Milk and cookies

The thing about Christmas Eve is that it always smells the same.

No matter where you are—apartment, house, shelter, hospital—the air carries that faint mixture of pine, sugar, and old heat. Even places that haven’t seen a tree in years seem to remember the scent. Like muscle memory. Like guilt.

I noticed it the moment I stepped into the living room.

The tree was lit. That was already suspicious . I was certain I’d unplugged it before going to bed. The outlet sat behind the armchair, and I remembered bending down, fingers brushing dust and needles, tugging the cord loose. I remembered it clearly because I’d cursed under my breath when the lights flickered .

Now they glowed steadily.

Soft. Warm. Almost gentle.

The room itself hadn’t changed much. Same old couch with the burn mark on the armrest from years ago. Same coffee table scarred by rings and scratches. The fireplace was lit low, embers whispering instead of roaring. Stockings still hung from the mantel—three of them, though there hadn’t been three people in this house for a long time.

And on the table sat the plate.

Cookies. Chocolate chip. Slightly overdone, just the way my mother used to make them. A glass of milk beside them, condensation running down the side and pooling onto the wood.

I hadn’t made those.

I stood there longer than I should have, coat still on, keys clenched in my hand. The rational part of my brain tried to fill the silence with explanations. Muscle memory. Sleepwalking. Stress. Neighbors playing a prank that somehow involved entering my locked house, baking cookies, and lighting a fire.

The rational part was losing badly.

I took one step forward, then another, listening to the floorboards complain under my weight. The sound felt too loud, like the house was holding its breath and I’d broken the rules by moving.

That’s when I saw him. An intruder.

At first, it was just red.

A shape beyond the edge of the tree, partially obscured by branches and tinsel. Too solid to be a shadow, too wrong to be decoration. I froze again, heart pounding, every nerve screaming at me to back away, to run, to do anything except keep looking.

But I looked.

He stood between the tree and the fireplace, close enough that the heat licked at the fur trim of his suit. The red fabric was darkened in places, stiff and uneven, as if soaked and dried more than once. A thick black belt cinched his waist, the buckle scratched and dull.

His boots were planted wide, heavy, leaving marks in the rug.

In his left hand, he held a sack.

Not the cheerful, bulging kind from mall photos and storybooks, but a coarse burlap thing, knotted at the top and dragging slightly on the floor. The bottom was stained darker than the rest, the fabric clumped and stiff as if something inside had leaked and then cooled.

In his right hand—

I swallowed hard.

An axe.

Not decorative. Not antique. A real tool, the kind you’d buy at a hardware store and forget in the shed for years. The blade caught the firelight when he shifted his grip, reflecting it in a dull, wet sheen.

I never saw his face.

The hood of his coat hung forward, casting everything above his beard into shadow. I could make out the lower half—gray-white hair matted and uneven, lips hidden, jaw set—but nothing more. It was like my eyes slid away from that part of him, refusing to fill in the details.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t even breathe, as far as I could tell.

We stood there, separated by a few yards of rug and memory, and in that silence something awful settled into place inside me.

This wasn’t a home invasion.

This was an appointment.

My mouth felt dry. “This is not real,” I whispered to myself, because it was the only sentence that came to mind.

The figure shifted his weight.

The axe head dipped slightly, then steadied.

The fire popped.

Somewhere in the house, a pipe knocked, sharp and sudden, and I flinched so hard my keys clattered to the floor. The sound echoed in the room, impossibly loud, and when it faded I realized the figure was closer.

Not by much. A step, maybe.

Enough.

I backed up until my shoulders brushed the doorframe. My heart hammered so hard I thought it might give me away, like prey betraying itself in tall grass.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He tilted his head.

Just enough to suggest curiosity.

His boot nudged something near the tree, and I saw it then: a small box, half-hidden behind wrapped presents. It was old, edges frayed, the kind of cardboard you don’t see anymore. Something about it felt familiar in a way that made my stomach turn.

I knew that box.

I hadn’t seen it in decades.

“You’re not Santa,” I said, the words trembling out of me.

The figure took another step forward.

I smelled iron then, sharp and unmistakable, cutting through pine and sugar like a blade. The sack dragged again, leaving a faint dark smear on the rug.

Memory crashed into me all at once.

The year my father lost his job. The year the heat went out for a week. The year my mother cried in the kitchen because she didn’t know how to explain to two kids why Christmas wasn’t coming.
I remembered the knock at the door that night.

The man in the red coat.

Not jolly. Not smiling. Just tired.

He’d smelled like cold air and cigarettes. He’d handed my mother a box—this box—and told her it was “community outreach.” A donation. Anonymous.

Inside were toys. Warm clothes. Food.

Enough to make it through.

Enough to believe again.

My mother had hugged him. Thanked him. Called him an angel.

He’d looked past her, over her shoulder, and straight at me.

Even then, I hadn’t seen his face.

“What’s in the sack?” I whispered.

The axe shifted.

The figure reached into his coat with his now free hand and withdrew something small. He held it out, palm up.

A folded piece of paper.

I recognized my own handwriting immediately.

“For Santa,” it read, the letters shaky and uneven. A child’s hand.

My chest tightened.

“I was seven,” I said, voice breaking. “I didn’t know.”

The figure let the paper fall. It drifted to the floor, landing near the cookies.

Behind him, the fire flared.

Images crowded my mind—things I’d buried and labeled as mistakes, misunderstandings, accidents. The neighbor who disappeared. The rumors. The house down the block that burned after Christmas.

The gifts that always came, no matter how bad things got.

“I thought you were helping,” I said. “I thought—”

The sack twitched.

Something inside it shifted, heavy and solid.

He took one final step forward, close enough now that I could see the stitching in his gloves, the cracks in the leather of his belt, the way the fur trim was matted with something darker than soot.

I backed into the door, fumbling for the handle, tears blurring my vision.

“I don’t want anything anymore,” I said. “Please. I don’t want anything.”

For the first time, he moved quickly.

The axe came up—not in a swing, but a warning, the blade stopping inches from my chest. Close enough that I felt the cold of it through my coat.

He leaned in.

Still no face.

Just darkness beneath the hood, swallowing the firelight whole.

Then he lowered the axe.

Slowly.

Carefully.

He turned away from me and placed the sack down beside the tree. From it, he removed one last gift and set it gently on the table, next to the milk and cookies.

A small, neatly wrapped box.

My name on the tag.

He straightened, adjusted the sack over his shoulder, and walked toward the fireplace. The fire dimmed as he approached, shrinking back like a thing that knew better.

And then he was gone.

No smoke. No flash.

Just absence.

I didn’t move for a long time.

Eventually, the tree lights flickered and went out.

The fire died.

The house went cold.

In the morning, the plate was empty.

The milk glass was dry.

And the box on the table contained exactly what I’d asked for, all those years ago.

Enough to last the winter.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

I unplugged the tree and threw the cookies away.

I don’t celebrate Christmas anymore.

But every year, on Christmas Eve, I lock my doors, turn off my lights, and make very sure I don’t want anything at all.

Because some gifts are still being delivered.

And some Santas never stop keeping lists.