, C or D?

Puzzle #2 – Did her husband replace wise man 1, 2 or 3?

Click here for the answers.

Here's a Thanksgiving story and a puzzle and maybe a new tradition, too.

This month (and next month) I’m going to combine my old hobby of writing very short fiction for end of year posts and my new hobby of creating puzzles.  Happy Thanksgiving!

____

    I sat in my usual seat for Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of a place card, there was a blank slip of paper and a pencil. I sighed, despite expecting it. “Isn’t it time to retire this tradition? It’s so… weird.”
    “No. I think the word you’re looking for is fun.” My brother Andrew gave me a cheeky grin as he folded up his paper. He’d already written a name.
    My family had a morbid tradition of naming the turkey we were about to eat. We’d done it so long I didn’t remember how it started, but I guessed it’d been Andrew’s idea.
    “I want to name it Solomon,” David said.
    “You’re not supposed to tell us,” Caleb said.
    “But if my name doesn’t get picked, no one will know how good it is.”
    “You can tell us after we pick the name.”
    My little brothers glared at each other for a moment before David backed down. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll write something else.” He stared at his paper looking defeated.
    “Solomon might not be the perfect name for a turkey anyway,” Dad said. “How wise could he be if he ended up on our table?”
    “I meant wise for a turkey,” David mumbled.
    I decided to play along quickly to get it over with. There was a boy in my grade who was super annoying. He called me Abby-Fail instead of Abigail. It made no sense, and that seemed to be why he thought it was funny. I jotted down his name. It’d be ironic for a bird. As I folded up my paper, I saw my mom show hers to David.
    His whole face brightened and he began to scribble on his paper.
    I’m not sure Caleb would have dared to correct Mom, but it was probably best that he hadn’t noticed. He was putting his name in the paper bag Andrew held out to him.
    The bag went around the table for everyone to slip in their names. It come back to Andrew, who always pulled out the winning name. That was another reason I thought he’d started the tradition. He gave the bag a shake while Caleb and David did a drumroll on the table. Andrew reached in, unfolded a paper, and drew his eyebrows together. “This isn’t a name,” he said.
    “That must be mine,” Dad said. He leaned to look over Andrew’s shoulder before he nodded. “You could call a turkey that, and I think it’s going to make him taste better.”
    Andrew laughed and announced our dinner’s name. I was thankful my name wasn’t picked. Dad’s was better.


Puzzle #1 – Fill in all the names the family members submitted for the turkey.

Puzzle #2 – Which name was chosen?

Ready to see the answers?

I'm not revealing anything.

I don’t understand cover reveals.  I mean, I do but I don’t.  We can’t judge anything by its cover, right?  The cliché can be applied to everything from people to presents to the Millenium Falcon.  (She’s got it where it counts.) But it most aptly applies to books and their literal covers. 

I’ve seen authors do countdowns (In 12 days, you can look at a picture!) and even try to turn the first peek at a cover into some sort of event (The first 100 people to look at the picture get entered into a drawing to win a bar of soap!!).  I’m not sure the cover is something to try to get readers excited about.  Aside from the fact that viewing a jpg is not an event, a picture is an art form completely different from a story.  The people who like the cover may not be the same people who like the story.  Plus, most authors don’t make their own covers so it feels a little like suggesting someone else’s skills might make your work good. 

On the other hand, creating a cover is a necessary step in creating a book, one that still sneaks up on me every time.  What!? I need to make another cover.  <grumble>  I know that cover reveals are mostly about saying the book is one frustrating step closer to being available to read.  That is something to get excited about.

I’m not revealing anything, but you might notice a new cover if you look around.  In fact, depending on how often you stop by, you might notice more than one.  Because I make my own covers, I can say with authority that the other ten or twelve versions of flowers and a pizza box were not as pretty as this one.  That feels like appropriately lackluster fanfare.  The cover may not look like much if you like a funny love story, but the book has funny and love where it counts.  I hope you’ll agree.

And if you’re looking at the wrong new cover, you’re probably confused about why I mentioned flowers and a pizza box.  An interesting note about the Heart Games covers is that they have puzzles similar to the puzzles on the inside.  You might actually get an idea whether or not you’d like those books based on your reaction to the cover.  It’s like they are trying to negate everything I just said.