Dear Santa Claus - 14 Short Stories Until Christmas

10th December - Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Christmas sucks (or perhaps not?) (1)

By @Cynthia_Fangirl

Christmas was the most depressing season.

Anyone who said otherwise was either lying, selling something, or was just too carefree.

Katie envied the last bunch, she really did, because she dreaded Christmas season. Where most people bought eggnog and tree ornaments and counted down the days to meet with their families and have a nice time, Katie bought herself a bottle of liquor and made her own countdown by drinking one good-sized glass every day.

Don't take her wrong, it's not like she hated Christmas or something. (And who could really hate getting presents? Even if you didn't like them, you could sell them and get free money). She wasn't an old grumpy lady, too bitter to find joy in anything. She was quite young in fact, only 24, with a college degree, a great job—basically at the best time of her life.

It wasn't that Katie hated Christmas; it was that Christmas was the time of the year in which everything that was wrong in your life got highlighted like a neon sign.

Christmas season was the time when everyone was supposed to be happy, and excited, and just, well, be jolly. And it was that social dictamen of having to be happy that pointed out the stuff you weren't so happy about. Like, for example, the fact that her parents were out in a business trip (as always) and only sent her a Merry Christmas through text message, or the fact that she couldn't stop wondering if her biological parents were out there making Christmas arrangements with an offspring they did keep, or the fact that she would have to endure a Christmas dinner party with the cousin that she despised or the fact that all her friends were going to be spending the holidays with their boyfriends while Katie hadn't had a lasting relationship since a douchebag cheated on her with the previously mentioned cousin.

The icing on the cake? Her ex-douchebag would be there too because he was still with her cousin.

Honestly, the rest of the year Katie didn't give a shit about all of that. Yes, her parents traveled a lot and had always placed some very high expectations on her, but they loved her, and they had spoiled her rotten in the material department, so she had always had pretty much anything she wanted. Katie always knew she was adopted so she had had years to come to terms with that and she was okay with it. The thing with Matt (a.k.a the douche) had been a long time ago and it's not like that relationship had been very profound to begin with. Her cousin Nicole had apologized profoundly, many times, and even though Katie still found her obnoxious, she had buried the hatchet. And last but not least, Katie didn't even need a boyfriend. She was happy for her friends that had one of course, but she was perfectly content on her own. She loved her job and having a relationship would just take time off her busy schedule.

Katie liked her life, it was a pretty good life, but like she said before... Christmas. The goddamned you're-a-fucking-failure-if-you're-not-conventionally-happy Christmas.

Considering her reservations, one would wonder why she was even going to the Christmas family dinner anyway. The truth was that, albeit her feelings about Christmas, she went every year, and the reason behind that was that it was her grandpa who held it.

With her parents always traveling for work, Katie had in big part been raised by her grandpa. He wasn't like the typical grouchy old man who did nothing but complain and yell at the television. Her grandpa was the life of the party, an eternal young soul; in fact, she swore he had more spark inside him than her. She loved him with all her heart, and ever since she had moved out of the house to her own place, she made it a point to visit him at least once a week and attend the Christmas dinner party he threw every year at her old house. (No matter how painful those could end up being.)