Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

She didn’t move.

Not when the old clock in the hallway sighed its way toward midnight, not when the baseboard heater clicked on again, not even when the house settled with the soft, tired creaks that meant everyone else was asleep. She kept perfectly still beneath her quilt, eyes wide open in the dark, listening the way her grandmother said deer listened in the woods—ears lifted, breath held, heart leaning forward.

Because this was the year it might not happen.

This was the year kids at school had whispered across lunch tables and in the coatroom, telling her she was too old to believe anymore. Too smart. Too tall. Too everything. They said Santa was a story grown-ups told, and she had almost nodded along, almost said “yeah, I know,” almost given in to the hollow, heavy feeling that came with pretending to agree.

But she wasn’t ready. Not yet.

So she waited.

The street outside was quiet. The snow had stopped earlier in the evening, leaving the world wrapped in that soft, thick hush that made everything sound far away. Perfect sleigh-bell weather, she whispered to herself. Her grandmother used to say that on nights when the snow held its breath, you could hear things you weren’t supposed to. Important things.

She closed her eyes and counted backward from one hundred.
Then forward again.
Then sideways, on a diagonal she invented just to stay awake.

The refrigerator hummed.
The wind brushed against the gutters.
A car turned onto a distant road.
Nothing magical.
Nothing impossible.
Nothing like the sound she remembered from when she was small.

Her chest tightened a little.
Maybe the kids at school were right.

She rolled onto her back and folded her hands on her stomach the way she’d seen her mother do when she couldn’t sleep. The ceiling looked pale in the moonlight. She tried to imagine what it would be like to let go of the idea, to shrug and say, “I don’t believe in that anymore.”

But something inside her—small and stubborn, like a spark under ash—wouldn’t make the shape of that answer.

She listened harder.

Minutes passed.
Maybe more than minutes.
Her eyes stung.
Sleep pulled at her like a tide.

Just when she felt the last thread of belief loosen—
there.
A sound.

So faint she almost missed it.
A far-off silver glimmer of sound, like two tiny stars tapping against each other.
High.
Light.
Impossible.

Her breath caught.
She held still, afraid the smallest movement would break whatever spell she’d stumbled into. The sound drifted again—brief, bright, unmistakable. Like bells carried on a current of night air.

Her throat tightened in a way she didn’t have words for.

Maybe she imagined it.
Maybe she dreamed it.
Maybe it didn’t matter.

She eased her fingers out from beneath the quilt, barely daring to move, and let herself listen for as long as the sound lasted.

When it faded, she finally blinked, slow and steady, not disappointed at all.

The night felt different now—larger somehow, full of places for wonder to hide.