It was truly the most wonderful time of the year for Alice. She loved the music, the cheer, the food, and most of all, the snow. Nothing filled her heart with more cheer than driving through nearby neighborhoods with Christmas music reverberating through her windows and her heart, chain smoking her Virginia Slims, watching the lights dance across the snowy decorations.
It was her pre-Christmas ritual, every year on the 18th, exactly one week before the holiday when Winter was days away and the holiday was breathing down her neck, whether she was ready or not. This was her thing. Her moment to feel the joy of the holidays. Never before had she missed. Until one foggy night, when the decorations would have been hard to see, but somehow extra magical, Alice met a man.
Like all the years before Alice had stocked up on cigarettes, queued up her epic playlist, and topped off her tank. Tangled between two hair clips and the cord to plug her phone in Alice found a five and a few singles. Across the street from the gas station Alice frequented was a café, where everything was overpriced under the banner of employee benefits and trendiness.
Alice was still wrapping her head around her order. It wasn’t a medium hot cocoa. It was a 20-ounce salted caramel chocolate hot. Or maybe it was a hot chocolate, 20-ounce with salted caramel? She shuffled herself forward right into the back of a very tall, broad man. The worn bills scattering onto the floor next to his buffed shoe.
He turned. His eyes trailing down the swoop of his nose. His was alarmingly tall, even for Alice who was of considerable height herself. He smiled, a smoker’s smile, Alice was almost sure. He said something her brain recognized as funny. Alice wasn’t sure even as she laughed what he had said. She apologized, they made small talk as they waited, they laughed. He ordered, and paid for her cup of cheer. Alice crammed her crumbled bills into the tip cup, and followed the train of his coat to a table. Before she knew it, it was 9:30. Max was running late, because of course his name was Max – probably loaded and somewhat entitled too – and Alice wanted to get moving before the early birds turned off their decorations.
Alice left the coffee shop excited. She was enthused about meeting someone who loved the holidays and Mr. and Mrs. Clause as much as she did. They had even joked about him coming along with her next time she went to check out the neighborhoods. The most extra of the toppings was his phone number on the decorative cup. Alice blushed and grinned simultaneously. Maybe holiday movies were real, after all? Chuckling to herself Alice disregarded this thought faster than it had appeared. Opting instead of the magic of a Virginia Slim to chase down her now cold hot cocoa.
The dangling icicle lights, just slightly younger than she was, danced up and down the blocks with her. The bright whites, the beaming reds and greens, even the stark blue ones – shape of Max’s eyes swirling behind them – lit up the Christmas magic inside her. The dancing figures, the oversized blow ups, even a skeleton with a Santa outfit on. All of it made Alice hum, feeding her sense of wonder. She was still beaming 20 minutes, blushing as she sipped the last of her cocoa, trying desperately to make it last. Even when her friend Christine interrupted one of her most favorite Christmas carols, the loud ring of her phone overpowering the entertainment part of the system, Alice was still jazzed up.
“Hey, come to Blue Ox tonight,” Christine demanded into the phone.
“Tonight? It’s already 11,” Alice said regretting answering the phone.
“Come now. Just for a few drinks. Please, it’ll be fun,” Christine started yammering into the phone. “Besides, that guy I’ve been seeing is here too. Please!”
Alice thought about the man she met earlier that evening, Max, his name swirled over her tongue. Maybe it would be fun – just for a drink or two. It seemed to also mean a lot to Christine.
It was the most wonderful time of the year, and Alice couldn’t ruin Christine’s night by not going, what would it say about her sense of holiday spirit? “Okay,” Alice said looking around, “I’ll be there in 10 or 15 minutes.”
True to her word Alice parked her car down the block 14 minutes later. Maybe tonight would be fun after all, she thought getting out of her car. Alice tightened her red scarf and buttoned her army green coat. As she crossed the street, she dug out her cigarettes, lighter, and phone. Before she could text Christine that she was here, she saw her coming down the front stairs of the Blue Ox. Great friends smoke alike, Alice thought.
Alice slid her phone back into her jacked and watched as Christine glanced over her shoulder, passing the door to the guy behind her. At first Alice was excited when she saw Max, even as Christine grabbed his hand, and wrapped him around herself like a blanket. As Christine jumped and waved, her ass brushing against him, Alice resisted the urge to snap her cigarette in half, swallowed and put on the nicest smile she could muster.
“Great to meet you,” “you too,” “cold out, eh” “worst time of year,” “best time of year,” small talk and chatter. They finished their cigarettes and headed inside the bar. After one quickly consumed drink, perhaps a whole 40 minutes later by the time she ordered, paid by credit card, got her drink and took her place across from Christine and the guy she’s been seeing, Max, Alice was back in her car and heading toward the next neighborhood over. Maybe there was some holiday magic left in the handful of lights still glowing into the darkness. Or maybe it was just darkness. . .
Naturally Alice would lose Max’s number and back off, but for the first time in her life Alice was angry about it. She was angry about letting go of something that felt sparkly, that felt like it could be hers. She was even more angry that Max had been playing her and her friend. Even if she explained the situation to Christine, there was no way that Christine would stop talking to the guy she had already been talking to for a few weeks now, and why should she? That was how it was supposed to work. But why? Why did it always have to be her? Alice thought as she whipped around the corner. This Christmas, Max. Last Christmas, Sam. Last Black Friday, Michael. Every year. Every time she met someone, they were dating her friend, they were dating her co-worker, they were literally buying a present that Alice helped picked out and ended up on an Instagram post of her neighbor, who she used to tutor in English.
Alice didn’t know how it was possible. She couldn’t even fathom how improbable it should be, but it was. Going back at least 6 Christmas Seasons it was.
Alice looked at the Santas lining the street, the blue lights, the white lights, the red lights, even though the majority of them were off she knew their true colors. All the blow up decorations as she was whizzing down the street.
Up ahead on her left was a large inflatable snow globe with a penguin couple looking happy inside. Alice rolled her window down further and lobbed the cup with Max’s number scrawled across the top through the window cackling as it bounced off the front of the plastic.
Santa and his elves. What had that cute old man ever done for her? Nothing. Santa and his reindeer. Just like everyone else. All over town, never seen with Mrs. Claus. Before she could think about what she was doing or the impact it would have Alice swerved her car toward the right taking out a large, blown-up Santa. “Ho, ho, ho mother fucker,” Alice said as she laughed.
Frosty the Snowman and that stupid magic hat. Not anymore (pop)!
She would spread her own magical cheer this year. As her car pulled back onto the road, Alice was angled at a large, plastic Santa. One that had to be from the 70s or 80s. Her favorite.
Fuck you, Santa (pwooshhk)!
Alice felt her tires lose traction with the road. Her car fishtailed back the other way. Santa no longer visible, nothing was visbil, only a whirl of lights until Alice’s car came to a halt. She looked around, she had stopped in the middle of an empty intersection.
She was okay. Her hands ran over her head, her chest, her legs until finally she grabbed the wheel to steady the shaking. Nothing on her dashboard indicated that there was anything wrong with her car. There seemed to be no one in the intersection or anywhere near to her. Everything seemed genuinely okay until Alice glanced in her rear-view mirror.
Behind her was her path of destruction littered with Santa limbs, torn plastic, and glitter she couldn’t imagine was environmentally safe. Alice felt awful. She had hit Santa. She had ruined holiday cheer. She was the anti-Christ. The devil incarnate. She killed Christmas and Santa and Frosty. She was a bad person. She was still in the middle of the intersection. Realizing this, Alice composed herself, looked ahead and began to pull her car forward. A darkness impeded her vision and Alice jammed on the breaks.
There in front of her was the largest inflatable Santa she had ever seen. And she had seen almost every Santa available for purchase in a 150 miles radius. The same ones, year after year, spruced up, but still the same. Alice was mesmerized. From the fluffy ball at the end of his hat, down to the body crumbled at his large, shinny feet.
Oh God. . . Had she hit someone? She finished pulling her car out of the intersection and parked on the right-hand side of the road. Alice fumbled for her cell phone as she tried to open her door faster than her shaking hands could work.
She looked down the block, to be sure no cars were coming. Down the block where she had been. Her destruction was gone – everything was in place as though she had never been there. Alice saw the large Santa, further back now, like his bindings had been broken and the non-existent wind had moved him. Now, he was on the corner of the street. It isn’t possible, Alice thought looking at the person still laying at his feet. It was like in those movies with the tunnel zoom in and out transition. Was it possible her one drink had been spiked? Alice contemplated as she continued over toward the large Santa. It could have been a write off for her wreckless endangerment of Christmas cheer, but that didn’t seem to be really either.
Alice took a deep breath as she looked down at the body. It was definitely a body. Blood trailed in almost every direction out from him. Very little of him looked human. The coat of his train dragged out against the wet street. His shoes no longer buffed but scuffed at the toes. Alice was sure if there had been an eye in either of his sockets, they would have been stark blue, like winter lights.
Alice’s phone shook as she called 911, “there’s a man. He’s been beaten, badly. He’s on the corner of. . .” As Alice looked up to check the street name, she made eye contact with the large Santa. She felt as though she were looking into real eyes.
“Ma’am? Hello?”
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.”
Alice shook her head and regained as much of her composure as she could. She gave the dispatcher the street names and confirmed that she would wait in her car until police arrived. She said nothing of her temper tantrum, her destruction, of the large Santa silently swaying in front of her, or knowing Max – though she would explain the last part when officers arrived on scene, if it in fact proved to be Max. But somehow, Alice knew.
“Return to your car, lock your doors. Officers will be there shortly, please remain on the line until they do. Okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” Alice said.
Alice looked back into the eyes of the Santa. Still, but so alive. Suddenly, one of them blinked. Alice took a sharp breath in pulled the phone away from her ear. Carefully, she pressed the mute button as she ran over to the large Santa’s leg and hugged it tightly.
Breathlessly Alice whispered, “thank you,” In the distance the soft scream of sirens could be heard. She opened her eyes, he was gone.
Wonder spread across her face. A sleazy man was dead. Someone, Santa of all people, returned her years of holiday cheer in her own Christmas miracle. A Merry Christmas, indeed, Alice thought to herself.