A Short Story for Christmas

The holiday season means something different for every family. For some, it's overflowing stockings and ten-feet tall Christmas trees. For others, it's about making magic happen with limited resources. This story was written for anyone who has ever counted change at a register, studied clearance tags like treasure maps, or tried to create Christmas joy out of nothing.

It's also for those quiet angels who leave notes in shoeboxes, who understand that sometimes the smallest gestures can make the biggest difference.

Wishing you all moments of unexpected magic.

~ GiGi

“Two Twenties and a Christmas Miracle"

It didn’t feel like Christmas.

Stockings were already hung, and the thrift store tree made the apartment cheerier, but there were no gifts under the branches and the stockings were only full of lint at the moment.

The store was messy and half-empty as she wandered the aisles, searching for clearance tags. There were two twenties in her wallet. It was all she had to make a magical holiday. She was thankful that the kids’ teachers hadn’t made writing to Santa part of the end-of-semester curriculum. They were still too young to have assignments like that. Or maybe they had to avoid holiday talk at school now. She tried to remember how the elementary school’s main bulletin board was decorated. Was it snow-themed? Just winter? She shook it away. No matter. There were no specific requests weighing on her. Thank God for small miracles.

The meal was set. The food bank had given her a holiday box with a graham cracker pie crust and chocolate pudding, so she had a special treat to go along with the small ham being thawed. Two boxes of scalloped potatoes were a happy surprise at the dollar store.

It was there where she’d grabbed cheap candy and coloring books – that would help fill the stockings a bit – and she’d picked up two boxes of crayons before deciding on markers. That would feel a little more special, even if there were less color choices. The kids were only five and seven, hardly old enough to need five shades of blue. She found bubble bath, sparkly toothpaste, and new toothbrushes. They were practical but still fun, she reasoned.

She’d budgeted fifteen dollars for the dollar store, forgetting that everything was now twenty-five cents more. That with tax took her over, but it was okay. She always kept loose change in her purse pocket, and it was almost five dollars in quarters and dimes once she’d counted it out for the patient cashier. The store was busy, but everyone behind her was in the same boat and stared down at their baskets. No judgment was being passed that night.

But this bigger store was different. One mother yelled at her older kids, “No! I already got you presents! We’re here to get your dad something. Put that back!” When the family walked past, the red cart was overflowing with clothes and Christmas clearance. The oldest child, a preteen, was on her expensive phone, snapping pictures and sending them off with a whooshing sound.

Imagine affording a phone like that for your kid.

She pushed the thought away. Hopefully, in five years, she’d have a better job, and they could fill a cart like that two days before Christmas. Tonight, she was going to be happy that her friend was watching the kids while she shopped. Strong friendships were a blessing.

The toy section was pretty picked over, but she spotted two mermaids thrown onto the wrong shelf. She placed them into her basket, looking around for a price scanner. They were half-off, so the two were fifteen dollars. Her girls would love them. The holiday-themed squishy toys were only five each and the size of pillows, so they could fill a lot of real estate under the tree. In order to save for tax, she figured she had twelve dollars left. Six for each girl.

They needed new shoes, but there was no way twelve dollars would cover that. Still, she decided to walk over and look. Maybe she’d be able to get them with her next paycheck. They both wanted glittery sneakers. As she looked over the display, she felt a pit in her stomach. Nothing was cheaper than twenty. She pulled out a box in her oldest daughter’s size and opened the lid, wondering if they would be decent enough in quality to last long enough for the younger girl to inherit them after the oldest outgrew them. As she removed one to examine it, a fifty-dollar bill fell out with a small note: Buy the shoes.

She looked around, but no one was watching and recording her. She wouldn’t end up as some influencer’s charity post or be embarrassed at work if someone saw her in a reel. Tears were threatening to break past the thin barrier of pride damming them. Her hand trembled as she held the note. She found a different style in her youngest’s size and put both pairs in her cart.

There were so many things she could spend fifty dollars on. Bills that could be paid…

But the note said to buy the shoes, so she would. Maybe it would feel a little more like Christmas after all.