Christmas Short Stories

Amy’s Carol

Amy Penrose was engaging in an irrational act. She knew that it made no sense and yet she pursued it with great care and deliberateness. She was baking bread, that was what she was doing. In the gathering dusk on Christmas eve in the little fishing village along the Oregon coastline, she had gotten her sourdough starter out of her freezer where it had rested for more than a year. That was the day before yesterday so she couldn’t deny that there was some deliberateness in her doing it. The starter had thawed and come to life, making bubbles in a crock she had inherited from her mother. She’d inherited the sourdough starter, too, so there was a sense of history in what she was doing. She had four loaves of bread now tucked into the baking pans, the tops moistened with a little butter to keep them from cracking as they raised. [read more]

Xmas at Abby’s Diner

Abby Kent parked her Cherokee by feel, pulling into the parking space through a fog she could not see through, and wondered why in the hell she had even gotten out of bed on this ugly Christmas morning. She had never opened her place on Christmas before, but truth was she had nowhere else to go. It seemed like a better option than spending Christmas day creeping about her big old house listening to the ghosts of Christmases past. [read more]

Read full stories: Amy’s Carol | Xmas at Abby’s Diner