SNOWED IN

Bryan had a plane to catch to get down to California for Christmas, but there was one little problem. The small cabin that him and his brother had been staying in for the past week was kind of snowed in. Bryan went to go open the door, to check out the weather, when he was met with five feet of snow.

“What the-?” he said, staring out at the plain white of the whole yard, not a single speck of any color to be seen. there bikes must be under all this, and their bikes were their only mode of transport.

“What’s up?” his brother, Jarod, asked as he came into the kitchen where Bryan was still standing looking out the door. “You’re letting all the cold in.”

“We’re snowed in, dude,” Bryan said, gesturing out to the snow.

“Oh,” Jarod said, looking behind Bryan and out the door, “I see. That’s a problem.”

Bryan glared at his brother, “way to point out the obvious.”

Jarod laughed, “calm down, you can walk out there.”

Bryan shook his head, “and go where?”

“I’m sure once you get to town the streets will be plowed,” Jarod said, shrugging casually.

“I would die before I get there,” bryan said.

“You’re kind of over reacting,” Jarod said, “I’ve been snowed in before, when I was in Finland a few years ago, it’s no big deal.”

“So what do we do?” Bryan asked, finally shutting the door because he was finally starting to feel the cold seeping in.

“We get on our gear, grab our shovels and shovel our way out of here,” Jarod said, “since there’s no point in waiting for it to melt.”

Bryan was silent for a second, thinking of ways that was a bad idea.

“And don’t even act like you’ve never shoveled anything before,” Jarod said, “come on you got a plane to catch.”

“It’s like five feet,” Bryan finally said.

“And you, my brother, are six feet,” Jarod said, patting Bryan’s back before heading into the living room and calling, “come on and gear up, bro!”

Bryan laughed to himself, realising that there was no not going along with his brother so he followed him and got geared up in layers and layers of warm clothes all topped off with snow pants and a big jacket. He wondered how he was gonna actually move in this.

Then Jarod handed him a snow shovel and they were out the door, shoveling the high snow with each step. When they reached the road, they could only tell they did because their shovels hit asphalt instead of the dirt driveway. Other than that it didn’t look much different, just a whole lot of snow.

“This is gonna take forever,” Bryan said mostly to himself  before digging back in with his shovel and starting again.

And it did indeed take a good chunk of forever and by the time they finally arrived to plowed road Bryan was freezing inside and out.

“Alright dude, let’s get inside somewhere warm,” Jarod said.

“No need to tell me twice,” Bryan laughed.

They were late for his flight already and he’d have to get another one, so they spend the rest of the day in a cafe eating pastries and hot chocolates. And then they made the long trudge back up to their secluded cabin in the mountains, the roads were fortunately plowed and they just dragged their shovels behind them.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

Every year the Brown family Gathers together and takes the long trip into the city for some good old fashioned Christmas shopping, and every year they get two presents each to donate along with their presents for each other.

Harriette, Collin and Tamarai were grouping together for this shopping expedition. Harriette had already bought presents for both Collin and Tamarai, so all she was really doing now was some last Christmas presents for some of her extended family and the presents for donation.

So they went into all the toy stores and Harriette picked out two dolls to be donated, since when she was young all she ever wanted for Christmas was dolls. Tamarai got a couple Care bears, saying that no one can resist a cute and cuddly bear. Collin went with with finger paints, he was all about the arts.

Harriette always saved the best for last, and the best in this equation was the candy store. She remembered when she was just a little kid and the store was a whole lot smaller and not even located in the mall. It’s original location was on a crowded street full of small family owned shops, but the owner had always dreamed of moving into the mall. The day she did was a big deal and there was a huge sale, and Harriette might have gone a little overboard.

This store was her childhood basically, and every year everyone got a special christmas candy from this store, special from Harriette, in their stockings. And for all the people without stocking, the older visiting relatives, Harriette just handed them out. It was a Christmas tradition.

Every year the store had special Christmas lollipops, since the store was so old some of them were repeated but the owner mostly tried to keep each year unique. This year the special flavors were pomegranate tangerine, brown sugar molasses, and mulled cider.

Harriette loaded up a bag with each of the flavors, then she went on to filling a bag with their candy canes, also with special flavors including orange mint, pomegranate cream, and classic peppermint, for their tree. These candy canes were Harriette’s absolute favorite.

“Wow, got enough there?” Tamarai teased her.

“Uhm, yes, I think I do,” Harriette said, tying up her bag, “and you know it’s tradition!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tamarai said, waving her hand at Harriette then pointed across the store to the chocolates, “Ooh look my favorite!”

Amused, Harriette watched as Tamarai quickly moved over to the peppermint bark. They were in her favorite, and Harriette tried to secretly get a box of those for her too. She also got a box of the s’mores bark for Collin, she knew he loved it and only ever ate it if someone got it for him.

For her mom she got the raspberry dark chocolate truffles. For Fedora she got a variety of chocolates, mostly milk chocolate since Fedora couldn’t stand dark. And for Grayson, her older brother, she got the salted caramel, his favorite.

And with that they left the mall and went out to lunch at a fun little diner around the block. This was one of their mom’s favorite traditions, especially as the kids get older and stopped spending so much time at home with the family. It’s nice to spend some quality family time with your family.

And when they got home they all drunk hot cocoa and watched holiday specials.

And as they did everyone was thinking how they wished the holidays could last forever.

SNOW ANGELS IN MAINE

Dreams had always liked the warm weather of Southern California, where you never really needed to wear a sweater but you could if you wanted to. She had been on vacations to snowy mountain ski lodges and had alway spent the whole time inside under layers of blankets.

But when a New England college offered her a full scholarship she couldn’t say no, and it had an excellent pre-med program apparently too. So she packed up her whole life and flew across the country to the cold state of Maine. Even though she knew it would be cold she was still surprised when she stepped out of the airport and into the cold streets.

She was getting used to it, but still got made fun of when she walked into the classroom all bundled up. And that was just in the fall. Now in the cold cold month of December she was fully realising what living in Maine meant.

She didn’t pay much attention to anything but her destination when leaving her dorms, and she couldn’t really has she had a scarf wrapped up to her nose and a hat pulled over just about the rest of her face.

And today was no different as she hurried over to her early morning class, the worst since the warmth of the sun hasn’t quite warmed up the atmosphere. There was a fresh layer of snow on the ground and foot prints dotted the yard. But Dreams didn’t pay attention to it, she just saw the snow as another flaw of Maine.

And as if to prove her point she made a wrong step and fell flat on her face, the snow stinging all of her exposed face. She pushed herself up quickly and stopped to take a breath. She tried to warm up her now frozen face by putting her arm over it but discovered that it was too cold to do much of anything but make it colder.

“Ugh,” She groaned.

She closed her eyes and just stood there, feeling the cold seep into her shoes. She realized she needed to get moving or she’d be late, or worse she’d get frostbite and die.

She laughed bitterly and opened her eyes finally noticing all of the snow angels dotting the yard.

“What?” she said to herself.

She was thinking how could anyone want to actually roll around in this snow, and probably wearing those thin jackets she’s seen a bunch of people wear around here.

But after her initial reaction she realized there was something kind of cool about people taking a pause in their day to just stop and roll around in the snow, like it was some kind of fun.

She laughed again, but not so bitter this time. This time she laughed because it was honestly funny that this California girl was standing in the cold surrounded by a foot of snow dotted with snow angels. And she thought it was coo. And kind of majestic.

And with that thought brightening her day a bit she trudged back on to get into the warmth of the building.

SLEDDING WITH SOME GUYS

Fedora was an easily entertained person, so she knew how to have fun all by herself. Which came in handy since starting college.

Fedora was used to having a group of friends, she had never once not been in a group. Until college. Fedora wasn’t quite sure why these people didn’t seem to fall for her irresistible charm, but mostly they all ignored her or gave her withering looks.

She survived this by going to NYC of the weekend and spending time with Sacia, recharging before going back into the dark and lonely college life. And that’s not even mentioning all of the homework she has.

But this weekend Sacia was going to New Jersey with her sister to visit some girl and Fedora was left alone on campus.

Fedora was sitting by her window pretending to study, but she was really bored out of her mind. What she wanted to do was go sledding, there was a perfect carpet of snow outside and she bought a sled just for this purpose. But she had no one to go with, and even she knew how pathetic it would be to go sledding by herself.

Then she saw a group of guys, all of them toting sleds. They were laughing and pushing each other in the snow, Fedora figured it would take them thirty minutes to get across this yard.

She jumped up form her chair, threw on her puffy jacket and slipped into her boots. She grabbed her sled and flew out the door and down to the yard. And there were the guys, still walking across, not getting very far as every few seconds one of them would push another.

“Hey, boys!” Fedora called out to them. They stopped and looked back at her, then looked at each other. Probably confused.

fedora ran up to them, already exhausted as she stopped in front of them. Much more exercise then she’s been getting lately.

“Can I come?” Fedora asked, out of breath.

“Who are you?” one of the guys asked.

“I’m Fedora, the best person you’ve never met,” Fedora said, offering out her hand.

The guys shared glances and then burst out laughing. Fedora furrowed her brow and put her hands on her hips.

“Haha, what’s so funny?” Fedora asked.

“Nothing,” one of the guys said.

“Sure, you can come along,” another one said.

“Aren’t you guys gonna tell me your names?” Fedora asked as they started walking in the direction of the perfect sledding hill.

“Jack,” one of them says, he's tall and skinny with floppy blond hair sticking out of his beanie and hipster glasses..

“Finn.” he was short, shorter than Fedora, with no visible hair on top of his head but a big beard.

“Michael.” He looked like a football player, big, tall, and dark. He was also the only one not wearing a hat, instead his long dreadlocks were out free.

“James.” He was the odd one out, short, skinny with shaggy black hair. He kind of reminded Fedora of AeGuk, but maybe it was just because he was Asian.

“Nice to meet you guys, Jack, Finn, Michael, and James,” Fedora said.

And as they get up to the hill and race each other down, Fedora winning four times which they blamed on her weight. It didn’t feel like they were calling her fat, just stating the facts. It felt good to finally talk to someone other than Sacia, and Fedora hoped they might be her new group of friends.

And as they split up after an hour of sledding they all exchange phone numbers, they say they’ll call Fedora if they ever sled by here again.

Back in her room, drinking hot cocoa, Fedora realises that those guys probably weren’t even college students. She laughed to herself, after all this time the only people who would hang out with her didn’t even go here.

JOY TO THE WORLD

Shae walked through the hallways, somewhere far off she could hear people rehearsing Christmas carols. She was on her way home after staying a bit late to finish something up for art, it was almost break and she was excited to get a break form all this school work.

The carols felt like a gentle reminder of that.

Until she passed the theatre and heard the familiar tune of joy to the world, Matt’s voice clearly relevent. Shae paused and sneaked a peek through the door, up on stage Matt stood with three other guys. They were all harmonizing, but Shae heard Matt clearly. She sighed, he looked so happy up there singing.

Two years ago she would never have been able to imagine Matt singing on stage, or really doing anything on stage.

Shae watched as they finish of joy to the world and the group not singing praises them and Matt theatrically bows, causing the people laugh.

Shae remembered when he used to only do that kind of stuff around her. It’s funny how much someone can change, and how much someone can stay the same like Shae.

Suddenly Matt catches her eyes, he looked shocked for a second then smiled warmly. Shae felt her face heat up and turned around quickly and ran out of the school. Once safely out fo the building she stopped and took a breath.

“Shae.”

Shae recognised Matt’s voice.

“Aren’t you supposed ot be in rehearsal?” Shae asked.

“Oh, that wasn’t anyhting serious,” Matt said. “It’s our last meeting until after break, we were just kind of hanging out.”

“And singing christmas carols?” Shae asked.

“Yeah, that’s what we do,” Matt said.

Shae laughed, “Well aren’t you gonna get back to that?”

“I saw you watching,” Matt said, “ I thought I would come out and say hi. Been wondering how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine,” Shae said,

Matt smiled, “that’s good. I saw you hanging  out with those twins for a while.”

Shae nodded, “yeah, they kind of ditched me.”

Shae wished she hadn’t just admitted to that,she should have jsut let him believe she had made new friends.

Matt frowned, “That’s too bad. But popularity can do that to some people.”

“Yeah,” Shae said, “I’m fine thoguh, I don’t need friends.”

“Come on, don’t say that,” Matt said, “You don’t have to pretend to be all strong around me, I’m your friend.”

Shae wanted to correct him, he was her friend. Once upon a time.

“Don’t make that face,” Matt said, “Hey, I got you a present.”

He said it like that was gonna make it better.

“Follow me to my locker,” Matt said.

And Shae did.

“I’ve been hoping you I’d see you before break,” Matt said, “I saw this and couldn’t not give it to you.”

Shae found herself excited, Matt knew her better than ayone else in this world. This was gonna be good.

And he was still thinking about her.

“Here we go,” Matt said, as they approached his locker. He enters in comibination, messes up ocne and tries again. When he gets it open he roots aorund in it until he pulls out a smallish bag form their favorite comic shop.

Shae took the bag from him and peeked inside to find a vintage looking action figure of the Green Lantern, her favorite super hero.

“Oh, wow,” Shae said.

“I knew you’d like it, it’s another one for your collection,” he said.

Shae had a big collection of green lantern memorabilia, it was one of her pride and joys.

“Thanks,” Shae said, smiling at him.

He smiled back and shae felt warmth go through her. Thinking back to a few minutes ago when she watched Matt perform, she never thought this would happen. She didn’t even think he thoguht about her anymore. She thouhgt she was just some girl from his past.

“I got you somethign too,” Shae said, slightly embarrassed. She didn’t want him to know that she still thouhgt of him.

Matt looked surprised,” you did?”

“Of course,” Shae said

Matt grinned, “what is it?”

Shae laughed, “I’m not telling you.”

“Well where is it?” Matt asked.

“Don’t have it with me right now, but maybe we can get together sometime on break,” Shae surprised herself by saying that. She was afraid he’d say no, that he was busy.

But instead Matt smiled slowly and said “sure, of course. Text me.”

Shae nodded and mumbled about havign tog et home.

“See you then, Shae bug,” Matt said, it was his old nickname for her.

Shae tried not to grin as she hurried away.

On the ride home she asked her mom to turn on some chirstmas carols, and when joy to the world came on Shae sang along at full blast.

THE PLACE TO SKATE

“Tracy, I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but what does one wear to ice skating?”

It’s a saturday and Heather is standing in front of her floor length mirror in a short a line skirt and a sweater. It looked like a perfect ice skating outfit, but maybe she should wear jeans? What if she falls and hits her knee and because she had her leg bare she get’s a hideous bruise?

So she called Tracy for help, while her relationship with Tracy was bumpy lately they still were besties and she knew that Tracy would help her.

“A sweater, because it’s winter,” Tracy said, “And maybe a cute skirt with leggings?”

“You’re a fashion genius, Tracy,” Heather said, grinning to herself in the mirror. After a quick goodbye to Tracy, Heather runs over to her dresser and began sorting through it for a pair of white leggings.

“Perfect,” she says as she pulled out of pair of white knit leggings. She pulled them on and then goes back to her mirror. Now she looked good, and like she was ready for some cold weather. She then pulled on some black booties and stuffed the necessities into her purse and headed out the door.

So why was Heather worrying about what to wear to ice skating so much? Well she had a date. It had been a really long time since she last had a date, and it was kind of a shock when the other day Bachelor carter approached her at lunch and asked if she wanted to go out with him this saturday.

She couldn’t say no.

Though admittedly Bachelor was not her type, she liked the more artsy guys. Not the jocks, but any smart person would be able to see that dating a jock would increase her popularity a lot. And Bachelor was kind of cute, he was tall, and dark, and maybe even handsome in a teenage jock kind of way.

So Bachelor was coming to pick her up any minute now, and she was annoyed to find that he was late as she stepped out the door. She looked around and saw no car in sight. She let out of frustrated breath and sat on the porch swing that was at the corner of her porch. Her house was an old victorian style house, the same as almost everyone elses in Broad Meadows. Even when the Brown family redid their house they kept it looking victorian, but it wasn’t old anymore.

Heather remembered when they redid their house, it was big news since it was only about a year after Mrs. Brown’s husband died and he had originally helped design and build the house all those years ago. Some people thought it wasn't right for her to do it.

But that wasn’t the point right now.

Heather checked her phone for the time and confirmed that he was ten minutes late.

“And this is why I don’t date jocks,” she murmured to herself.

Finally the sounds of a engine went through the neighborhood and there he was in his big SUV.

“Gas guzzler,” Heather said, again to herself.

She sighed and got up and over to the car. He grinned at her as she opened the door and climbed into the big car.

“Hey, babe,” he said.

Heather wrinkled her nose. Was this really worth the popularity?

“Okay, no babe,” he said, noticing her distaste.

“Hey,” she said.

“You look good,” he said, now looking a tad nervous.

“Of course,” Heather smiled, “thank you.”

Now her made a face, then shrugged and they got moving. It was an awkward silence on the way to the skating rink and Heather was relieved when he finally pulled up to the big building. The sign said “THE PLACE TO SKATE” in big light up letters. Heather thought it was kind of tacky.

Heather waited to see if he’d get out and open her door for her, but he just sat there staring at her as if waiting for her to do something.

Heather rolled her eyes and opened her own door and got up, practically falling. Already this date was looking to be a disaster.

Once inside Heather rented some skates, remembering the times she and Tracy went and how Tracy had to bring her owns kates.

“Why would anyone wear shoes that someone else has worn?” Trayc would say with disgust.

Heather had to admit that if you really thought about it then it did seem a bit disgusting. But she made a habit out of not really thinking about anything, Tracy did that enough for the both of them.

After getting her skates on she waited to see if Bachelor would help her get to the rink, and maybe hold her hand as they skated. But nope, he just grinned at her then got on the ice and left her behind. He zoomed right away.

Heather scoffed at him and made her way onto the ice alone, but she didn’t feel much like skating now. She just skated around in circles, sometimes Bachelor would pass her and shoot her a grin.

She couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing, he couldn’t actually be this terrible of a boyfriend. Not that he was her boyfriend yet, but he would never be if he continued to act like this.

Heather skated with her arm crossed, a sour look on her face waiting for Bachelor to notice. and finally after about fifteen minutes of him grinning and zooming pass he slowed downa nd started skating ebsid eher.

“Hey, uh, are you okay?” he asked.

“Finally you notice,” Heather said, glaring at him.

He frowned, confusion clear on his face.

“What?” he asked.

“I’ve been skating alone for the past fifteen minutes!” Heather exclaims, throwing her hands up and causing a few stares.

“Oh,” Bachelor grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “you want to go home?”

Heather almost pushed him. How could he be so ignorant? First he ignores her and then when she shows a little bit of emotion he wants to get rid of her? Did he know nothing about girls?

What she wanted was for him to say sorry and hold her hands and skate with her for fifteen minutes. Then she wants him to buy her a burger, and she wants to only eat half of the burger and say she’s full. She wants him to eat the rest of her burger, then she wants him to drive her home and when she get’s home she wants him to walk her up to her door and tell her that she looks beautiful. And then she wants there to be a an awkward silence until he finally kisses her. And she wants some fireworks to go off during the kiss.

She wants go inside after all of that and call Tracy and tell her all about it. She wants to hear Tracy be excited for her. She wants to go to sleep thinking about the date. She wants him to text her goodnight.

Instead she says “yeah, take me home.”

And sure there is an awkward silence, but it lasts the whole car ride and instead of walking her up to the door he just says a quick goodbye and he’s gone before she even gets to the porch.

BOOKSTORE GIFT SHOPPING?

Mariah absentmindedly flipped through some fashion magazine at the bookstore Ella had dragged her to, but she wasn’t paying attention to the magazine. She was watching her twin sister pull out books at random, reading the inside flap then putting them back with a shake of her head.

Mariah couldn’t figure out whether Ella was blind or just so madly in love she didn't realize that Collin was kind of gay.

Because he was the reason they were here instead of at the mall where Mariah would like to be because she had to pick out some gifts herself, but Ella had said that Collin seemed too intelligent to want some lame thing from the mall.

“He probably reads Shakespeare on his free time,” Ella had said.

She had continued to explain that she had to get him something special for Christmas, “so he’ll finally notice me,” her words.”

Mariah didn’t know what Ella expected from him, they had been sitting at his table for months now and had complete conversations with him. Wasn’t that noticing her enough? It’s not like he didn’t know she existed. But Mariah knew what she’d say to that, something along the lines of “I want him to notice me as a girl.” I’m sure you can see the irony there.

“Do you think he likes poetry?” Ella asked Mariah, breaking her from her thoughts.

“Probably,” Mariah said, “He is an artist.”

“What about art and poetry?” Ella asked. Mariah started to reply but Ella had already moved on to another section, full of art books Mariah guessed.

Mariah sighed and put down the magazine. She followed Ella over to the other books and watched as Ella continued to pick through the books there. The books in this section were big books full of art and Mariah had to admit this was probably a better idea than some boring Shakespeare.

“Do you think he likes abstract or realist?” Ella asked.

“I’m not the expert,” Mariah said.

Ella huffed and pulled out a book full of portraits and flipped through it.

“He draws realistic stuff,” she said, “I’ve seen some of his portraits of Harriette in her room.”

“Yeah, and he’s good,” Mariah said.

“No duh,” Ella said, then waved a big book with a sketch of someone's face on the cover, “I’m getting this, it sound interesting. The artist drew a portrait of random people on the street, once every day of the year.”

“That does sound interesting,” Mariah said.

“Well it’s not for you,” Ella said, “come on let’s get out of here, I want a latte.”

“Alright,” Mariah said, thinking she could get get a start on her shopping at the deli. She wanted to buy a gift card for Ella, since she was addicted to their lattes.

“I still can’t believe I went through my whole life not having one of these lattes,” Ella said as they left for the cafe after buying the book.

And I still can’t believe she dragged me to this bookstore to buy a “special present” for a gay guy to “notice her as a girl”.