"He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Christmas, he thought... doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps... means a little bit more."

There once was a girl who lived in a place that many had only dreamt of. It snowed almost always and she spent most of her days outside.

Her house sat high above the town surrounded by a forest of trees. She loved to sit upon her Father’s lap, looking out the bay window as he told her which tree was a Pine and which was a Fraser Fir. She would look from the trees to his face and see the joy reflecting in his eyes.

She would wake each morning to the smell of freshly baked cookies radiating through the floor boards. She would spring from her warm winter bed, bounding down the stairs her slippers hanging off her feet and her robe still half on. Her stomach flipping in anticipation, as she sprinted down the long hall. It is there that she would find her Mother with a plate of warm cookies and hot cocoa in hand. She admired her mother’s beauty as she took her first sip of the delicious chocolate and sugary mix. Once her belly was full with both cookies and love she made her way to the still bare tree standing beside their fire place.

She looked to her Mother with eyes filled with surprise, as Christmas was not far away. Her Mother let out a small chuckle and offered some ornaments to hang. She found herself watching her mother again, my how she hoped she would be as elegant as she. When the last ornament was hung, she looked out the window and with no surprise there was snow in the air. She flung her robe on the hook beside the door, jamming her feet, slippers and all into her boots. She dawned on a jacket, a hat and some gloves, and out the door the she went to play once again.

This snow was the best as it always had been, thick and large flakes with just enough weight to build a snowman. Down to the village she ran in search of her friends, and there they would be as always in front of the blue house. All day they would work on the best of snowmen, they would each spare a glove, a hat or a scarf for their beautiful masterpiece. When darkness began to fall and their parents began to shout their names, the children would scurry toward their homes.

The little girl took her time on her walk back home, as she passed the surrounding homes she would lift her head to peek inside, and when she did so she would see the joy as her friends and their families sat eating and laughing with tales of their day. Onward, she walked toward her home, and she felt a longing to sit upon her Father’s lap and hear him speak of trees, and to smell her Mother’s cookies and admire her beauty from afar.

“Mackenzie?”, her mother said.

She shook her head back into the present, “Yeah, mom?”

“Put the snow globe onto the mantle, please.”

- The Ghost of Christmas Past