Merry Christmas Harriet (Original)
And then there was Harriet Magillicuddy. Harriet lived in a rather large home in the northern part of town, near the old orphanage. Although most people would agree that the entire town of green Meadow was quiet, Harriet’s house – being out in the middle of nowhere – was quieter than most. If you were to walk around it you would see forest on every side, with a little two-lane highway going by in the front. Even the highway was quiet, for Harriet never had guessed anymore and there are a few others that live this far from town.
Once again, Harriet Magillicuddy didn’t have a Christmas tree. She had boxes and boxes of decorations in the attic but she just hadn’t bothered to use them. She hadn’t decorated the outside either. If you were to walk by her place, you wouldn’t smell any Christmas baking; it simply didn’t make sense to go to all that trouble just for one.
When the folks of green Meadow got together to decorate the town, Harriet would be sitting at home alone in her rocking chair, working on some cross stitching project. And the Christmas chimes, well… She couldn’t hear them this far from town and Harriet was never really in the mood for them anyway.
Her giftwrapping paper was in the hall closet, way in the back on the floor. It had been resting there for years now. Harriet wasn’t much for gift giving anymore – he didn’t have anyone to give to anyhow.
And the Christmas spirit, the magic of the season: to Harriet these were nothing more than memories of times long past, and countless dreams of the children that fate had never allowed her to enjoy. To Harriet, Christmas was one of the more difficult time of the year.
It hasn’t always been this way though. There was a time when Christmas was a joyous season. It was a time filled with celebration and cheer; a time filled with giving thanks, and the counting of blessings. Ahhh but that that was a long time ago.
The townspeople who knew of Harriet nowadays mostly called her the Scrooge of Green Meadow, but in truth, most people didn’t know much about Harriet at all.
She used to be famous for her chocolate chip cookies and those mouthwatering crescents of hers. The people at her church used to say that her crescents would simply melt in your mouth. Harriet’s husband, Philip, would take the entire day off, and together they would spend it doing the holiday baking – it was one of her favorite traditions. Most of the time they would get more cookie dough in their mouths, then in the oven.