Below is the last chapter of Winter’s Eve–a six part holiday story.
If you have missed previous pieces:
The First Gift ~ The Second Gift ~ The Third Gift ~ The Fourth Gift ~ The Fifth Gift

It was the night before Christmas. My sniffles had receded, but my worry had deepened. Morning would bring my granddaughter one tiny doll; something to hold, but not enough to replace all she’d lost. She sat with me as I made our hot cocoa.

“Where’s the cinnamon?” I asked. A knock at our door interrupted her reply.

When I opened it, Charley bounded in. Doc Blue came holding Miss Paige’s hand and a book. Then came Mrs. Mittens carrying scarves. Miss Rose brought colorful bows. Mr. Crumb presented a cinnamon spice pie. “Thank you for bringing us together,” he said. They all looked past me to my granddaughter.

“It was you?” I saw her anew. Despite having lost the most, she had thoughtfully saved coal for weeks, ribbon for months, shared cinnamon and a story.

She nodded, “I thought it was better for all to be warm than some too hot, or too cold… Not everything cherished comes wrapped in ribbon… The green in our hands can be woven for others… Friends add spice… Books provide great adventures… Better to love another than a fairy tale.”

All night we rejoiced together, feasting and reading by the fire. Our home, once again full. As she nodded off in my lap, my granddaughter whispered, “A family isn’t given, Grandpapa. It comes from giving.”

Happy Holidays.
Wish granted.

…And so it was we all received the last gift. On this magical Christmas night, in our mountaintop village, Winter. From my granddaughter. Eve.

. . . . . .  The End . . . . . .

Happy Holidays to you all.
See you again in the New Year.

Below is an installment of Winter’s Eve–a six part holiday story.
If you have missed previous pieces:
The First Gift  ~  The Second Gift  ~  The Third Gift  ~  The Fourth Gift

Miss Paige told me later that when Doc Blue and Charley came to the library, the stacks were silent “like always.” Readers often came and went with joyous tales, but books and bindings couldn’t provide what she wished for. Love. Shelves held a thousand romances with handsome princes, but honestly she hoped for just one Mr. Knightly.

One afternoon, she had been moving a towering stack of books, when her life changed. “Hello?” rang a lonely voice with the bell.

“Coming,” said Miss Paige, the volumes in her arms hiding her visitor from sight. As she peered around the pile, it wavered and tumbled to the floor. She bent to retrieve the books, and knocked her head against something just as solid. Through spinning stars, she saw him.

Illuminated. That was how she described her first sight of Doc Blue, rubbing his own head. Charley bounded between them. Miss Paige blushed as the two of them gathered the books. Their fingers grazed and the connection was energizing. Enchanting. They could not let go.

At last, Doc Blue showed her the book. “Was it you who gave me this gift, Miss Paige? Or is ‘vanity working on a weak mind?’” He quoted from Jane Austen, and gave her the typewritten card.

Happy Holidays.
Wish granted.

She gasped. “It’s you? You’re my gift.”

“Me?” Doc Blue hoped, but then he wondered, “But if my gift wasn’t from you…”

“…who requested the book?”

Miss Paige knew. Soon, all of Winter knew, too…

Below is an installment of Winter’s Eve–a six part holiday story.
If you have missed previous pieces:
The First Gift ~ The Second Gift ~ The Third Gift

In addition to three gifts, the citizens of Winter had found a dreadful cold. Many of us had visited Doc Blue–his kindness and his dog Charley were both restorative. My granddaughter had seen him recently, and soon it was my turn. As he examined me, the doctor confessed.

“Everyone seems sedentary. Suffering,” he sighed. “I should be fulfilled by helping, but… it’s been a difficult year.” He held up a tongue depressor, but my friend was the one depressed. “Open wide. Say ahhh…”

I did as instructed, but inside I grieved for us both over the loss of my daughter and son-in-law. The accident had touched all of us in Winter, but I knew Doc Blue felt it more than most. He had been unable to save them.

After listening to my heart, he said, “I need a winter getaway. …to just scram… but who would look after Charley?” The dog’s tail thumped happily upon hearing his name.

That night, I later heard, Doc Blue found the fourth gift at his door.

Happy Holidays.
Wish granted.

As he and his dog settled by their fire, Doc Blue unwrapped it. A book. Travels with Charley–John Steinbeck’s adventures in America with his dog. Imagine Doc Blue’s delight discovering Charley could join him.

Then Doc Blue saw the stamp on the book. Winter Public Library. Was Miss Paige the giver? Doc Blue, and all of us, soon discovered it was not the librarian. It turned out he, too, benefited from the fifth gift.

Below is an installment of Winter’s Eve–a six part holiday story.
If you have missed previous pieces:
The First Gift ~ The Second Gift

After the first two packages appeared, we were two weeks closer to the holidays, and Mr. Crumb was visibly stressed. Orders for sweet and spicy treats were piling up faster than usual. He jokingly called this busy season Merrythanksgivoween, but even Miss Paige, the new librarian who had moved to Winter this fall, said she had never seen a man so flustered.

“The darling man… tiresome! Out of both ideas and cinnamon,” Miss Paige told me as she paid for new pencils. My granddaughter wrapped them. She was helping me at the store, her school out early again because of another approaching blizzard.

Miss Paige thanked us and added, “I loaned him my best cookbook, but then he was off to see Doc Blue. I’ve not yet met the doctor… he’s busy… but I have the romantic notion he can help poor Mr. Crumb from crumbling altogether.”

I glanced to a bare shelf, knowing I had recently sold my last jar of cinnamon to Doc Blue. I hoped he would share it with Mr. Crumb, but when the baker came to visit me the next day, the cinnamon he was holding had not been prescribed.

“It was at my door… tied with crimson ribbon.” His hand shook with excitement as he showed me the note.

Happy Holidays.
Wish granted.

“The librarian?” Crumb pondered. “The good doctor?”

Could Doc Blue also mend a girl’s heart, I wondered, but even before the doctor found the fourth gift, I knew that wasn’t possible.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The Fourth Gift will post next Friday. Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone.

Below is an installment of Winter’s Eve–a six part holiday story.
If you have missed the first piece:
 The First Gift

The story of Mrs. Mittens and that first gift blew around our tiny village like the big white flakes that continued to fall. Yet we were warmed to think someone was watching over even the poorest of us in Winter.

The second package appeared the day Mr. Crumb brought some of his coal to share with Mrs. Mittens. Soon after he’d arrived, Miss Rose, our florist, came bearing her own donation.

“It’s from last year, but when I heard… I wish it were festive, but it’s just plain green,” Miss Rose shrugged with apology. She presented several balls of yarn.

“Mrs. Mittens cried,” Mr. Crumb told me later that day when he came to my grocery to buy sugar. “All she whispered was ‘gratefulness doesn’t see color.’”

But I know Miss Rose sees color everywhere, and a season of only white snow and evergreens saddens her. So each year I order colorful ribbon for her and the townsfolk. But the snow came early this year, and the ribbon did not.

Well, after visiting Mrs. Mittens that night, as Miss Rose left her flower shop, she nearly stepped on a small package.

Happy Holidays.
Wish granted.

“Two rolls of ribbon. Crimson and gold,” I told my granddaughter. I tucked her in and wondered who had given it. Perhaps the baker?

But I know he cannot fulfill the wish of this little girl. He can’t bake a family.

Besides, when the third gift appeared, everyone in Winter knew it wasn’t the baker…

. . . . .

Come back next Friday for The Third Gift

I recently asked readers through my author Facebook page to provide one word that came to mind about the holidays. I’ve used the responses to write a short holiday story. After all, this blog is called “Compositions,” so what better time of year to compose for others than a season of giving. So each Friday, between now and Christmas, you’ll receive a new chapter of the story. Six chapters total. Each one fewer than 250 words just like my blog posts. The words you gave me, or a form of them, are in bold.

I hope you’ll follow along and share it with others. You can sign up to receive them via email under “subscriptions” on my website. Happy Holidays. On with our story…

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was just before Thanksgiving when the first package appeared.

Our mountaintop village, Winter, had lived up to its name for over two weeks. More snow was expected to come, which always meant visitors and the postman would not. I had been heading home to the warmth of my own fire and my granddaughter, when I saw the apple box, like those I discarded behind my grocery store. I hadn’t received apples in weeks, so I stooped to inspect it. Sprinkled with snow outside the door of the old widow, Mrs. Mittens, the box had a simple typewritten note attached:

Happy Holidays.
Wish granted.

Soon the baker, Mr. Crumb, grumbled by. When Mrs. Mittens found us with the package, she asked us to carry the heavy box inside. I tried not to look at her battered chair or the empty knitting needles beside it. She lifted the lid. Inside were dozens of small bags, each filled with five lumps of coal. Her breath puffed out as she smiled, and it was then I saw her dwindling fire.

“I had so hoped for a cozy home,” she said. Mr. Crumb looked as embarrassed as I felt for not realizing how she’d suffered.

That night, as I told my granddaughter the story, she asked, “Do you believe wishes come true, Grandpapa?”

One week later, when a second package appeared, it further raised my little granddaughter’s hopes at the same time it dashed mine. She was wishing for something I could not give…