When Thanksgiving ate Christmas and Halloween burped

I stumble into my best friends home, November 15th. Piles of luggage tumble on the floor, and we rush to walk the yippity furballs currently frantically dodging good old fashioned bonks. We push the bags and packs to the middle of the room so can I begin my routine.

Check the kitchen: clear the garbage disposal, wiped it with a sponge, run water; look at every room and memorize how to put everything back; saunter into the bathroom, admire the bidet; plug in my computer; charge my phone; take a breath. I'm on the job while she's on vacation. Nothing gets through me.

I get two seconds into it this round while my companion sinks into the couch before I stop to announce, "This is offensive." Then I immediately unplug the silver Christmas tree, only slightly bigger than the two chihuahuas being walked by my other companion, taunting me on the scarf shelf by the door.

The couch companion's head swivels. Drama? Gossip? "What's offensive?"

"The Christmas tree," I say at the same time she says, "Oh. It's the Christmas tree, isn't it." Its not really a question and she doesn't even ask me why. She fails to add a spoiler alert when she pins the followup tale-on-my-donkey-reason at the exact same time I blurt my annoyance.

Me: "It's barely November."

Her: "It's because it's not even Thanksgiving, isn't it."

I huff. "Halloween is holding its own by the skin of its bloody nails. Even July is starting to get assaulted by Christmas. There's like, 50 holidays in November." I begin to list them off as she rolls her eyes. I be sure to include the October/November crossovers. "Christmas needs to back off." My growl startles the dogs, newly returned from their walk.

"What's wrong?" the short-straw-drawing dog-walking companion asks. The couch companion rolls their eyes and points at the little tree I'm hauling to the closet. The dog walking companion laughs. They know exactly what's in store come December 1st. Clearly they feel my umbrage is over the top, but they zip their lips while I rant.

"You get all month. Day 1, Mariah Carey is on. Day 2, We're gonna belt 'I wanna hippopotamus for Christmas'. Day 3, The house is going to be lit. Like lit lit. Candy canes? Nutcrackers? Tinsel. Everywhere. Gonna be everywhere. All I ask---all I ask---is you stay in your lane, Christmas." I grunt as I grumble as I stuff the tiny tree into the over flowing linen closet. A few skeletons tumble out.

Ahh, this is the stuff of resentment. I almost feel bad for the little tree. Halloween's gonna take its chance to pummel Xmas. I drag the short-pint back out of the linen closet, gently closing the narrow door on the grins of ghoulish plastic pumpkins. I swivel my neck a few too many times and then hide the mini Christmas tree behind the massive plant stand.

I pause, uncomfortable. I feel like I've made it a voyeur, trapped and peeking through bars of cactus sheafs and lily stems. I pick it up again while my companions watch me trot to the kitchen. The cabinets are full. I had been instructed to "Eat everything!", but I haven't been here long enough to free up cabinet space. Finally, I find a small nook behind the couch. I settle the thin shiny limbs into place and carefully drape a dog blanket over the plastic fir-baby.

I give it a gentle pat and then, for good measure, snort angrily through my nose at the personal insult of creeping holly berry and early Christmas jingles. Not in my November suburbs. "Don't even try it, Xmas. Don't even try it."

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About the Challenge

This piece was written for Laura Pruett's "Holidays? Holy Days? Pen It To Win It!" challenge, which is an unofficial poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction challenge. Basically this means the regular every-day-joe vocal contributor (not vocal staff) Laura Pruett gives a prompt from their own brain to challenge other writers to answer, and then we do, if we want.

This challenge requires the challenge author to work the names of three different holidays and/or holy days (any and all will do) into their piece (and link to the challenge itself). You can enter as many times as you like (this is my first, and possibly only, flash fiction entry), with whatever word count you like, as long as you include three holidays by name and put the link in the challenge comments by November 28st, 2024.

The unofficial challenge creator prefers embeds over links. This is my second time trying an embed (the first attempt at the bottom of this article failed miserably). But I'm a sucker for persistence so here we go.

And lo and behold, it worked!

About me

I'm a long time lurker, recently popped up to do a little creative writing after having only two pieces up for a ridiculously long time.

They are my favorite pieces and you can find them here and here if you'd like to take a gander:

Butter Cream: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/butter-cream%3C/a%3E

When we were young: https://shopping-feedback.today/poets/when-we-were-young-m7bv010dxa%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E%3C/blockquote%3E%3Cstyle data-emotion-css="14azzlx-P">.css-14azzlx-P{font-family:Droid Serif,Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,serif;font-size:1.1875rem;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.01em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.01em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.01em;letter-spacing:0.01em;line-height:1.6;color:#1A1A1A;margin-top:32px;}

Or, click these embeds that I'm flashing around, now that I've learned how to do it.