A single person reacts to getting Christmas cards from married couples with pictures of them and their smiling children – 10 minute free write.

She had tried to tell them that she was tired of it all. Tired of the boxes, tired of the smiles, tired of the happy children, and the good cheer of the holiday.  When were they all going to get back to normal?  She sighed as she put down another card.  Yet another smiling, our-family-is-so-happy, look-at-our-blessed-children, see-how-they’ve-grown-into-beautiful-people Christmas card.

Christmas is not a holiday for single people. She was more likely to get a free coffee at the local Starbucks than to get an invite to any of her family’s or friends’ houses for Christmas dinner.  Not after last year.  She hadn’t intended for the box to open in the middle of dinner, the box of ladybugs that she’d purchased from an online entomology site to surprise her niece, who, last she’d heard, had been crazy about insects.

But then she’d misunderstood, as always. Maybe not crazy about, but crazed by?  Her niece had certainly gone crazy when those delicate creatures arose during dinner.  Drawn by the flickering light, they’d left the confines of their box and flown towards the candles.  The irresistible wavering lights of a holly candelabra, pine and cranberry scents competing with the succulent turkey, beckoned the bugs like sirens to lonely sailors.

And come they did, en masse, all two dozen of them, swooping in to land on the turkey, dotting the landscape of mashed potatoes, and burning up upon entry as they flew in to the golden flames, fiery bursts of light a sparkler show for the diners. The meal ruined, the gift a dud, the candles extinguished… last year’s Christmas was this year’s excuse to stay home.

She sighed a second time and looked at the table of cards. Solo again.