Blogfestivus is a creative writing challenge issued by that nefarious elf Blogdramedy. Twelve days of 144-word stories based on the popular “Twelve Days of Christmas” song. Day Six is “six geese a laying”.
Party Time
Lixin had heard of Christmas, of course, but had never participated in it. Having only arrived three weeks ago as an intern through her university in China, she was curious to make her own observations of her first Holiday Party.
Christmas music blasted out of a desktop’s speakers, but no one seemed to notice it. Mostly everyone was crowded around the corner table, which held about a half-dozen liquor bottles. The younger guys were already cruising the buffet.
Six Geese
She asked her manager, Leslie, about the party’s traditions and their connection to Jesus.
“Oh, sweetie. No Jesus here – we can’t…” she said, exhaling heavily vodka’d breath and waving her red plastic cup. “It’s really just an excuse quit a few hours early and party!”
“But… couldn’t you do that anytime? Why attach it to something you don’t believe in?”
Leslie sighed and handed her a brownie.
Stevil 
Nice!
Wow, it really doesn’t take many words to get a whole lot of thoughtfulness into a post.
Love the six geese a-laying!
Thanks Lauri — I’ve always heard you’re supposed to write about what you know… :)
Another clever creation, Steve. Very nice.
Thanks LD!
Lixin. Hmm. Methinks a reindeer in disguise.
SS — hah! Actually, Lixin was the name a Chinese woman that I went to graduate school with.
Love how your worked those bottle of Grey Goose into this story. Get that man a cocktail! :-)
BD — go with what you know. :D
Reminds me of many convos with the traumatised foreign kids who somehow got screwed into attending the worst US school (per Newsweek) when I was a kid.
My favorite was, “Why do you look different from all the other kids? They all look the same.”
Lots of religious questions, too–and I don’t mean dogmatic.
MT — that was one of my favorite part of my grad school and post-doc years, in that I became exposed to so many other different types of people and cultures. Their objective distance often made me re-look at things I thought were “normal”.
Very nice! I echo Lauri’s comment. And I like that name, “Lixin.”
Thanks Random!
I like it! For one thing, the sentiment behind the secular celebration of christmas is really hard for us to explain within our own culture, let alone to another – I’m constantly defending my reasons for celebrating the christmas season as a non-christian. Second, those are certainly my kind of geese :)
Thanks, Jene! I used to have a lot of conversations with the real Lixin (who was a woman in grad school just over from China) about American culture.
I keep wanting to have a goose for Christmas. We made one about four or five years ago and it was an awesome crispy-skin fest.
Nice one!
Thanks, LG — good company, if they’re springing for the Grey Goose, too!