A Blue Christmas

Welcome to Flash Fest December!

I have some author friends who have joined me in this challenge, and are contributing to the prize baskets!

This week’s prize basket:

• $5 Amazon gift card
• Free e-book for Red Wine & Roses
• Swag bag
• e-book of Protected By His Grace

This is how the prize giveaway will work:

Leave a comment throughout the week on any blog post, whether it’s the blog hop, flash, guest spot, or weekend writing warriors. I will select one of the commenters through Randompicker and post it on Monday’s post. That person can contact me on Facebook or email me at: l.e.mcatee@gmail.com.

The challenge is to write a flash piece, 500 to 1000 words based on a Holiday tune as a prompt. The author was given the option to select their own or I would assign one. Trust me,  my list of holiday tunage is anything but traditional!

Blue Christmas by Sheryl Crow

Blue Christmas

by

Nina Valdez

“Noel? Is that really your name? Oh my Gosh! That’s so festive!”

Yea, yea, yea… My name is Christmasy, I know. I Don’t want to be a Scrooge. It just seems like starting December 1st, I start getting triggered like crazy.

I smile at the cashier but I’m sure it looked more like a grimace because she kind of turned red and whispered, “Sorry.”

Red. I picked up my bag of every blue glittery ornament I could find. It was a bit of a splurge but Cobalt Blue is my favorite color, glitter just makes me happy, Aaaannd… I may or may not have had a bit of a breakdown last night and all of our red decorations stashed in my parents’ attic that I had collected so carefully fifteen/ fourteen/… up to ten years ago mysteriously got broken… I realized I was smiling sadly standing in the snow, freezing my butt off!

I chuckled and threw my bag over into the passenger seat so I could scramble into my little Toyota pickup and get that heater cranking! Here’s the deal, I have been imagining the perfect man for me since I was two. Yes, two. Also, I am a touch love language so not having a significant other in my life has been literally excruciating throughout my life. So naturally, I have been looking forward to and saving little trinkets etc. here and there, for when I got married.

When I finally got together with my ex eleven years ago, I could have sworn He was the one. He was literally ninety-eight percent perfect on paper. He didn’t have tattoos and he wasn’t in the same industry as me. That was the only things off. Or so I thought.

Did I mention that I’m a Model and Actress? Plus Model, I guess I have to specify.

*Insert eye-roll here.*  Most people still look me up and down like, “Yea, O.K…”

But I know who I am. So anyway, I was like – dang! Ninety-eight percent Is probably the best I’m going to find right?

Our first date was on December third. My life literally went straight from heaven to hell in about an hour that followed. We stayed together till December first, about three years after that. Thank God though. I could finally breathe without being contradicted and sleep without… bad things happening.

I snapped out of my reverie to realize I was idling in my driveway with no idea how I had gotten there. That’s not good. I mean, the store is less than a mile away but, Geez!

I have got to get my life together! So I grabbed my bag and picked my way around the slippery bits of the walkway to my camper. One day it will be a legit tiny house, but for now, my little pink and white 1954 Arrow was home. I shivered as I climbed in the door. Thank God it was still cozy and warm with the last embers glowing in the mini wood chip stove I had put in last summer. I tossed a few more pine cones in it and pushed them around a bit till they lit up nicely.

Ooh! The tea kettle was still nice and hot on top. Tonight my soul needed a good cup of hot cocoa! And a movie, something hopeful. You know how people say they are “hopeless romantics”? Well, despite all my baggage and trigger-happy anxiety issues, I prefer to call myself a hope-full romantic.

There is this thing in the Bible where Paul is talking, and he calls himself a “Prisoner of Hope…” There could be no better description of me.

So I crank the carols up on the radio while I slather every bit the of less than 100 square feet of my home in twinkle lights and blue glittery things. When everything was finally swagged to my satisfaction, I opened my little kitchenette cabinet to grab the cocoa mix and a mug and… I was out of cocoa mix.

Ya’ll don’t understand. I know you are thinking, just have tea. Or a nice decaf latte, or Chai, or something. Because in the sliver that is my kitchenette at least half my cabinet space is indeed taken up with every kind of drink mix… Hot drinks may or may not be my drug of choice. But no. I NEEDED that hot cocoa. On a night like tonight, with a cheesy movie and the lights twinkling off of every shimmery piece of Christmas cheer in my cozy little world. After a day like today, and a month like this month. I needed my chocolate!

So I was off to face that cashier again with my face burning this time. And as I was rounding the corner to the Coffee/ Tea/ Hot Chocolate aisle Blue Christmas came on the store radio and, “Ooof.” I Ran straight into a slightly less than a solid brick wall. I looked up into the biggest gray-blue eyes I have ever seen set off by the dark blue dye job on his mess of curly hair. The wall steadied me, gently gripping my arms and to my surprise, I found myself gripping his rugged ink enhanced forearms. I’m pretty sure all those blue snowflakes that they were talking about on the radio melted when he didn’t let go.

It’s been a couple of years now. He still hasn’t let go. Decembers have not been the same since that night.

Did I mention that Blue is my favorite color?

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About the author:

 

 

You can find Nina at:

Nina Valdez on Facebook

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Nina Valdez on Twitter

Nina Valdez on Youtube

 

Don’t forget to leave a comment and show Nina appreciation for her wonderful story as well as be entered into the drawing for this week’s prize!

Write on my friends, write on.