The Christmas Party

Description

The Christmas Party is a quirky, magical story that celebrates the true spirit of Christmas. Ryan, a sensible accountant, believes Christmas is an overrated inconvenience. His secretary, Jane, believes Ryan needs to get a life. She is determined to help him turn his life around, the first step, bullying him into attending her Christmas Party. Ryan finds himself surrounded by fantastical fairy-tale characters; incognito elves, Jack Frost, Rudolph and even Santa himself! Did Jane spike the punch? A feel-good Australian Christmas short read, The Christmas Party, is just right for a lighthearted escape into the real world of Christmas, with just a sprinkle of magic elf dust!

Excerpt:

Ryan did not want to go. Jane’s mandatory Christmas party?

Bah! Humbug!

Spending the first night of the holiday break surrounded by either his clients or his secretary was not his idea of fun. All Ryan really wanted to do was go home, crash on the couch with a couple of cold beers, order a large Papa Joe’s half Yiros/ half Supreme pizza and watch Star Trek re-runs on Channel Z until he passed out.
A silent night to all, and to all a good night!
Ryan had worked overtime every night for the last two weeks in order to get a backlog of accounting work under control so he could enjoy a proper break from his business. The constant stream of clients, dropping in with ‘Seasons Greetings’ and presents for him, made it nigh on impossible to concentrate during work hours. Very kind of them, he thought, but the quarterly information Ryan had asked for weeks ago, would have been more beneficial.
Adding to his exasperation, in the middle of an early heatwave, the office air conditioner had broken down. As it was Christmas, it took three days to get anyone out, and that was just to look at it. When the technician finally arrived, during Jane’s lunch break yesterday, he had been able to fix it in five minutes. Like magic. Funny thing though, another technician from the same company, who knew nothing of the previous tech’s visit, had shown up later that afternoon, but “Yep”, he said, “the air con is definitely working.” No point calling their office, thought Ryan. Obviously just a double up on the job, and he couldn’t recall the name of the first tech anyway.
A version of some crooner singing “Silver Bells” floated through the office speakers. Ryan was so sick of hearing Christmas carols. Jane had diligently played them on loop in the office for the last two months. There would be more carols tonight, of course, while Jane held him captive in her house and made him be nice to people for hours. Oh! Tidings of comfort and joy. He could hardly wait.
With only the two of them in the office, couldn’t they just have gone out for a fancy lunch? “Don’t be ridiculous”, Jane retorted when Ryan suggested it. That morning, as Ryan had tried yet another lame excuse, Jane vehemently pointed out that “One would think that inviting our loyal clients to share our Christmas Party is paramount to good public relations, and something one might want to make the effort to attend”, or something like that anyway. She had sounded a little muffled by the tinsel he shoved in his ears.
As he closed up the office, Ryan dawdled through the lengthy list of instructions that Jane left for him. She had gone early that afternoon to prepare for the party, and the added task of going to Ryan’s house to pick up an esky that he had forgotten to deliver to Jane’s the previous night. At least he didn’t have to take down the decorations that covered every inch of available space. Finally, he reached the last instruction on the list; lock the door. As if he would forget to do that! Did she think him an imbecile?