Holiday Stories and Poems

The Made-Up Tales of Great, Great Grandmother

This is a science fiction short story about a little girl and her Nana.

The Made-Up Tales of Great, Great Grandmother

I loved to sit and listen to my great, great grandmother. She made up the best stories.

“Long ago and far away on the planet Earth, there used to be real Christmas trees," she'd always start off, as I curled up in her cozy, warm lap.

"Those Christmas trees were fresh from the forest, and they smelled of pine nuts and damp peat. They felt tickly in your hand when you clasped a branch and released their wonderful fragrance. We hung decorations in the boughs of the trees. And, this is the part you won't believe, my child. We took the tree into our house."

Of course, I'd heard the tales so many times I almost knew them by heart, but there was a rote to her telling. I even had my own lines to say. "Why did you bring trees into your house, Nana?"

She hugged me, then, so I was always glad when I asked the question. Nana always told better stories when I followed the usual pattern.

"We brought the trees into the house to put presents underneath them, presents in pretty-wrapped packages. We used real paper made from trees back then, and the colors were indescribable: reds and greens, blues, and silvers. Why we even had colored ribbon to tie the packages up with, and my mother used to hang a candy cane on the center of every package, just to make it pretty."

"Did you get to eat the candy?" I'd ask right then.

"Oh, yes. What a treat that was when we finally got to open the packages and eat those little candy canes. Peppermint, you know, and they were such a pleasant mouthful to suck, all sugary and sticky. Why sometimes it was so sweet it tickled your taste buds. My tongue used to curl up in the roof of my mouth and just lay there panting with pleasure.”

That was the part that I loved to hear. “Tell me more, Nana," I would plead, and Great, Great Grandmother would take another sip of reconstituted, imitation, coffee-water, sigh, and continue.

“Oh, there were so many good things to eat, back then. We had a gingerbread house. You’ve smelled the ginger patches in your history book. You know what ginger smelled like. But the taste -- oh, that was such delight. It was crispy, yet soft. It melted in your mouth, and you couldn’t help but smile. But that was just the gingerbread part. The miniature house was covered with delicious, tasty sweetness: lemon drops, cherry suckers, rainbow hard candies, cinnamon dots, soft chocolates that melted inside your hand if you didn’t pop them into your mouth quickly enough.”

Mother B577 too often would interrupt these wonderful tales. Her snippy nose would shoot up with stern disapproval, and she would stop by and shake her head, scorn heavy across her face. “Now, Nana,” she’d say. “Are you telling those outrageous lies about that ridiculous holiday again? You know there was never such a thing as Christmas. That’s all a made-up story. Why if people chopped down trees to bring them inside, and they wrapped presents in real paper, there wouldn’t have been any trees left. Then everyone would have died from lack of air.”

Of course, I always hugged my great, great grandmother then and winked at her. I knew the stories couldn’t be true. All that candy, all that waste, but still I loved to hear the tales. “Tell me about Santa Claus,” I’d urge her, the moment Mother B577 walked away.

Nana would laugh. Her mouth was wrinkly and the teeth implants sometimes seemed too big for her shrunken-in face, but she’d hug me and “remember” more and more of the impossible celebrations she called Christmas.

“Why, I used to have a little nativity set. It was made out of real wood, and up on top was a golden star with sparkles. Inside was a miniature baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and all the animals were beside the baby’s manger . . . ”

“Real animals, Nana?”

She always laughed when I said that. “Ah, R495, we certainly did have real animals back when I lived on the planet Earth. Lots of people had cats and dogs, and some people even had horses and barn animals, but you know my little rascal, that inside my little wooden manger there were only wooden figurines.”

“Oh, I wish I could have seen them,” I’d say, not minding at all that Nana had wandered away from telling me about Santa Claus.

Eventually, if I were very patient, she would return to the best part. Then she’d tell me all about the flying reindeer and how Mrs. Claus baked cookies in a big box she called an oven.

“Mrs. Claus didn’t use a food machine?” I could never stop myself from asking.

Great, Great Grandmother would chuckle a bit and pat me on the head. “We didn’t have those, R495, nor did Mrs. Claus.”

I loved my great, great grandmother so very, very much. It was the saddest day when her parts wore down and she was dismantled and recycled. I cried, and when the new robot came to replace her, I refused to listen to any of its programmed tales.

It just wasn't the same without all the stories that Great, Great Grandmother used to make up about the holiday she called Christmas.

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