All About Christmas

By James Lynch

All about Christmas is a collection of all newly written short stories surrounding the Christmas holiday season. It's a literary Advent Calendar, to be read one story a day from December 1 through December 24.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365522574

James Lynch

James Lynch was born and raised in and around Milwaukee, WI, the second of five children. At 6'4" in height, he is by far the shortest male in his family. His dog is more popular on social media than he is.James grew up consuming storytelling in many forms, from Dickens novels to Japanese tokusatsu. He takes his work very seriously and himself not at all.

Book preview

All About Christmas

All  About Christmas

By

James Lynch

All   About  Christmas

By

James Lynch

Copyright  2016

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-365-00498-8

Cover photograph taken by the author

Dedication

To moms everywhere, especially mine,

who always know how to make Christmas special

Forward/Author’s Note:

I originally got the idea to write a book of stories surrounding the Christmas holiday and they were to be read like a kind of Advent Calendar, one a day from December 1st to December 25, Christmas Day.

I got the idea for three of the stories one day after a nice afternoon nap on the couch. They just came to me, snippets really, and I wrote them down mostly in note form. One I ended up finishing that afternoon. I never thought the rest would come to me in time to finish it all by Christmas. I was right. 

I’d think about it from time to time, but for the most part I just let it go. I guess it was a kind of writer’s block that you hear about. You can’t force these things. I figured if it was meant to be, the rest would come in due time. I went with the flow.

In May of the first year, I got the idea for three more stories and jotted down some notes so I’d remember what my thoughts were. I wrote those stories the next day.

At that point I was one quarter of the way through and I knew the rest would come. I’d just have to be patient. That year’s Christmas came and went though and the work wasn’t finished in time. It wasn’t until the fourth year that it all came together.

I decided not to write a story for Dec. 25. As that is Christmas Day, you should be doing things more exciting than reading a story about Christmas that someone else had written. Your Christmas should have its own story unfold for you as it happens. I hope it’s a great one.

Merry Christmas!

Jim

December  1

A Carpenter’s Dream

A carpenter and his wife awoke one spring morning after the winter snows had begun to melt, but before the spring flowers began to bloom. I wished for a child, he said. What? she asked.  It happened last night while you were asleep. I had a dream it was Christmas. We had a cradle by the fireplace and I heard crying coming from within it. I awoke and wished for a child. Oh, she said. His wife smiled, but didn’t make anything more of it. They had wanted one for so long and yet none had come.

The carpenter went into the woods early the next morning to find the perfect tree to make into a cradle. He was on a mission to finish it by Christmas, and with all of his other work he knew that time would be short.  I know if I make a cradle, there will be a newborn in it by Christmas, he kept telling himself.  Finally he would have someone to teach his skills to and be able to pass on his work.

He did build the cradle in time. It was Christmas Eve. He woke very early the next morning. His wife wasn’t next to him, and he could hear what sounded like cries coming through the bedroom door. He rushed out and saw her sitting in the rocking chair with a blanket bundled in her lap. Look, she said. And in the cradle lay their cat, which had just given birth that night to six kittens. They remembered the dream he had and both of them laughed.

A couple of months later when he came home she gave him the news. We’re having a child, she told him. They cried and cried and held each other, rejoicing in their good fortune. Their hopes were finally going to be a reality and the cradle would hold the child he had built it for after all. That year’s Christmas would hold extra special meaning.

December  2

A Cat Called Christmas

I was just barely 18, far away from home and on my own for the very first time. I grew up on a farm in a small town out west, and I had never traveled very far from there before. Now I was in college and found myself half way across the country, far from the comfort of my familiar surroundings. I was sharing a dorm room with a total stranger, and realized I mostly unprepared for what I was now facing.

I couldn’t afford to go home for Thanksgiving that first year. One of the students who lived nearby invited a few of us to spend the holiday with him and his family. Although the food was great and the people were really wonderful, it just didn’t seem the same as before. I missed being with my own family.

I had a part time job working in a warehouse loading delivery trucks. One evening, as I was nearing the end of my shift, I heard some commotion coming from the back of the warehouse. I went to investigate and discovered a small cat. It looked like it might be hungry and came right up to me, winding itself around my ankles and waving its