Christmas Story

I was doing some shop­ping rounds down at Ace Hard­ware when I spot­ted their tra­di­tional Christ­mas setup: a minia­ture vil­lage sit­u­ated around snowy moun­tain caps. The hand­i­work was quite admirable; it was obvi­ous that a lot of effort had been invested in the cre­ation of the lit­tle vil­lage. Hav­ing changed my mind on what I wanted to do with my custom-​made gifts for this year, on my way out I decided to take some pho­tos with my phone of the setup. Later that evening, in a café , and while shift­ing through the pho­tos, a story started to build up in my head. Though uploaded on Face­book at the time, I thought I’d share the nar­ra­tive with you here as well. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Our story begins on a fine White Christ­mas morn­ing in Noms­burg, a calm vil­lage cocooned between Mt. Nom­s­ingheim and Mt. Table Nom. Lit­tle Johnny, like all boys his age, is being dragged by his mother, Alice, to visit the fam­ily. “Hol­i­days are all about being with fam­ily,” she says, try­ing her best to keep hold of Johnny. “But where’s dad! He’s not com­ing! And nei­ther are Char­lie and Jen!” Sad lit­tle Johnny; he woke up late this morning.

Robert was busy with his choir, singing all sorts melodies in an attempt to instill a feel­ing of warmth in the bit­ter, cold day. Robert is no stranger to bit­ter­ness; he’s not lead­ing the life he aspired to live, but has to. Often, he par­al­lels his life with that of Alice when­ever she comes to church, car­ry­ing the weight of the world on her shoul­ders. Every­one in Noms­burg knew of her mar­i­tal prob­lems; her hus­band, Tim, has pretty much been the cat­a­lyst in cre­at­ing every­one else’s mar­i­tal prob­lems. Only prob­lem with Robert is that he has to keep his prob­lems to himself.

Mean­while, Char­lie and Jen are hav­ing a blast at the local fair, the only place in Noms­burg with a green patch of land. “Glad we woke up early,” cheered Char­lie glee­fully at his sis­ter, “Imag­ine hav­ing to go see Aunt Betty.” Who would blame them? Aunt Betty is not exactly a role model for any­thing that’s good in the world; the only rea­son she’s not dead is because God doesn’t want her up there. “I know, good grief I would mur­der myself,” Jen replied dis­mis­sively. “Now give me that pop­corn.” Fun times for Char­lie and Jen. Sad lit­tle Johnny.

Stumpy (yes, the Gnome — you think I’d keep the lit­tle guy out?) has a nice life. Though every­one looks down on him — more than look­ing down at him — he’s actu­ally a happy midget. He has no debt, he quar­rels with no one, he has no Gnomette to make his life mis­er­able, and more impor­tantly, no one gives a shit about him so no one ever med­dles in his life. Lucky midget.

Tim. Classy man with a refined taste in china, tea, tobacco, and hats — but not in women. He slept with every­one in Noms­burg except Alice… well of course he had to when Char­lie and Jen had to be con­ceived. Not Johnny though; that sad lit­tle kid is a bas­tard. Poor lit­tle Johnny. Any­way, Tim had no inten­tion of going to see Aunt Betty either; he believes she should stay in an asy­lum. Prob­a­bly why she lives in Nomsburg.

In the big­ger pic­ture of things, though, Noms­burg is a charm­ing, peace­ful lit­tle place… until Johnny finds out who his real dad is any­way. But no one cares about his dad. He’s just a Gnome, after all.