The Kilkenny Observer Newspaper is delighted to present our
‘2024 Christmas short story series’. We have invited five Kilkenny based writers to submit a short story over the coming weeks, which we hope you will enjoy.
This is week three and we welcome Patrick Griffin.
Melted cheese for Christmas dinner, Martin thought grumpily. What were they playing at?
We sat, the four of us, beside a blazing hotel fire, surrounded by tinsel and used Christmas crackers. I had joined the few remaining members of our staff; John, Phil and Bergen from accounts. Another Christmas staff dinner was over. I usually avoid them, but because it was Bergen’s first Christmas with us, I felt that I should attend, if only for his sake.
The conversation moved to the topic of snow. John complained about the weather forecast.
“Snow, that’s what we’ll have to put up with next. Isn’t it enough to have to tolerate Christmas and the stupidity of overspending that goes with it?”
I wouldn’t have expected him to say anything else. John was our Scrooge in modern dress. Phil was quiet, as usual. As for Bergen, well, he was different. He had brought a touch of the exotic to the office.
“You Irish have no idea of what a proper Christmas is like,” he said. “You should live through a Norwegian Christmas. Snow, crisp and white, frost at minus ten degrees at least, and silence like you’ve never experienced it. That’s what the snow does. It’s like a lid on the noise we have to contend with each day. So, particularly at Christmas we welcome the falling of fresh snow. We look on it as the extra gift that makes the season special. In our country we say that a wish made when the snow falls always comes true.”
“Bloody nuisance, if you ask me,” John muttered.
I was about to tell him that I had no intention of asking him anything, but it was the season of good will, so I said nothing.
“The children add a special wish on Christmas Eve – that snow will fall,” Bergen continued.
John ordered another round of drinks. I was glad of the distraction of an extra hour or so sitting at an open fire. It was preferable to going back to my empty apartment.
Until then, Phil had said very little. When he was quiet like that it usually meant that he was building up to something.
“Did you ever wish for something you knew you couldn’t have, no matter how much you wished for it?” he asked.
Phil was the sort who posed questions without really expecting any answers.
“I was about six years old,” he continued. “A wooden train set was all I wanted. Nothing more, just that.”
He stared into the fire.
“I never got that train set. I guess I didn’t wish enough for it when the snow fell.”
“That’s it? Don’t tell me you still haven’t got over it,” muttered John.
“Just reminiscing,” Phil said. “It was a long time ago.”
We finished our drinks and left the hotel bar. Phil said his goodbyes and John muttered something about a Happy Christmas. I walked with Bergen as far as his house, said goodnight and continued towards my apartment.
As I walked I thought about what Phil had said. Just for a few minutes he had been a boy again. I passed a late night store and decided to pick up a few final gifts. I always seem to leave things to the last minute. This late on Christmas Eve I’d be lucky to find any stores still open. I peered through the window of a charity shop and looked at the discarded items which were now only someone’s forgotten memories. Sets of china cups, chipped Tiffany lamps and scarves which would not have been out of place on a character from a Dickens novel. On a night such as this I decided to purchase one brightly coloured scarf as a gift for myself at Christmas.
I made my purchase, wrapped the scarf comfortably around my neck and rummaged through some of the items on display. Just as I was about to leave, something in the corner of the shop caught my attention. I thought about it for a few moments and then I asked the shopkeeper to wrap it for me. That would take care of one last gift.
By then the streets were almost empty. In houses all over town, families were waiting for the morning, to hear the sound of children laughing, to watch them tearing the Christmas paper from presents lovingly bought, to witness magic becoming real.
And I had one last visit to make.
With the carefully wrapped gift under my arm, I hurriedly moved along the almost empty street and arrived at a house with a light flickering in the window.
I quietly placed the gift in the porch and slipped away into the night.
In the morning, in one house, a wooden train, with peeling paint, would surprise someone.
I smiled and took one last look at a sky filled with pinpoints of stars.
It was going to be a very cold night.
And, if I wished for it hard enough, there was always the promise of snow.
Patrick Griffin from Kilkenny is a Francis MacManus Short Story Competition winner and a contributor to local radio as well as RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany, A Living Word and A Word in Edgeways. His work was presented at the Frank O’Connor Short Story Festival. One of his plays was performed in Bewley’s Theatre, Dublin. His stories have been anthologised.
