Day Twelve: Twelve Drummers Drumming

Christmas morning began with a sound so deep it felt geological—like the earth beneath the Stanley bungalow was clearing its throat.

For half a second, Stephen thought it was his pulse.

Then came the rhythm—rolling, relentless, tectonic.

The windows shivered.

The partridge shrieked from its perch in the living-room pear tree.

Roo jolted awake and immediately flopped onto her back—the household’s self-appointed Head of Tummy Tickle Operations, already clocked in and fully committed.

Jane sat bolt upright.

“No,” she said. “Not again. Not today.”

Stephen, pulling on a jumper with the grim efficiency of a man bracing for impact, crossed to the window.

Outside, twelve drummers in full marching-band regalia lined their frost-tipped driveway. Red jackets. Gold trim. Drums big enough to store regret in. Snowflakes clinging nervously to their hats.

Across the leader’s bass drum:

AUTHENTIC GIFTS CO. — FINAL DELIVERY.

Jane covered her face.

“Why do they always come in multiples?”

“It’s the theme,” he said, sounding like a man rereading his worst decisions.

She lowered her hands slowly.

“Stephen. I’m an illustrator who survived pipers at dawn yesterday. If this is more wind or brass I’m going to take legal action against Christmas.”

“Technically—” he began.

She held up a hand.

The rhythm outside intensified.

She withdrew to the corridor like a woman calculating exit strategies.

The bungalow vibrated like a drum being stress-tested.

The knock arrived in perfect sync with the bass.

“Good morning!” boomed the lead drummer when Stephen opened the door. “We’re the Twelve Drummers Drumming Experience! Festive finale. Full volume. You’re our final destination!”

Behind Stephen, Roo peeked out, barked once, then padded back to the rug to resume her belly-up tranquility.

Jane appeared wearing Stephen’s jumper and an expression that suggested premature widowhood if he said the wrong thing.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“Ma’am,” the leader replied politely, “we’re prepaid. Would you prefer indoor or outdoor acoustics?”

Jane closed her eyes for three slow breaths—the kind she used before opening an editor’s email.

Then walked away.

“Outdoor,” Stephen said.

The drummer grinned. “Excellent choice.”

Snow swirled harder, as if agreeing.

At exactly 8 a.m., twelve drummers snapped into formation across the driveway.

Neighbours gathered.

Someone in a dressing gown shouted, “If this is a flashmob, turn left—I need my charger!”

Another called, “Play something with a bridge!”

The French hens watched from the living-room window with aristocratic disdain.

A pigeon peeked from the bathroom vent, recognised Day Two trauma, and withdrew instantly.

The drummers began.

Thunder rolled through the cul-de-sac. Frost trembled on the hedges. A rhythm built so intensely it seemed to reach inside the bungalow and rearrange the furniture.

Jane and Roo stood at the window, Roo pressed warmly to Jane’s shin, both staring at the spectacle.

Jane murmured, “You’ve actually summoned an apocalypse using percussion.”

Stephen stepped beside her.

“I didn’t plan this.”

She raised a brow. “You planned everything.”

“I just wanted something… memorable. Something we’d laugh about later.”

Jane let out a tiny laugh—thin, tired, but real.

For a second, something warmer broke through her exhaustion, like the faintest thaw across iced-over ground.

A little boy in dinosaur pyjamas rushed out, brandishing a plastic bucket. The drummers shifted effortlessly to include him.

Jane sighed. “They’re good.”

“They are.”

“And alarmingly enthusiastic.”

Then—because the universe occasionally understood dramatic timing—it began to snow properly, flakes tumbling through the rising rhythm like handmade confetti.

Roo bounded outside, skidded gracefully into chaos, and rolled belly-up in the centre of the formation. The drummers marched neatly around her.

“Of course,” Jane said. “She’s the only one with coping mechanisms.”

The leader snapped his sticks upward.

The rhythm tightened—sharp, fast, cinematic.

Neighbours clapped.

A fox paused at the end of the cul-de-sac, listened, and left immediately.

Even the partridge gave a reluctant chirp.

Stephen felt Jane’s hand slip into his.

He held it—steady, quiet.

And in that moment, he felt something shift inside him: a realisation landing with the weight of overdue truth—that he’d filled their days with noise because it was easier than sitting in the quiet with everything he feared he wasn’t fixing.

The crescendo surged.

Snow spun in frantic spirals.

Then—

A perfect, echoing stop.

Silence fell like snowfall—soft, complete, almost holy.

For one suspended second, everything held still.

Then applause burst across the street.

Someone yelled, “Encore!”

Someone else yelled, “No!”

The partridge offered one approving chirp.

The lead drummer approached, handing Stephen a folded card and a candy cane.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stanley—delivery complete.”

He saluted.

The drummers filed away, boots crunching softly through snow.

Jane exhaled. “If I never hear another drum again, I’ll die happy.”

Stephen opened the card:

Thank you for choosing Authentic Gifts Co.

Wishing you peace, love, and quiet reflection.

He laughed hard—genuine, shaky, surprised.

The laugh cracked something open inside him, like breath after holding too much for too long.

By noon, the bungalow had achieved a fragile, astonishing state: silence that felt earned.

The hens dozed.

The pigeons hummed from the bathtub like monks.

The partridge muttered contemplatively in the pear tree.

Roo sprawled belly-up by the fire, paws aloft like a furry exclamation mark.

Jane curled on the sofa with a blanket. Snow drifted past the window. Winter light pooled on the floor, golden along the skirting boards.

Stephen brought two mugs of hot chocolate.

Jane accepted hers.

“It feels… wrong. Quiet.”

“It’ll stay,” he said gently. “For a bit.”

She hesitated—not dramatically, but with the small, vulnerable pause of someone afraid that believing in peace might jinx it.

“Okay,” she murmured, voice softening around the edges. “Okay.”

She rested her head on his shoulder.

“Stephen?”

“Yeah?”

“No more presents. Not ever.”

He breathed out a warm laugh. “Iteration complete.”

A real smile touched her mouth.

“Finally,” she whispered, with a softness that felt like permission rather than surrender.

He looked around at the soft wreckage of their life: feathers, glitter remnants, displaced cushions, evidence of days that had been too loud and too human.

For the first time, instead of guilt, he felt clarity.

He saw how tired she’d been. How frightened he’d been. How noise had filled the space where honesty should have lived.

Roo gave a small snore.

Snow collected quietly on the garden gate.

The afternoon light softened everything.

Jane whispered, “Merry Christmas.”

Stephen kissed her hair.

“Merry chaos.”

________________________________________

Epilogue — Keeping

When the last echo of drumming faded and the snow settled undisturbed on the quiet street, Stephen realised he was listening to something he’d spent eleven days drowning out:

Quiet.

Not emptiness—

but peace.

Jane sat by the window, sketchbook on her lap, Roo curled warmly at her feet like a comma in a long sentence. A faint smell of hot chocolate and cold air lingered. The winter sun cast long, pale beams across the floorboards.

Stephen watched her draw—small, absent doodles forming in the margin, the way she always drew when her heart began to unclench.

She caught him watching.

“So,” she said softly. “Was it worth it?”

He thought of everything—the swans, the hens, the pigeons painted white, the lords, the dancers, the pipers, the noise, the panic, the laughter—and the gentleness that had survived all of it.

“Yes,” he said. “Every unmanageable minute.”

She leaned against him.

“Then keep it. All of it. Just… smaller next year.”

He nodded. “Smaller.”

A beat.

“Probably.”

She nudged him. “Iteration.”

He smiled. “Iteration.”

Roo rolled onto her back with ceremonial precision—a tiny queen reclaiming her throne.

Outside, a single snowflake landed on the garden fence, glimmered, and melted before they could point it out.

Inside, the partridge sang one sleepy note.

For the first time in twelve days, the quiet didn’t feel like a gap between disasters.

It felt full.

Warm.

Kept.