Evil Girlfriend Media recently published Naughty or Nice: A Holiday Anthology edited by Jennifer Brozek; it includes my story “The Toymaker’s Joy” along with fantasy and horror tales by authors such as Maurice Broaddus, Rachel Caine, S.G. Browne, Cat Rambo, and Kevin J. Anderson. The anthology is intended for adult readers – there’s definitely a good bit of “naughty” here! – and the first two months of profits go toward cystic fibrosis research.
My tale in Naughty or Nice is a bit of a departure from the kinds of stories my readers are used to seeing from me. But I wrote it straight from the part of my little weird heart that still adores Christmas and everything that the holiday represents.
Christmas is hard for me to love these days. Most every Christmas ad, every Christmas TV special, every Christmas song focuses on one of a trinity of things I wish I had but don’t: family togetherness, children, and religious faith. Losing my faith was probably inevitable and I can’t go back. Losing my family and my prospects for having children were not my choices, but I can’t change any of that, either.
Losing your loved ones – whether you knew them for years or they died before you ever got to know them – is an invisible amputation. A part of your own life disappeared into the black with them when they died. And the constant holiday barrage of images of happy family gatherings and excited kids forces you to stare into that void over and over and makes the phantom pain that much more unbearable.
But make no mistake: I do still love Christmas. I love the smell of the pine trees and wreaths. I love seeing the excitement other peoples’ children have on Christmas morning. I love the gleam of string lights on glass ornaments. I love my neighbors’ garish yard displays. I love the carols, and the wassail, and the traditional Christmas stories. I love the idea of Santa, and all the mythology surrounding him and his nasty counterpart Krampus. I love all of it, even if that love sometimes feels like a fragile bit of tinsel suspending me over absolute despair.
A lot of people feel left out and isolated during the holidays; I’m certainly not a special Christmas snowflake in that regard. But knowing I’m not alone doesn’t often make the holiday feel any less lonely. Life is funny that way! So sometimes holiday comfort must arrive in ways that are … perhaps less than traditional.
My story is about the heartfelt crafting of a most untraditional Christmas present, and I hope it brings a smile to readers’ faces. It is my happy holiday wish to all of you: if it pleases you, may you all have what the lady of the North Pole is having!
Lucy A. Snyder is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of the novels Spellbent, Shotgun Sorceress, Switchblade Goddess, and the collections Orchid Carousals, Sparks and Shadows, Chimeric Machines, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. Her latest books are Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide and Soft Apocalypses. You can learn more about her at www.lucysnyder.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.
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- A Horror Writer Pursues an MFA – Part 1 - November 2, 2016
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