Snowflakes and Sugar Plums

Pillow stuffed with snowflakes, Paige dozed. These weren’t the snowflakes of legend that succumbed to heat and time. These were the snowflakes of the Pole and they never lost their cool. Because they were always cold, they were perfect companions for Christmas Eve, the night one froze the sugar plums in their dreams.

Paige had a large collection of sugar plums, but thirsted for one in particular. In her dreams she sees her mother, father, parents of long past. She lives alone now, in an igloo, lucky her skin is resilient as the snowflakes, numb. If she can freeze that sugar plum, that memory too old to remember, she has a chance to have her parents.

She stumbles through lanes of giant candy canes, avoids cloven hoofs raining down, presses her palms to her ears over the bellow of partridges and turtle doves, until she finds them. They wear red fur rimmed in white. Her father smiles wide, his cheeks flush, his belly bouncing. Her mother stands with the sweet aroma of cookies wafting from her. In her dream, Paige pinches her eyes shut, attempting to freeze the moment. When she opens her eyes, her parents are gone.

Again, she opens her eyes, this time in the real world. She gasps. Her snowflakes have vanished. In their place rests a candle magically lit so it can’t burn, only warms her hands. Through moan of wind and snow, she hears the jingles that find her once a year.