Christmas Eve

by Jim Butcher

  “Merciful Heaven, what is this?” I mused aloud.

  There was a sound that can only be described as a “foomph,” and a sudden flood of soot from the fireplace and then…

  Well. Then.

  He had a round face. And a little round belly. That shook when he laughed. Underneath all the chain mail.

  Kringle was a tall, burly man with long, silvery white hair and a magnificent snowy beard. He wore hunting leathers under a mail shirt, and over that was a heavy, magnificent crimson hooded robe trimmed in white fur. He carried an enormous sack over one shoulder—and there was no sword at his hip.

  He looked at me and let out a low, rumbling laugh.

  “Hey,” I said quietly.

  Kringle looked down at the bike I’d put together. He knelt by it, examining it closely.

  “This was done properly,” he said, a calm note of approval in his voice.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m not your vassal. We’ve worked together on some things, but I’m not even your friend. So if you’re here to give me a gift, I’m not sure why.”

  “Because tonight,” Kringle said, “that is what I do.” His blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “And because you’re on my list, lad.”

  I snorted. “Please.”

  Kringle eyed me for a moment. Then he winked and said, “Call Kris Kringle a liar on Christmas Eve one more time.”

  “L—” I began.

  But something made me think better of it. I went back to putting stickers on the bike instead.

  “Good,” Kringle said. “And yes. I’ve brought you a gift.”

  “Tell me it’s not a pony for Maggie,” I said. “I’ll be housebreaking it for years.”

  Kringle tilted his head back and chortled again. It was impossible not to smile when he did. But I could cover it up with a scowl as soon as he stopped, so I did.

  “No. It’s not for Maggie.” And he put down his sack and started rummaging inside, muttering cheerfully to himself.

  In a twinkling, he’d come up with a small, cubic package wrapped in green and red patterned paper that… I’ll be damned, that had an image of Mouse’s grinning face as part of the pattern. There was a tag on it. To: Harry. From: Santa Claus.

  And the package was warm.

  I eyed it and then looked up at Kringle.

  “Well, lad,” Kringle said, chortling again, and gestured at the package.

  I opened it.

  Inside was…

  Was…

  A plain white coffee mug. The kind you buy at a craft store.

  Painted on it in a kindergartner’s attempt at writing, the scarlet letters drawn like pictograms by someone too little to understand them, were the words: NUMB3R ON3 DAD.

  The handwriting was mine.

  The cup was full of a light brown liquid.

  Something happened to my eyes and I couldn’t see the cup any more. Just a blur of firelight. But I picked it up and sipped milk and sugar with a little splash of coffee in it.

  For just a second, I smelled my dad’s old aftershave. For just a second, I heard him laughing, laughing so hard that tears had to have been rolling from his eyes. For just a second, I felt a hand, his hand, on my shoulder.

  I drank from the cup I’d given my father on our last Christmas together, and the entire time I did, the memories of those Christmas mornings, of the laughter and hugs and the play, ran through my mind in IMAX, so vivid that I felt myself losing my breath at the memories of chasing my father around the yard with my new plastic light saber.

  I left the last sip in the bottom of the cup, kept my eyes closed, and said, “I love you, dad.”

  When I looked up at him, Kringle was smiling down at me. He winked. Then he picked up his sack, slung it over his shoulder, and turned to the fireplace.

  “Oh,” he murmured, laughter in the back of his throat. “One more thing.”

  I heard a thump behind me.

  I turned.

  My daughter Maggie stood in the doorway from the den. She’d dropped a pillow that she’d evidently been carrying. She was staring, slack-jawed, at Kringle.

  “Ho, ho, ho,” he chortled quietly. He nodded his head politely toward Maggie, laid a finger aside of his nose, and… just vanished up the chimney.

  “Oh, wow,” Maggie breathed. She met my gaze and her eyes were wide. “Oh, wow!”

  As if the sound of her voice had been a starting pistol, Mouse bounced to his feet, suddenly awake and looking around excitedly.

  “What are you waiting for?” I demanded of my daughter. I rose and rushed toward the front door. “Come on!”

  Her little face with her big dark eyes went incandescent with joy and she sprinted after me, Mouse hard on her heels.

  We all ran to the front door and I flung it open to the night air.

  We saw the snow cascade off the roof. We saw the sleigh leap into the air, reindeer and all.

  “Oh wow!” Maggie exclaimed. “Santa’s real! And he left me a bike!”

  I looked down at her, and then back up at the departing sleigh, smiling hard enough to break my face.

  “Yep,” I said. “He sure did.”

  And we heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight.

  “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”