Clara lived in Merryvale where every lamppost wore its wreath
like a scar upon the town, where carolers spilled through streets
and children believed. She despised it—
the red, the green, the tinsel caught in her throat.
“It’s just another day,” she’d say,
face pinched, watching her neighbors hang their garlands,
their laughter ringing like bells that mocked her silence.
Then came the curse.
Not a curse of suffering—worse.
A curse of miracles, each one
more grotesque than the last,
landing at her doorstep like an uninvited guest
who refuses to leave.
Year one: snow in July.
Fluffed white flakes spiraling down
while Clara stood on her porch in shorts and a tank top,
mouth agape, the heat still radiating from the pavement.
Children shrieked with joy, building snowmen in July.
Mrs. Hargrove across the street threw snowballs at her grandchildren,
marshmallow-thick and rosy.
“I didn’t ask for this!” Clara screamed at the sky.
The snowflakes answered nothing,
just settled on her bare shoulders like cold accusation.
Year two: the turkey.
It appeared on her kitchen counter,
preening with theatrical indignation,
and began—unbidden—to recite Shakespeare.
“To roast or not to roast—aye, there’s the rub!”
Clara clutched her skull.
“Who gave you permission to exist?”
The turkey continued, chest puffed,
delivering soliloquies with the gravitas of a dying king
while Clara contemplated ham.
Year three: the elves.
They came through her door without knocking,
burst in like small natural disasters,
spinning and giggling, scattering glitter
across every surface until her home resembled
a rave at the North Pole.
“We brought holiday cheer!”
“No,” Clara said flatly.
“Cookies and cocoa!”
“I’ll die first.”
But something cracked.
That was the year she felt it—
the ridiculous joy these creatures carried,
stubbornly bright, unearned, unearned.
Through every absurdity—snowstorms and sonnets and chaos—
Mrs. Hargrove sat with her, mug warming between weathered hands.
“You can’t fight Christmas forever,”
she said.
“It has its way of finding you.”
Clara looked out at Merryvale,
its streets dressed in white,
and something shifted.
Not forgiveness—not yet.
But a crack in the fist she’d held so tightly.
Maybe next year would not be so miserable.
Maybe next year she would build the feast herself—
not because she wanted Christmas,
but because she was tired of being the only one not laughing.
Fine, she thought.
Let’s see what kind of miracle I can orchestrate.
And for the first time,
she smiled.