Plaid Christmas

This week’s new flash fiction, the best laid plans go awry for a simple gift exchange.

Plaid Christmas

The Hibernian Club of Somerville, Mass was perhaps an unlikely spot for a Secret Santa party. The group, more head-breakers than historical society, embodied the Highland’s generally low level of tolerance for frivolity. Mixed with legendary Scots’ frugality. The affair ultimately was approved, however barely, based on the appeal of each boss’s only needing to buy a present for one member of his crew.

By the time of the event the identity of each giver remained a mystery. Secrecy was one of the hallmarks of this type of order after all.

Come the day of the swap, the heads of the outfit sat in a circle of folding chairs arranged around a small table of wrapped and labeled goodies. Each officer would retrieve his designated treat and open it, one at a time. Without a clue who had contributed it. The soldiers sat in rows along the back of the room.

First went Dunbar. He picked up and drummed with his fingers his rectangular, metallic-sounding box. He voiced all of their worst fears. “It bloody well better not be haggis.”

To his and the crowd’s delight, it turned out it was tinned shortbread. The good stuff. Shipped from the home country. Not the brick hard shite they made at the nearby corner bakery on Craigie St.

Dunbar stowed away the butter cookies and on they went.

Falkirk picked up his gift next. Shook the heavy oblong box. “Maybe a whisky? Too much to hope for a 12-year-old Speyside?” In fact, it proved to be a long, silver, fixed-blade dirk. A Gaelic dagger.

He was tickled. “Ahh, a Troon toothpick. Can’t have too many of these, can ye.” Then on closer examination he noted the steel held remnants of blood, flecks of matted hair and gristle. He scanned the circle. “Which dirty dog among you is trying to unload a murder weapon on me? I will crack your bloody windpipe so you will wheeze like a set of leaky bagpipes.”

Young Jonny was next in line, and he jumped in to take his turn, seeking to lower the temperature a bit. Not so. He poured on gasoline. He had been doing some research. A little learning can be a dangerous thing.

“I’ve been reading about these Secret Santa affairs. It appears quite often they employ a bonus feature called the Yankee swap. An option to steal. Rather than open his allotted surprise gift, one can elect to commandeer a present already bestowed. Dunbar, I think I will take those biscuits off your hands.”

Dunbar bowed up. “You try that my wee laddie and it will be your last Christmas.” Now Jonny was about as wee as a bull elephant. That year at the Scottish games he had flicked the massive caber like a rolling pin, throwing it so high and far that it landed on its end, and rather than completing its arc and falling majestically over to clinch his victory, it had stuck obscenely in the ground pointing straight up like a sundial for the Titans.

Suddenly weapons were drawn throughout the room. A pattern of gunmetal danced around the perimeter of the gifting circle like a deadly pewter snowflake.

At that moment, as if on cue, sweet angelic singing mysteriously filled the room from above. A heavenly host. Pure goodness. The would-be killers froze. Remembered why they were there. Why any of us are here. Recalled the infant-reveal in a drafty desert barn two millenia past. The season of giving. The prince of peace. Thoughts turned to a long-deceased gran in Kirkcaldy baking scones for Father Christmas. Or mince pies and parsnips in front of a sod fire. The calming music seemed to float down and fill the room with soaring inspirational voices. A Christmas miracle.

The soft supernatural harmonies that caused a general lowering of weapons now spawned shamed floor-gazing. Ultimately the gift exchange was abandoned and the participants slowly shuffled out into the cold, a contrite parade of tartan, one after another.

Next door at the Star Brite Academy dance studio the child’s choir was practicing at high volume for the upcoming holiday pageant. An innocent ethereal chorus asking, without irony, beneath vents shared with the Hibernian Club, “What child is this?” All the while knowing perfectly damned well who it was.

Before the chastened Club members emptied their hall, they found time for a hasty unanimous resolution that next year the gift buying cash would be pooled and donated to the Dead Firemen’s fund.