Holiday Magic: The next year

Last year at this time, I wrote a story that hit the notes of romantic nostalgia, which I titled "Holiday Magic". Many of you liked it and it continues to be a well read post on this blog. This year, I have written the sequel to that story; I hope you like it as much as last year's.

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What if this year for the holidays, she did something quite different. For the past number of years, she had kept herself alone in a house filled with beautiful decorations and wishful thinking. It was good, but this year she felt ready for something different. More active, a bit more bold.

Why decorate the house and then wait for him to arrive when she knew damn well that he wouldn’t — because he couldn’t. He was dead. She knew that. Though he lived on in her heart, in her head she knew he was gone forever from this plane of living.

So.

This year, she would break that habit of looking back and longing, of sitting waiting for the past to become the present, and instead, she would give herself a new option: Looking forward while being planted firmly in the present.

Theirs had been a love story for the ages — like kismet when they had met, the thunderbolt of recognition between them had been palpable. Everyone who had witnessed that first encounter agreed. Though she and he were at opposite ends of the boardroom table, their eyes had met, locked and held through the silence that fell across the meeting. Someone coughed and the moment broke, but their hearts were bonded from that moment on.

Their connection grew from an intense affair into a committed relationship, dripping with romance and just enough reality to keep things steady. They had quickly moved in together, into her small and charming cottage-style home, where they settled into a contented routine of work outside, love and romance inside. Never could they get enough of each other.

The accident that took him from her was shocking. It happened and he was gone. The paramedics assured her he had felt no pain, had known nothing.

But she lingered in that halfway living, not believing yet knowing that he was no longer, though she was — here, needing to go on living. Which she did through most days of the year. Except on the night of Christmas Eve when, for the past few years, she had set the stage for romance and reconnection and had indulged in memories of the past. Nothing ever happened, but she loved the build up, and was prepared for the let down.

But today she made the decision to turn the corner, to settle firmly with the truth and the facts. She realized she was ready to move on and to return completely to the land of the living.

This year, finally, she would accept the invitation her good friend Thomas extended to her every year. This year, she would take her homemade quiches and sausage rolls, the cheese and the Christmas cake and mince pies to Thomas’s beautifully decorated home and she would allow herself to celebrate a different kind of love. That of a friend who didn't make her heart skip but who made her felt seen and held by emotions unencumbered by romance or sex. What she had with Thomas, she had always known, was good, special even. These feelings between a straight woman and a straight man that were real but platonic — they were exceptional and deserved to be both honoured and nurtured.

Yes, this year, she would put on her flowing black pants, her off-white cashmere tunic topic, and her favourite butter-soft deep-red low-heeled boots, and she would allow herself to enter this holiday season as a new beginning.

If she gave herself this permission, then anything was possible. And maybe, just maybe, Thomas would have invited that alluring colleague of his, the one with the slight French accent and the fascinating stories of his work abroad.

Yes, this year, she would allow herself this new beginning. It was time, and she knew her first-and-always love would understand. He would be in her heart, always, but it was now right that she should move beyond what they had had together to what she was able to create for herself, without him. The best future is always built on a solid past and this, she knew, he had helped her build.

So, this year, she got dressed, drove herself across town to Thomas’s house, and entered into the holiday spirit with a renewed sense of hope and possibility in her heart. She needed no other gift. This year, the gift of possibility — of WHAT IF? — that she was giving herself was enough to gladden her heart and fill her need for Christmas contentment.

She knocked on the door and crossed the threshold into her future.

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This story was inspired by three questions: What if...? Then what...? So what...? Children's author Jane Langton believed these three questions must be asked by any writer wanting to create magic. The answers to them become the threads of the story. For example, Charlotte’s Web: What if a spider could weave words into her spiderweb? What would the spider choose to say, and why? Whose life would be changed, and how, by such a miracle? 

In this year's story, I asked myself what if my character from last year's story chose to move on? Then, what might she do? And what might happen next, how could her life change? I leave the answer vague to that third question...but there is always next year, isn't there. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash