Miranda glanced down at her list as she made her way through the first store she'd come to after going into the mall. It started out with Mom, Dad, Sis, and continued through several other lesser relatives, and ended with her boyfriend, two co-workers, and a couple of friends. Nineteen names in all she counted.
"May I help you?" a bald little man said approaching her.
" Christmas shopping." She grunted. "Can you make any suggestions?"
"Well, we have these lovely sterling silver pens…They are the perfect gift for everyone." He held one up for her inspection. "And they come in these tasteful green gift bags, so you don't have to wrap them."
"I'll take 19."
Miranda carried her case of pens out of the mall to her car and drove home. She dumped the boxes under the tree. She dug through her box of gift wrapping supplies in the closet for a bag of bows and tags. She put a bow atop each bag and then searched through her purse for a pen to make out the to and from tags. When it took more than a moment to find a pen, she just decided to leave them untagged as she could hand them out randomly as they were all duplicates anyway.
Miranda mentally patted herself on the back for finishing her Christmas preparations so speedily and climbed into bed.
But no sooner than she's closed her eyes, she was awoken by strange noises. Miranda opened her eyes to see the most hideous creature standing in her room above her bed. He looked human except for his oversized ceramic head with bean sprout hair but he was dressed so ridiculously that he looked more amusing than frightening.
"Who…what are you?" Miranda asked pulling her quilts up to her chin protectively.
"I'm the ghost of Christmas presents." He said after spitting out the dual straws that led to two cans of beer that were perched on his hat like birds nests with some blue plastic contraption.
"Presents?" She echoed disbelievingly.
"Yes," he said.
"I don't like puns." She pouted.
"Or buying nice Christmas presents either obviosuly" He was loosening his orange, teal, and purple plaid necktie which hung misplaced over his lime green tee shirt that read 'all I got for Xmas was this damn shirt.'
"Those pens are silver, that isn't a cheep gift!"
"No, not cheep…just tasteless, meaningless, and careless."
Miranda screwed up her face into a frown.
"You could have at least put at least a bit of thought into your shopping," he said tapping her foot for effect, but the battery-heated woolen socks and pick fuzzy bedroom slippers he was wearing were not the right footwear to carry off the gesture of annoyance.
Miranda swallowed a laugh and forced herself to remember she was angry with her intruder…and should be afraid of him. 'I'm going to call the police."
"And what will they charge me with? Criminal fashion neglect?" the Ghost of Christmas presents said pointing at his black silk boxer shorts, which were covered with glow in the dark smiley faces.
"They'll charge you with breaking and entering, trespassing, and disturbing the peace," she rattled off.
"I'm no lawyer, of course, but I think Ghosts have something like diplomatic immunity." He scratched his chin, replacing his dual straws for a quick draw from his hat o' beer cans.
"What do I have to do then to get you to leave me alone?"
Tilting his head to one side, threatening to topple the beer can hat off his bean sprout Afro, he smiled…."Just promise to return those pens, first thing in the morning."
"Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and you want me to go to the mall? Do you have any idea how frightening the mall is on Christmas Eve?"
"More frightening than all the ghosts on the other side…and I can assure you, most of them are more frightening than me," he said "Nonetheless, I can't let you give your family and friends such thoughtless gifts, you'd be better off giving them some of these." He pulled a fistful of various themed
key chains out of his pocket. "Or maybe one of these," he gestured to his head.
Miranda paused for a moment wondering if he meant his beer can hat or his sprout growing head, but visions of spending Christmas eve at the mall filled her head. "I refuse to go fight the crazed crowds to buy nineteen well-thought-out gifts!"
"Then I refuse to leave." He climbed into her bed with her.
Miranda leaped up and turned on the lights hoping to banish the dreamed up ghost but he still sat there smiling, looking even more outrageous in the fully lighted room.
"Oh okay, fine! I'll return the pens and get other gifts."
"Well thought-out ones? You know what they say about it being the thought that counts."
"Yes, yes, thoughtful, meaningful, nice gifts." She sighed like a defeated politician.
'"Or rainbow striped suspenders or watches that play pop goes the weasel every hour, or no gaudy neckties?" He tugged again at his own gaudy necktie.
"No, I'll give nice thoughtful gifts, I promise…Now, please…go away."
"Very well," he said hopping out of bed and walking out of her room through a wall. However just as he vanished he poked his big head back through and added," I'll be watching you!"
Miranda's sleep wasn't further disturbed until her alarm clock sounded. Reluctantly and with a conciliatory nod to the spot on the wall where she's seen the Ghost of Christmas presents melt into, she drug herself out of bed, dressed and headed for the mall.
The bald little salesman frowned as she dumped the nineteen pen boxes back onto his counter, but alas, she waved the receipt at him, and he handed her a refund. Then she made her way through nearly every store in the overcrowded, loud, sparsely inventoried shop in the mall.
It was well past lunchtime when she finally walked back into her apartment with nineteen different and thoughtful presents. She spent four or five minutes gathering wrapping paper, bows, tags and two pens to fill out the tags with…then she sat down to start wrapping. By the time that was finished it was nearly dark, and she sat in a floor littered with scrapes of wrapping paper and other trash. Just as she had stood up to fetch her trash can, a huge ceramic head came up through the floor under the paper pieces. Miranda tried to shake the bats from her belfry as he rose up out of the pile of trash to stand eye to eye with her. "I thought I dreamed you."
He giggled, "Naw, you don't have a good enough imagination to dream me up, dear….very nice job." He nodded to her stack of nineteen presents piled about her little tree.
"But I spent less than half as much money on those as the nineteen silver pens had cost. Aren't you going to chastise me for buying cheep gifts?"
"Not unless they are fuzzy die to hand around their rear view mirror or battery powered socks." He lifted a foot to switch his own socks off. Then he slid back down into the floor, pausing just long enough mid descent to say "Merry Christmas Miranda." And then the ghost of Christmas presents disappeared.
-----------Ghosts of Holidays story by Sybilsue Strivelli (aged 13) The Ghost of Holidays Past I was laying in bed one night and I heard a something outside my window. I got up to see what it was and I saw a ghost outside. He was dressed in red and green and had holly in his hair. I opened the window to get a better look. “Who... what are you?” I asked “I am the ghost of holidays past and I am here to show you how people celebrated holidays thousands of years ago. Take my hand and I'll show you what I mean.” he said as he held out his hand. I was a bit hesitant at first, but I decided to go with him, deciding that all of this was probably just a dream. The moment I touched him, we were up off the ground and light was swirling all around us. A few seconds later, we ended up near a semi-circle of huge stones. I recognized the monument as Stonehenge. I started to ask someone what they were doing, but the ghost stopped me. “These people are unaware of us, we are invisible to them. They can not see us or hear us. These are the Druids building Stonehenge. They are building it for Winter Solstice, or Yule, which is the longest night of the year. It is being built to, in a way, welcome back the Sun.” “What year is it?” I asked him. “It is 2800 B.C.” he replied “they are decorating with holly, which symbolizes rebirth, in this case of the sun. They are also decorating with mistletoe, which symbolizes peace.” “Next,” he said “I will show you how they are celebrating in Luxor, Egypt 1,400 years later.” A few seconds later we were in the middle of a desert. The Egyptians were building the Luxor Temple. “They are building the Luxor temple to celebrate Yule,” said the ghost “They are also welcoming back the sun. When the sun rises, the temple aligns with it. They believe that the God Hathor gives birth to the Sun God on Yule, it is the rebirth of the Sun. They decorate the palm trees as part of their celebration. They use trees because they symbolize life.” “Now, let's go to Rome in 200 B.C. - 1,200 years later. We flew through the cities of Rome, everyone was feasting. “The Romans are celebrating Saturnalia. It starts on December the 17th and ends on December the 23rd. Saturnalia is the feast of the God Saturn. People celebrate by exchanging gifts and feasting. They also decorate fir trees. They made offerings to the Gods of Winter, mainly Saturn though.” We returned back to my house later that night. I learned a lot that night about how people celebrated the holidays back then. I went to sleep with all those thoughts about Winter Solstice and Saturnalia. Ghost of Holidays Present The next night, there was another noise outside my window. I opened it and saw a ghost dressed like Santa Claus. “So are you another ghost?” I asked “Yes! I am the ghost of holidays present and I will show you how different types of people celebrate the holidays these days.” So we traveled to the other side of town, to a church. They were doing a nativity play to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Other people celebrating Christmas were at home feasting or opening presents. We traveled to a few houses where people were celebrating Hanukkah. “Hanukkah is the festival of lights.” the ghost told me “They lighted the menorah to symbolize the light in the oil lamp lasting eight days. There are eight candles in a menorah then a ninth one to light the others. It became a holiday because there was only enough oil in the lamp to last one day, but it lasted for eight.” We then went to a Pagan gathering. They were celebrating Yule like people did thousands of years ago. They were all in a circle doing a spiral dance to welcome back the sun. We went through a few more holidays. There are many different traditions and celebrations I never even knew about. We went back to my house later and I realized that I learned a lot. I learned that there are many different types of holidays people celebrate even now. So the ghost left and I went to bed, thinking of all those different holiday traditions. Ghost of Holidays Yet to Come The next night, I expected another ghost to come, so I sat by the window and waited. After about 15 minutes, there was still no ghost, so I turned around to go to bed. I was surprised, though, to see another ghost right there on my bed. “What are you the ghost of?” I asked the ghost. “I am the ghost of holidays yet to come,” He told me “I will show you how people will celebrate holidays a few hundred years from now!” I took his hand and we traveled to a strange place. I looked around for a few minutes then asked the ghost, “Where are we?” “We are on the moon, in man-made civilizations. Everyone is celebrating different kinds of holidays, with different traditions, just like people have for thousands and thousands of years. They get some of their traditions from how they celebrated the holidays long ago. Some of them are passed down from generation to generation in the family. Some of the traditions are newer. People all celebrate differently and have different beliefs.” He showed me different people celebrating the holidays. I realized that all the ghosts showed me how people celebrate the holidays differently. People have for thousands of years, they still do, and they will continue for years to come. Everyone celebrates different holidays and believe different things. That's just the way it is and we should accept people even if they believe different things.
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