A Drabble Family Christmas Tale

By Kevin Fagan

Humorist Kevin Fagan is best known as the creator of DRABBLE, a nationally syndicated comic strip which appears in nearly 200 newspapers and online outlets in the USA and around the world. Fagan has written and drawn over 12,000 original Drabble strips and published 8 Drabble reprint books. DRABBLE is family humor in the great American tradition of Bill Cosby and Charles M. Schulz. The Drabble family celebrates all that is good about being a family. Kevin Fagan now has one very funny Christmas story about the Drabble family to add to his credit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin Fagan
• Release date: Nov 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301606535

Kevin Fagan

Humorist KEVIN FAGAN is best known as the creator of Drabble, a nationally syndicated cartoon strip debuting in March of 1979. At that time, Kevin was 22 and the youngest syndicated cartoonist on record. The Drabble family, features Ralph and June, the loveable parents of three not always adorable children - Norman, Patrick and Penny. Their pets, Wally the wiener dog, Bob the parrot and Oogie the cat, along with a few wacky friends and neighbors round out the Drabble household. Drabble fans--and there are millions of them--are animal lovers, sports fans, parents, grandparents, college students and kids. But mostly, Drabble fans are people who believe in the family and all that is good about being a family. Fagan has created an original cartoon six days a week for the last 33 years, each and every one hand drawn. He taps into what's best in family humor by turning ordinary daily life into relatable and very funny, shared common experiences in the great American tradition of Bill Cosby, Charles Schultz and Will Rogers. Drabble fans number some 4,000,000 daily readers in over 200 newspapers nationally and various online forums globally. To put those numbers in perspective, Drabble daily readership is the equivalent of a hit primetime television viewership. Also, Kevin Fagan has 8 published Drabble books to his credit. Fagan's catalogue of work includes more than 11,000 unique Drabble comic strips that offer potential strategic partners an extremely large pool of content for licensing and merchandising opportunities. Kevin's latest book is a delightful story, "A Drabble Family Christmas Tale" Now Available in paperback or eBook on Amazon. See more about Kevin and the Drabbles at drabble.com

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Disclaimer:

Any references to real people, living or dead and real events, businesses, organizations, and locales is intended only to give this fiction a sense of reality and authenticity.

All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts, is entirely coincidental.

The author copyrights this work of fiction in its entirety, and no part shall be used for any purpose without written permission of said author.

The Drabble Family Christmas Tale

by Kevin Fagan

© Copyright 2012 Kevin Fagan all rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

ISBN#: 9781301606535

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Formatted and published by Richter Indy Publishing

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Chapter 1

Ralph Drabble gets a funny feeling in his stomach at the beginning of every Christmas season (which, in the Drabble house, begins just before Labor Day). It’s not the same feeling he gets every time he eats a pastrami burrito down at Galtburger. It’s not quite that enjoyable. That’s not to suggest that Ralph Drabble doesn’t enjoy Christmas. He always has, ever since he was a little kid, and he has always tried to impart that joy to his own family.

Today, on the first day of December, as Ralph and his wife, June, drive their minivan to pick out a Christmas tree from the Boy Scouts, he really has a nervous stomach. Should buying a Christmas tree make a grown man this nervous? It isn’t an excited kind of nervousness; it’s just the nervous kind. This used to be fun when he was a kid—at least, as near as he can remember. His thoughts flash back about thirty-five years to when he would drive to the tree lot with his parents. Yes! It was fun. But now that he has a family of his own, things are different because—

Ralph! Watch the road! June cries out, scaring him to death. What are you doing?

"I am watching the road."

It doesn’t feel like it. You’re hitting every pothole. How am I supposed to put on my makeup straight?

Why didn’t you put on your makeup before you…I mean, you don’t need to put on makeup, Honeybunch! You look gorgeous!

Nice save, says June.

Besides, it’ll be dark there, Ralph nearly says, but does not. He often forgets his own one-comment-too-many rule, and is still congratulating himself for remembering it this time when the Boy Scout Christmas tree lot comes into view. And just like that, at the sight of those rows and rows of evergreens, his stomach is fluttering again.

He parks their minivan and walks with June to the lot, determined to overcome whatever it is that’s making him anxious. It’s ridiculous! They’re just picking out a Christmas tree, for Pete’s sake, not launching an assault on some enemy pillbox.

At the entrance, they are greeted by two cheerful twelve-year-old scouts. Happy holidays! they cry out.

Ralph returns the greeting, but wonders why on earth they’d be afraid to say Merry Christmas at a Christmas tree lot. Things really have changed since he was a kid.

For most of the year this place is just an ordinary vacant lot, but every year, right after Thanksgiving, it’s transformed into a holiday wonderland, decorated to the max for Christmas. Ralph always pays special attention to the decorations, but he really loves it all: the Christmas music booming over the loudspeaker, the way the air smells fresh like a pine forest.

June is a much more disciplined shopper. While Ralph gazes at the lights, she goes immediately up to a beautiful eight-foot noble fir and steps back as though visualizing it in their living room. Then she sees the price tag.

Maybe we should just go back home and decorate the ficus, she says.

For several seconds, Ralph visualizes the ficus tree decorated for Christmas in the living room of his home. He begins to like what he sees, but like any good-natured, middle-aged married man, he does his best to be reassuring.

Don’t worry, Honeybunch. That’s only the first tree. I’m sure they’ll have something in our price range. It may not be perfect looking, but you can live with something that’s not perfect-looking, can’t you?

I married you, didn’t I? She smiles.

"And besides, Honeybunch, there’s no rush. It’s only the first of December. Pretty early to be buying a Christmas tree! Maybe we should wait and get one on Christmas Eve when they’re— Whatdaya mean, you married me, didn’t you?"

Ralph, the sooner we get a tree, the better. Then I can concentrate on all the other stuff I need to do this month. Cards, gifts, decorating, baking, Secret Santa deliveries....

Ralph sighs, feeling another all-too-familiar holiday feeling: a twinge of impending holiday doom. His wonderful wife always overdoes Christmas to the point of spoiling the fun.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Ralph spots a potential winner in the Christmas tree derby. Actually, it’s probably the worst tree on the lot—so bad that it just has to be affordable. Big and bushy at the bottom, with a long, bare, spindly trunk rising pathetically up to the heavens. Perfect Just a bit of trimming and a can of spray paint.

Then Ralph looks at the price tag and feels the back of his neck bristle.

The frazzled tree costs nearly as much as the perfect tree they couldn’t afford.

An adult attendant appears. Hello there! Can I help you?

Ralph looks at him incredulously. How can you justify charging this much money for a tree that looks like this?

The attendant looks the disheveled tree up and down and says, Well, it’s a seven-footer!

***

The Drabble family lives on a quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac in a neighborhood that is pleasant, for the most part. When Ralph bought their modest home years ago, he never dreamed they would still be living there so