A New Tradition

I wrote this to aldersprig's prompt "A new tradition."

“I don’t think I can do this again,” Pearl took off her washing up gloves and wiped her forehead with her handkerchief.  “It must be over 40 in this kitchen, but at least it’s all cleaned up.”  She smiled at Nancy, her daughter-in-law, who smiled back.

Clarry, her husband of thirty years, stuck his head in the door.  “Boil the kettle for us, will ya luv?  We’re parched out here.”

Pearl sagged and Nancy suggested, “Why don’t I make the tea while you go out there with the others and cool down a bit?”  When it looked like Pearl was going to object, Nancy added brutally, “If you stay out here any longer, you’ll make yourself sick.  You should have some cold soft drink out of the fridge before you even think about tea.”

“That would be nice,” Pearl allowed and quietly went.

Later the two women spoke privately again.  “We could have Christmas dinner at our place instead of here,” offered Nancy.  “It’s bigger and we’ve got a dishwasher.”

“We’d still have to cook dinner,” pointed out Pearl.

“Not on the day,” pointed out Nancy, “if we had a cold buffet.  Cold chicken, ham, salad and cold desserts.  No hot kitchen.”

“We wouldn’t have to get Clarry to carve anything,” said Pearl hopefully.  “He always insists on doing it, but he can’t carve anything properly.”

Clarry objected.  He didn’t want to lose the roast Christmas dinner with all the trimmings he’d had all his life, even if roast chicken didn’t have to be an occasional meal any more.

“Then you can stay out in that box oven of a kitchen all day and make yourself sick from the heat,” snapped Nancy while her husband, Charlie, staying judiciously out of the conversation.

Clarry tried to rally support from his brothers who all spent Christmas with their own children and grandchildren these days.

“Sorry, mate,” said Jack.  “Glad hasn’t cooked a hot Christmas dinner on the day for years.  She doesn’t even do the Christmas pud, our Gail’s Joe makes it and the custard and brings them along.”  He dropped his voice conspiratorially, “It’s a better pudding than Glad’s ever was, but I never told ya that.”

Tom laughed.  “We’ve been having a cold seafood spread for a few years now.  Frannie makes a pavlova and a trifle.  Young Elizabeth brings along a Christmas pudding ice cream and we all give Mike and Kim our money and they hit the fish market on Christmas Eve for us.  Works out well.”

The rest of the family was no more supportive.

Clarry grumbled about it in the lead up to Christmas and was only slightly mollified by the baked dinner Pearl cooked for him on Christmas Eve.  He was still grumbling when he walked into Nancy and Charlie’s house and even when he picked up his plate to start serving himself.  Something happened as he ate.  The grumbling slowed and then stopped.

Finally, as they sat around the table, happily full, cool with no hot blast of air coming out of the kitchen and drinking tea, he said, “Why ever didn’t we do this before?”

December Prompt Call Closing

Dear All,

It is now almost 3:00pm my time on 23 December.  I will be closing the December Prompt call to prompts and boosting in 24 to 31 hours, so get your last minute prompts and boosts in.

Thank you everyone who has participated so far and I'm sorry some of the writing hasn't been as fast as I hoped, but the body did insist on sleeping more than I expected at times this week.

Anyone who is travelling anywhere this season, be safe, slow down if the weather is dodgey and take care of yourselves because you are all precious.  [And not just because you read my stuff.  :)]

Rix

Some Days Are Worse Than Others...

I wrote this to ysabetwordsmith's prompt " From the Angels setting: a forgotten holiday."

Tala found Lasrial sitting morosely on a rock on the edge of their practice ground.  The older angel was usually serious and solemn but today he drooped.  The shades of the dead that thronged Thaladneth’s halls usually ignored the angels but they were crowded around Lasrial, so many in number that they made a barely audible susserating murmur.

“Lasrial,” Tala put her hand on his shoulder to make sure she got his attention, “what’s wrong?”

He looked up and asked eagerly, “Does our master have a task for me?”

“Not that I know of,” Tala replied, “but you looked so sad, I was worried about you.  What’s wrong?”

“Today would have been my first master’s highest holy day,” he was solemn again and a tear might have glistened in one eye.  “It’s a day I like to be busy on.”

“But today you’re not busy and you miss him?”  Tala couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to lose her divine master, and she didn’t want to know.

“Yes.”

“Humans mourn their dead by going and putting flowers or lit candles on their graves,” she offered.  “I could come with you if you would like company.”

“Thank you,” he smiled at her, “but with a dead god that’s too close to worship to be safe.”

“Oh Lasrial,” she knelt down beside him and put her arms around his torso, and only his torso, under the point where his blue-grey wings sprang from his back, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right little one, it’s not your fault.”  He still hugged her back and he may have cried a little while she couldn’t see him as he petted her hair.

When he let her go she stood up. “If you want something to do,” she offered, “you can come and help me put all the books I pulled out in the library back on the shelves.  If there’s time left after that, then you can take me through my spear drill again.”

“Your spear drill’s okay,” Lasrial observed in a why-would-we-do-that tone.

“Given the amount of time I’ve been doing it, you can’t tell me it’s up to your standards!”  She flashed a smile at him.

“Well, no.  You have a point.”