Tales of Hearth

The wind howled outside, shaking the loose windowpane in a way that sounded suspiciously like a goose honking in distress. Inside, the scene could not have been more different. A fire crackled in the old stone hearth, its warmth stretching lazily across the room like a sleepy cat. A pot of spiced cider simmered on the stove, filling the air with the smell of cinnamon and nostalgia.

In the middle of the room stood an overstuffed couch, where three friends—Charley, LG, and Lu—were huddled together beneath an avalanche of blankets. Charley had insisted on hosting a “cozy holiday retreat.” LG had translated this to mean “an excuse to stay in pajamas and eat our weight in snacks,” and Lu had translated it to “Charley’s annual chaos festival.”

“So,” Charley began, his mug of cider in hand. He adjusted the loose Santa hat perched on his head, which, by some cruel trick of gravity, always managed to fall over one eye. “What’s everyone’s favorite winter memory?”

LG rolled her eyes, crunching on a gingerbread cookie shaped like a questionable reindeer. “This again? Are we in a Hallmark movie?”

“Hey,” Charley shot back, “it’s called building traditions. You wouldn’t understand because you never make snow angels.”

“I don’t make snow angels,” LG replied, “because I don’t like getting snow in places it shouldn’t be.”

“Fair,” Lu chimed in, expertly balancing three sugar cookies in one hand while texting with the other. “But I’m with Charley. Winter’s about nostalgia. The good stuff. Like that one time I—”

“You lit your sleeve on fire trying to roast chestnuts?” LG interrupted.

“Hey, those chestnuts turned out great,” Lu protested, though he tugged his hoodie sleeve down as if remembering the singed fabric.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go first,” Charley said, settling deeper into his blanket cocoon. He placed his mug on the coffee table, which immediately tilted under its weight because one leg had been propped up with a stack of old coasters. “Picture this: little Charley, maybe six years old—”

“Wait,” LG interjected. “Were you actually a little goose? Or is this just your origin story?”

Charley ignored her. “It was Christmas Eve. My abuela had just finished baking her famous cinnamon cookies, and we were all sitting around the fireplace, drinking hot chocolate. And then—bam!—the power went out.”

Lu raised an eyebrow. “Spooky Christmas?”

“More like chaotic Christmas,” Charley said. “Abuela decided that if the lights weren’t coming back, we’d make our own light. She handed out candles, and we played charades by candlelight for hours. I was so bad at it, but she just kept laughing and guessing anyway, like she knew exactly what I was doing. It was perfect.”

The room fell quiet for a moment, the fire crackling softly. Then LG broke the silence.

“That’s nice, Charley. Really. But you forgot the part where you got so into charades that you knocked over a candle and almost burned the tree down.”

Charley groaned, flopping backward into the cushions. “Why do you always have to ruin the vibe?”

“Because it’s fun,” LG replied, grinning. “Your turn, Lu.”

Lu put his phone down and considered. “Okay. This one’s recent. Remember last year when we decided to make homemade ornaments?”

“Ah, yes,” Charley said dramatically. “The great glue gun disaster of ’23.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Lu said, though his smirk suggested otherwise. “Except for the part where LG got glitter stuck in her eyebrows for two weeks. And Charley somehow managed to glue his hand to his phone.”

“I was multitasking!” Charley protested.

“You were FaceTiming yourself to ‘test camera angles,’” LG shot back.

“Fine,” Charley admitted. “It wasn’t my finest hour. But the ornaments turned out cute.”

“Cute?” LG said, snorting. “You made a tiny goose wearing a Santa hat and called it ‘the Goose of Christmas Present.’”

“And it was adorable,” Charley said, unrepentant.

The three of them dissolved into laughter, the kind that starts in your chest and warms you from the inside out. Outside, the wind howled again, and Charley glanced at the window.

“Sounds like the Goose of Christmas Present wants in,” he said, grinning.

LG shook her head. “If I see an actual goose out there, I’m leaving.”

Lu, ever practical, stood and stretched. “Well, I’m going to grab more cider before the goose apocalypse. Anyone else?”

LG raised her mug. “Hit me with the good stuff.”

As Lu headed for the kitchen, Charley leaned back and sighed contentedly. “This is what winter’s all about. Cozy vibes. Good food. Friends you can laugh at—I mean, with.”

“Aw,” LG said mockingly. “Is Charley getting sentimental?”

“Maybe,” Charley said, chucking a pillow at her.

The evening continued like that—stories and jokes and the kind of camaraderie that made the cold world outside feel a little less daunting. When the cider pot was empty and the fire had burned down to embers, they finally called it a night.

As Charley turned out the lights, he paused to look back at the room, at the messy pile of blankets and the lopsided coffee table and the faint trail of glitter that no one would admit to spilling.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was warm and full of life.

And to Charley, that felt like the best kind of hearth tale there could be.