Ghost of Christmas Presents- By Ginger Strivelli

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 clearly." 
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 
ineteen 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.

	The ghost took me back home later, and I 
went to sleep, ready for the holidays to begin.

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