The Christmas Comedy – It’s A Wonderful Christmas Carol

The Hilarious Christmas Comedy

It’s a Wonderful Christmas Carol

George hates Christmas. He hates the songs, the crowds, and—most of all—the movies. Every December, he suffers through his wife Mary’s marathon of holiday cheer, counting the days until the season ends.

But this year, Christmas has other plans. When Mary meets the actual Santa Claus slumming it at the local mall, George’s skepticism lands him in a tinsel-covered mess.

After he manages to insult the Big Guy himself, George finds the Christmas spirits aren’t just legends—they’re on a mission to fix him.

Whether he likes it or not.

A warm, witty comedy about second chances, stubborn hearts, and the magic that sneaks in when you least expect it.

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CHAPTER ONE
The Magic Castle
On the morning of the 24th of December of this year,
George Daley awoke from his annual nightmare and
checked his room for a deranged Santa Claus. Sweat
beaded his forehead, and he noted with some trepidation
that it carried a hint of ginger. He glanced at his
extremities to check for the tell-tale signs of glitter and
then got out of bed. His wife, Mary, slept beside him, a
happy little smile of Christmas joy plastered on her face,
accompanied by a soft snore.

George was convinced that if he recorded his wife’s
snoring and played it back at the right speed, it might
sound like “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” or even “The
Christmas Song.” Meanwhile, he swung his feet out from
beneath the covers and scanned the room, checking for his
mother’s presence. He ruefully acknowledged that there
was a slim but very real chance that this part of his
nightmare—where she applied a generous amount of
rouge to his face and dressed him in an elf costume—could
actually happen. After all, his mother was still alive, and,
as everyone knows, Santa didn’t exist.

Or so George thought.

George shuffled into the bathroom, careful not to
wake his wife, who suffered from that seasonal malady
known as the Christmas spirit, and closed the door
behind him, turning the knob to quiet the sound. When he
faced the mirror, it wasn’t the perfectly functional plain
night light that greeted him, but a tiny strand of neon
colored Christmas lights and a miniature Christmas tree
on the bathroom counter served as the air freshener.
“There’s really just no end to this,” George thought as he
completed his morning routine.

George left the bathroom and made his way
downstairs through a gauntlet of decorations, the purpose
of which was to ensure that nothing of his functional,
non-Christmas house remained to the naked eye.
Once in the kitchen, he made coffee and resolved to
wait; Christmas Eve had come again. The tree lights from
the living room blinked inexorably, counting the seconds
until the Daley family ventured voluntarily into their
annual insanity. In a small act of defiance, he reached past
the Christmas-mocha-mint flavored coffee creamer in the
refrigerator and grabbed the unflavored heavy whipping
cream for his coffee.

“Ha,” he muttered. “Take that, Christmas.”
Equipped with coffee, he se led himself to wait for
dawn.

He didn’t have to wait long. About the time the top
rim of the sun poked its head above the horizon, Mary,
already wearing her Santa stocking hat, popped into the
room. George smiled, even as he hoped she wouldn’t try to
engage him in conversation. If he could have appropriated
anything of Mary’s constitution for himself, it would have
been her ability to wake up and fall asleep so quickly. The
woman was like a Ferrari, able to go from zero to fully
alert in three seconds. At night, she could transition from
an alert conversation to sleep and softly snoring in less
than a minute. George had to admit he more closely
resembled a dump truck with a whole load of rocks.
Mary poured herself a cup of coffee and kissed him.
“Mmmph. Morning breath.” She wrinkled her nose.

“It is morning,” he said.

She smiled. “Christmas Eve. I think I like this day even
more than Christmas itself. All the shopping, wrapping,
and food prep are done.”

George sighed. “Yep. Just the annual visit to the mall
and the endless parade of Christmas movies to get
through.”

Mary gave him a level look. “Now, don’t start. It’s a
Christmas tradition. Besides, they’re calling for snow in
the forecast.” She gave a little squeal. “We’re going to have
a white Christmas!”

George sipped his coffee and leaned back from the
table to look out the window, pretending concern he
didn’t feel. “Maybe we should skip the trip to the mall.”
Mary laughed. “Oh no, you don’t. It won’t start
snowing until tonight, but it’s supposed to last through
Christmas Day. Riley will be thrilled.”
George levered himself out of his chair and shuffled
over to kiss Mary on his way out of the kitchen.

“Where are you headed?”

He gave her a quick peck on the head. “There are a few
Premier League games on television before the NFL
matchups today. I thought I’d check them out.”
Mary’s brows drew together. “You’re not going to
watch in the upstairs den, are you? Riley and I were going
to—”

“—Watch your Christmas movies,” George finished.

“I know. I’ll watch on the small TV in the office.”
Mary smiled in anticipation of watching the same
movie plot she’d already seen a dozen times this year and
at least several hundred throughout their marriage.

“Thank you, it’s a Christmas—”

“—tradition. I know.”
George trudged from the kitchen to the office, an oasis
of sanity relatively free from the Christmas decorations
that had taken over the rest of the house, the way kudzu
dominated rural highways in the south. He se led in to
watch the first game, noting contentedly as he looked out
the window onto their street that the rising sun obscured
the Christmas lights, making them nearly invisible.
This contentment lasted until he turned on the
television and caught an advertisement for the network’s
annual marathon of that Christmas classic whose
characters bore the same name as George and his wife.

George’s contentment evaporated. For the last four weeks,
he’d endured the references at every social event where
a endees knew his and Mary’s names. He kept the fact
that his holiday-deranged mother had actually named
him for the character in that annual movie as a secret as
crucial as the nuclear launch codes.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, with two minutes left
to go in the current football game, Mary entered the office
and pulled George from his chair. “It’s time,” she said.
George regarded this statement with the same
enthusiasm as a death row inmate, with the exception
that the inmate’s suffering would be brief and final, while
George’s suffering still had at least another full day to go
and would return next year and the year after and the
year after ad infinitum.
They drove the requisite twenty minutes to the mall,
during which Mary and Riley took turns pointing out the
pre ier decorations on the houses they passed. George
complimented himself on his ability to watch the road
without being distracted by the decorations or the squeals
of delight from Mary and Riley as they drove past houses
intent on providing Santa with a well-lit landing strip for
his visit. George wondered idly just how fast the electric
meters were spinning.
They parked at the mall outside the main entrance
beneath one of the parking lights. Three thumps of car
doors closing sounded, and George took his first
compliant steps toward the crowded insanity before
stopping when he noticed Mary lagging behind. He turned
to see Mary; her face turned upward, her eyes closed as it
started snowing. Fluffy snowflakes drifted into the light,
caught it, and reflected it as they drifted down to land on
Mary’s cheeks and eyelashes. George’s breath caught as
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memories collided with the present. This. This was the
moment he knew he loved her nearly twenty years ago.
By all the saints of Christmas, why couldn’t he stay in this
perfect moment instead of spoiling it by going into the
mall?
Mary lowered her head and opened her eyes, and the
moment was gone. But when George turned to head
toward the entrance, he saw Riley looking at him, her eyes
shining over the smile on her face. “She still gets to you,
doesn’t she, Dad?”
George looked away, embarrassed. “Yeah. She does.”
Mary stepped through the mall doors and into the sights
and sounds of Christmas. Carols blared from the speakers
positioned around the food court by the entrance, echoing
from the tile, steel, and concrete until Bing Crosby
sounded like he’d recorded White Christmas in a cave.
Throngs of shoppers slipped in and out, carrying
oversized bags to hold their purchases while a few
children waited in a short line to get their last-minute
requests into the department store Santa, who held court
with the aid of a solitary elf.
The Santa lifted the girl off his knee and set her down
with a smile. Only one child remained to make his request,
and at that moment, Santa looked up and met Mary’s gaze
from across the food court. Silver sparkles played across
the incredible blue of Santa’s eyes, and Mary took an
involuntary step toward him and his elf. From the dim
reaches of her childhood came a memory so long-forgo en
yet strong that Mary would have sworn it happened at
that moment —a memory of Christmas magic that
overlaid the mall, Santa, and even George and Riley.
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In her recollection, she stood in the darkened front hall
of her parents’ home, caught by the magic of the
Christmas castle, which she saw for the first time from
the vantage point of a three-year-old. She stepped
forward, her breath catching as she saw the magic lights
shining through the castle windows in blue, purple, and
green hues. There in the castle courtyard stood Santa by
his sleigh, surrounded by snow, his pack on his back. In
her child’s memory, she saw his eyes sparkling as he
prepared to mount his sleigh. The deep magic surrounded
her until she was no longer a child looking at a toy castle
but a part of it, standing before Saint Nicholas on her
stubby toddler’s legs as snow drifted down and the
reindeer pawed at the earth of the courtyard. Then—
“Mary?”
The spell broke, and she blinked. The food court came
into focus, and George and Riley stood next to her,
waiting.
A last hint of magic, nothing more than the wispiest
tendril, remained to touch her skin. She looked at George,
and when she spoke, her voice sounded so far away, even
to herself. “I’m going to go make a wish. Do you want to
come with me?”
Impervious to the magic, George glanced across the
court and shook his head. “No thanks. I stopped believing
in Santa…yeah. I never believed in Santa. Riley and I will
meet you in the store.”
Mary nodded and hurried across the court, dodging
chairs and tables as Santa lifted the last child from his lap
and set him on his way. She waited until the child’s
parents gathered him in and left before she approached.
She came within a few feet as the last of the magic faded
like the brush of a feather, leaving her skin.
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Santa’s eyebrows framed the question before he spoke.
“Have you lost someone?”
The question struck Mary like a flight of arrows, and
her childhood memory of Christmas flashed across her
vision again—ordinary now, seen through the eyes of an
adult.
“I, uh, I have a wish,” she stammered.
Santa’s eyes crinkled with his smile. A solitary
sparkle of silver played across the blue of his irises and
was gone. “You seem a bit old for this,” he laughed. “And I
can see all kinds of trouble ahead if I have you sit on my
lap.”
Mary laughed, caught off guard, and darted a look
toward the store where George and Riley browsed.
“Actually, it’s more in the way of advice. How do I get my
husband to stop hating Christmas?”
Santa’s eyebrows danced at her even as his expression
empathized. “Wow. That’s a tough one. You know, we
usually go in for more tangible gifts. How about a nice
football?”
She didn’t know why embarrassment flooded over
her at that moment. What was she doing, talking to Santa
at a mall? He was probably an accountant or off-duty cop,
but when she turned to leave, Santa’s voice caught her.
“It might help to know why he hates Christmas.
People rarely do things for no reason.”
Mary shrugged. “He won’t talk about it.”
Santa’s helper, a cute teenage girl with elf ears, leaned
in. “He sounds like a real Scrooge type. What’s he like the
rest of the year?”
Mary held up her hands. “No. George is one of the
most decent, kind people I know. He’s always been…not
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shy, actually…or even timid. He just gets embarrassed
easily.”
Santa nodded. “What do you want for Christmas,
Mary? For yourself, not someone else.”
Her childhood memory washed over her again, and
she spoke without hesitation. “Magic. I want to have the
best, most magical Christmas ever.”
Santa gazed at her, his expression sad.
“I guess that’s too intangible,” she said.
Mary took a deep breath and turned, walking quickly
toward the gift store on the other side of the food court. A
burst of red and green light flashed behind her, but when
she looked back, Santa and his helper were gone, and the
“Closed” sign hung across the walkway to Santa’s chair.
It wasn’t until much later that she realized Santa had
called her by name