As promised...

Here is the text of the two Christmas cards I sent this year. I was surprised by the reactions; particularly, that people didn't find the "creepy" card nearly as creepy as I had. But then, I guess that would qualify as my first, first-hand, experience with that quintessential authorial phenomena wherein the reader creates their own meaning for a work, which does not necessarily correspond with that of the actual author. Or maybe it's really not as creepy as I'd originally thought it (although, I must admit, I still think it's pretty creepy). But, anyway, without further ado, here they are:

A Christmas Drabble

Christmas is a special place.
Every day is Christmas, every night
Christmas Eve. There is always fresh
snow on the ground, a white Christmas
every time. Santa Claus visits every
child, every night. Everyone is well-
-behaved, and there are no bad children.
Days are spent stringing tinsel on
Christmas trees; evenings, sipping hot
chocolate in front of the roaring fires
warming every fireplace. Every morning,
the streets and houses echo with the
laughter of children discovering their
Christmas presents. And if there is
something unnatural about their laughter,
something forced, don't fret. It's Christmas,
and there are no bad children.


What's Christmas Without Monkeys?
A Drabble

If there were no monkeys at Christmas -
none at all - it would be too quiet, and
there would be piles of bananas
everywhere. When people looked up into
the trees, they would only see branches,
and the occasional bird. Chandeliers
would hang motionless, and cats would
have no one to play with but other
cats. When you misplaced something -
a hat, a pen, a sandwich - it would
simply be lost, and not in the hands
of a mischievous monkey following you,
holding the object up whenever your
back was turned. In other words,
Christmas without monkeys would be
extraordinarily dull.


But, here's the strange thing: by my best hand-count, done thrice over, both drabbles contain the appropriate 100 words, exactly. But, according to Microsoft Word, the monkey drabble contains 104 words. I don't know why the program's count is higher than my own - I'm pretty sure mine is accurate (it's only 100 words, after all), but it doesn't even have any combined words, like "well-behaved" in the first one. Oh well, I'm sticking with my own count.