All I can write about is Christmas right now, and I'm a little blue. As evidenced by the piece I wrote yesterday.
Their small house was filled to the rafters with a cold quiet. All of the children and grandchildren had gone home, too early for her taste. The only left-over sound was the dry rustle of the dying flames, licking the last stick of wood, in the pot-bellied stove. Occasionally, a sonorous, pig-snort from her old, fat husband would punctuate the silence. He lie, passed out, in his forest green velour upholstered recliner, near the fire.
Even though she stood in the kitchen door, 10 feet from where the man slept, the smell of Jameson whiskey traveled on his exhale, warning her not to wake him. His scent overpowered the lingering smell of fresh-baked Christmas cookies and the cedar smoke drifting from the embers.
She tugged her red Christmas vest tight around her breasts and reached up to itch the spot on her neck where the grey, woolen turtleneck had worried a rash on her flesh. The hair she had curled so neatly close to her scalp felt tight, as if she could feel it graying as she stood waiting for her youth to come back.
Slowly she stood, pushing off of the doorframe she’d been leaning against and began to clean up the chaos that only grandchildren on Christmas Eve can create. The scraps of wrapping paper lay crumpled on the floor. Spots of smiling elves and laughing angels, flying against a red backdrop, made a noisy argument as she stuffed them into the thin, white plastic trash bag.
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