Tales for the Yuletide

Opening paragraph from "An Answered Prayer." A green Christmas had been predicted but the unexpected snowstorm put an end to that possibilty in grand fashion. Standing at the window of his wookshop, Ivan Foley watched the swirling snow accumulate on the window muttons and on the boughs of the evergreen in his yard, the tree his wife planted the year they bought the house, the tree which always reminded him of her. "That's the saddest looking tree I've ever seen," he remembered telling her with a laugh when she carried it home in a pot. "It was on sale," was her only defence for the purchase. The sappling was now a giant, the planter long since wilted away. Recalls of those tender moments pained him like a knife to the heart. But Ivan Foley had made himself a promise the year previous; no more grieving, the way he knew Margo would have wanted it. Stepping away from the window, he forced his mind to reject those tender moments. Nevertheless, another ominous threat was on the horizon and nothing could stop its coming; Christmas was in two days and the forty-four year old widower would be spending it alone, and for the first time ever. Already experiencing the empty nest syndrome, he understood only too well that it would not going to be easy.