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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.

If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.

Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2014 by The Technician.

Individual readers may archive and/or print single copies of this story for personal, non-commercial use. Production of multiple copies of this story on paper, disk, or other fixed format is expressly forbidden.

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It was Christmas Eve and all the family was gathered at my house. Molly and I always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve. When we were first married, it was so we could reserve the 25th to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We continued that tradition even after David and Susan came along.

While they were growing up, Santa always brought the gifts while we were at church on Christmas Eve and we opened presents after we got back. Somehow David and Susan never figured out that Molly always remembered something just as we got into the car and I had to go back into the house to get it. For some reason, I always had a hard time finding it and was delayed several minutes before coming back to the car carrying her purse or whatever. By the time we returned from church, the presents were always under the tree.

When they got older, they liked our Christmas Eve tradition because it allowed them to have their current love interest and later their spouse celebrate with us on Christmas Eve and then with their family on Christmas Day.

As grandchildren came and grew up, it got more and more difficult for everyone to be here for Christmas Eve. But this year, now that all of the grandchildren except little Molly were out of college and married– no great-grandkids yet– it was again possible to get together. At least, that’s what they tell me. I know the primary reason that everyone is here this year is that they think this might be the last year it will be possible.

Molly has been gone now for almost five years. I’m not getting any younger, and time marches on– or at my age, gallops on. I’ve already told them that I’m putting the house on the market in the Spring and moving into a small apartment. If I’m still around next year and we get together, it won’t be here, and it won’t be the same. So, one way or another, this is our last family Christmas at home.

The meal was delicious, even though I didn’t help prepare any of it this year. After eating, we all went to church together– I think that is probably the only time during the year most of the grandchildren ever go. After church, we gathered around the tree to open gifts.

Every family develops certain traditions without ever realizing that they do so. One of the Christmas Eve traditions for us was that one of the grandchildren would always ask, “Gramps, why did you and Grandma get married on Christmas Day?” This year was no exception and David’s oldest, Ken, asked the question after all the gifts were open and we were sitting around drinking eggnog.

“It was because of a mistake at the post office,” I would always begin. “On Christmas Eve day, the postman left a package for me in my mailbox. At the apartment house, the package went in a big box below the mailboxes, and what the postman actually left in my mailbox was the key to that box. When you opened the big mailbox, you could get your package. But the package wasn’t addressed to me. It was addressed to your grandmother.”

I would always wait for someone to ask, “What did you do?” before continuing with my story.

“I took the package up to her apartment and knocked on the door. She invited me in while she opened it, and as they say, ‘The rest is history.’ We got married a year later. None of the local pastors were willing to marry us on Christmas Day, so we went to Las Vegas. You can get married there any time of the day, any day of the year. We eloped and told people and family about it later.”

That short story would be the signal to go back to the table and have some pie for dessert, but this year, little Molly, the youngest grandchild, asked another question. “Little” Molly was 19 and had brought her latest boyfriend, Brian, with her for the evening. Sometimes you can just tell that two people were meant for each other. That is the way it was with Molly and Brian. She had known him for about a year, and, in my mind, they were definitely meant for each other.

After I finished my story, Molly looked at me very seriously and said, “Why do you always smile like that every time you finish that story?”

I looked at her quizzically, and she continued, “That is the same kind of smile you would give us when you were telling one of your big fibs when we were little kids.”

“No, it isn’t,” I replied somewhat defensively.

“Yes, it is,” answered almost everyone in unison.

I sat there quietly for a moment or so debating what to say. “Well,” I began, “Mark Twain said that only dead men can tell the truth. Molly’s gone. I’m close enough. So, I guess I can risk telling you the truth. I have to warn you, though, it might change some of your memories of Molly and me.”

“I want to know the truth, Grandpa,” Molly said as she looked me in the eye.

“OK,” I answered. “For you, little Molly, I will tell the whole truth.”

I took a deep breath and began. “It wasn’t the postman who delivered the package to me on Christmas Eve, it was Santa.”

There were a few giggles, but Molly cut them off with, “Shhhh. I think he’s serious. Let him continue.”

I got up and took my Molly’s picture down from the mantel above the fireplace. I slid the frame open and took an old piece of paper out of the back of the frame. “He brought me a wrapped package and [i]this letter.”

I sat back down before continuing. “He said to me, ‘I have a gift that I can’t deliver to a girl who has written faithfully to me every year of her life.’ He then read the letter to me out loud.”

I opened the piece of paper and said, “This is that letter. It reads, ‘Dear Santa, I am writing to you for the last time. I am almost twenty and all grown up now. I know that the magic of Christmas will soon be behind me. But I am writing one last letter in hopes that you could bring me what I truly want for Christmas this year.

“‘When I was a little girl, Daddy would take my letters to the backyard and very carefully burn them in our big brick barbeque grill as I watched. He said that the letters would be carried in the smoke to your magical workshop. I almost always got what I asked for, so the magic must have worked. I eventually learned that Dad really switched letters so that he could later read what I had written, but I am going to send this letter to you in the smoke anyway and hope that I’m not too old for the magic to work.’”

I stopped to clear my throat and gather my courage to read the rest of the letter. “‘I know that no one will ever read this letter,’ it continued, ‘so I can be totally honest. What I really want for Christmas, Santa, is a spanking. Dad only spanked me once or twice growing up, and there was definitely nothing enjoyable about it. But last year my boyfriend smacked my butt really hard while we were making out and it set off something inside me that I never thought I could experience. I asked him to keep spanking me, but suddenly he got all weird and claimed that I was a freak or something.

“‘I’m not a freak, I am just very sexually turned on by a spanking. I don’t want a spanking every time. Regular sex is wonderful. But once in a while I feel like I need that extra something that I know a spanking would give me. I even think that after my butt is all red and glowing, I would like to be taken in my ass, or at least from behind so that I could feel his body slamming into my asscheeks as he pumps into me.’”

I cleared my throat again. “‘I don’t have a back yard, but I’m going to burn this letter in a coffee can up on the roof of the apartment building so the smoke can go up to wherever you are.’”

I wiped away a tear or two before finishing with, “It is signed, ‘Still believing miracles can happen, Molly.’”

Everyone was very silent. Little Molly was looking at me with very wide eyes.

“Santa then said to me,” I continued, “‘I can’t deliver this gift not only because I have a reputation to maintain with the little children, but also because you are part of the gift. You are the man Molly is looking for.’ With that, he was gone and I was sitting there in my little kitchen with a wrapped Christmas gift that said, ‘To Molly, From Santa’ on the tag.”

“What was in the package?” asked one of the grandchildren.

“I’m getting to that,” I replied. “I took the package upstairs and knocked on Molly’s door. I told her that the package had been mistakenly left at my apartment, and she invited me in. We sat and talked for a few minutes. She asked who delivered the package, and I said that it was a very long story that I would have to tell her later when I knew her better. Then she said, ‘It’s Christmas Eve, so I guess I should open the package.’

“Inside the wrapped box was a wooden paddle a little over a foot long. It was made of oak and was a little over a half-inch thick. It had been very carefully formed and sanded and was finished with a thick layer of glossy varnish. On one side of the paddle was very ornate script which said, ‘To Molly,’ and beneath that, ‘From Santa’s Workshop.’ Somehow, her letter was in the box with paddle.”

I coughed lightly and paused before saying, “I will leave it to your imaginations as to how Molly and I spent Christmas Eve. The next morning, I asked her if she would marry me. She immediately said, ‘Yes,’ but insisted that we would have to wait a year so that we could be married on Christmas Day.”

This time there were more than a couple of tears that I had to wipe away before I could continue. “I was going to put that paddle in the casket with her, but I couldn’t find it when I came back to the house to gather up clothes to take to the funeral home. The only thing I could figure is that when she knew her time was getting close, she threw it away or something so you kids wouldn’t find it.”

“Santa took it back,” said little Molly. Her eyes were now very, very wide.

Then she said softly, “Brian, go out to the car and get that gift from last year.”

He left and returned shortly with a small box. “I gave this to Molly last year,” he said rather sheepishly. Then he added, “… sort of.”

Molly took the box from him and said, “Grandma told me about sending the letters to Santa in the smoke when she was a little girl.”

She then took a piece of paper out of the box and said, “I won’t read this to you, but when you see the gift, you’ll probably guess what it says.”

She reached into the box again and held up a wooden paddle a little over a foot long. It was made of oak and was a little over a half-inch thick. It had been very carefully formed and sanded and was finished with a thick layer of glossy varnish. On one side of the paddle was very ornate script which said, “To Molly,’ and beneath that, ‘From Santa’s Workshop.”

She carefully put the letter and the paddle back in the box.

“Our plane leaves for Vegas at 9:30 tomorrow morning.” said Brian.

“By tomorrow night we’ll be married,” added Molly. “We were going to call everyone from Vegas and tell you that we had eloped like Grandma and Gramps did.”

“It sounds like there is more than just eloping that is like Grandma and Gramps,” said another of the grandchildren. Everyone but Molly, Brian, and me then giggled slightly.

Brian broke the giggling by saying, “I didn’t expect him to have such dark eyes.”

“Who?” Molly’s mother, Susan, asked.

“Santa,” he replied. “They always show him with blue eyes, but when he brought me the package, his eyes were almost black.”

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END OF STORY
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