Advent Ghosts 2025
This week I’m participating in Advent Ghosts, an annual flash fiction event run by writer Loren Eaton. You'll find links to all the stories participating in this event at his blog, I Saw Lightning Fall. Every single one of these stories is exactly 100 words.
Loren will be adding links to more stories as we get closer to Christmas, and as writers submit them.
So be sure to check back. Here’s my story:
AND TO THINK IT COMES ALIVE AT MIDNIGHT
Phil awoke on a hard ceramic bed. The front door—also ceramic—was stuck in the open position, or he never would have squeezed out of the teensy house.
In the town square, Cratchit boosted Tiny Tim on his back while Buddy the Elf yukked it up with Ralphie, whose cold, vitreous eyes gazed at the rifle in Higbee’s window.
Shit—I know this place.
Phil’s wife loomed overhead, guzzling eggnog. “Know what happens to puny men at Christmas? They shrink.”
Small enough for Belinda’s Christmas village.
“Hag! Witch!”
She nudged a minuscule Ghost of Christmas Future beside him. Checkmate.
Copyright 2025 Joseph D’Agnese
My previous contributions to the Advent Ghosts events are here: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2019, 2023, 2024.
Last year, because of a natural disaster that hit our region, we skipped doing our little village. (It’s a lot of work.) But we’re back in force this year.
Have you seen the video of my Christmas trolley?
