Under the New York City sky, and nestled amidst the tall skyscrapers, in a voice that seemed to be echoing the Christmas Spirit, the soft snow flurries started swirling around, and they warmed my heart. Flooding it with memories of Christmas’ past.
Margaret was about to get her coloring book and finish coloring the different flowers in the book – and recolor the flowers that Billy messed up – when a bright radiant light zigzagged in front of the Christmas Tree. It looked like a bolt of lightning from a cartoon.
It momentarily startled Margaret and she jumped back.
The Hrinoff decoration lit up. It started showing a snowstorm. Margaret was mesmerized by what she was seeing. Snow, snow, snow, and more snow. It was an avalanche of snow. A tidal wave.
The storm, possessing an unpleasant and nasty personality, and very unruly, seemed resolved to continue being a nuisance. It was bullying the Hrinoff family. Not only couldn’t they see out their windows, which were plastered with snow, but the snow drifted against their door, making it difficult to open. And the wind, very irate, was whistling a very ominous tune.
The blizzard started last evening and there were no signs that it would be ending soon. It seemed like an everlasting drumbeat of falling snow.
But inclement weather was not a good enough reason for a Hrinoff farmer not to farm and nurture his crops. And even the Hrinoffs, who have the greenest thumbs in the world – and their thumbs are really green – have to tend to their crops.
Madame Hrinoff Aria, the farmer’s wife said, “Go wake up the boys and have them help you.”
“I usually let them sleep until sunrise,” said Hrinoff farmer Topegriadnsite.
“I know that … the weather is so bad, you better get off to an early start.”
“You’re right,” said the Hrinoff farmer.
He walked into his children’s bedroom and woke up his five-year-old son and then his three-year-old. Both boys jumped out of bed and put on their overalls. They put on their designer sneakers and coats. Their father put their furry hoods over their heads. The kids excitedly ran to the window to look out, but they couldn’t see anything. There was a wall of snow blocking their view. They excitedly ran to the door, but when they tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. There were mounds of snow brushing against the door.
The five-year-old ran to get his ax, and was about to chop down the door, when his father stopped him.
Dad and mom helped the kids to push the door open, and when it was wide enough, the farmer squeezed through the door and started shoveling. He needed to make a path for him and the boys to walk. He decided to make a path that went to the shed first, so that he could retrieve his sons’ shovels. He was going to need all the help he could get. While he was shoveling his youngest son was trying to swallow the falling snow. He collided into his father and brother a few times while in pursuit of the falling yellow, green, and orange snow.
“Can you be careful,” said the annoyed five-year-old to his younger brother.
The three-year-old stuck out his tongue and shook his head “No.”
The little boy had a system.
He would eat a yellow snowflake first, and then a green snowflake, and leave the orange snowflake for last. He repeated the same pattern over and over. It was more fun and challenging that way.
His older brother didn’t have a pattern. He was swallowing as much pink and red snow as he could. And the pink and red snow tasted better. At least that’s what he thought.
“Stop eating all that snow,” shouted the farmer. “Your mother is making breakfast.”
Margaret started laughing.
After an hour, they finally arrived at the shed. When the two boys retrieved their smaller shovels, they started shoveling in all different directions.
“Not like that,” shouted the farmer. “We all have to shovel in the same direction. We’re going toward the fields, to tend to the crops.”
It took them an hour to shovel twenty feet of snow.
The snow seemed to be determined to annoy anyone in its path, and the farmer noticed that the path that they shoveled was being covered up by more falling snow. The snow was very spiteful.
The farmer also noticed that his youngest son was missing. He started looking around and saw some snow moving. His son was swallowed up by the snow … it acted like quicksand. It just gobbled him up. When he went to retrieve him, he found his son under a pile of snow, and he was digging a tunnel and laughing.
Margaret was also laughing.
“Now is not the time to play,” warned dad sternly. “We have work to do. You know the Hrinoff motto: ‘Work first, more work, and more work and then we play.’ Now … stop goofing off.”
As he was about to start shoveling again, the Hrinoff farmer heard his older son yelling for help. He found his older son with his head stuck in a rabbit hole. He pulled him out.
“Didn’t I tell you to stop playing around,” said dad, disappointed that his eldest son wasn’t listening.
“I was trying to catch the rabbit.”
“Leave those thieves alone,” said dad.
The Hrinoff farmers hated rabbits. The farmers did all the work, and the lazy rabbits just waited for an opportunity to steal and eat their crops.
A rabbit stuck its head out of its hole, and stuck its tongue out at the farmer, and wiggled its ears.
A snowball whizzed by the farmer’s head.
“Who threw that?” Asked the five-year-old.
They knew it couldn’t be a rabbit. They can’t make or throw snowballs. They don’t have hands. If they had hands, instead of paws, they could be farmers too. And they wouldn’t have to steal all the farmer’s crops.
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Fictional stories by John Saccone 