{"id":2061,"date":"2021-12-17T22:34:53","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T22:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2021-12-18T07:28:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-18T07:28:07","slug":"miracle-by-connie-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2061","title":{"rendered":"Miracle by Connie Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Miracle<\/em><\/strong> by Connie Willis (Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction<\/em>, December 1991) gets off to a leisurely start with some office chit-chat about Christmas between the protagonist, Lauren, and one of her office colleagues, Evie, and this lays out most of the elements that will feature in this tale: two of their co-workers, Scott Buckley (\u201ctoo cute to ever notice someone like me\u201d), and Fred Hatch (\u201cthe fat guy in documentation\u201d), and the movies Miracle on 34th<\/sup> Street<\/em> and It\u2019s Wonderful Life<\/em>.
The final character in this Unknown<\/em>-like fantasy appears when Lauren gets home, and she is door-stepped by an irritating young man saying he is there to give her a Christmas Present. Despite her shutting the door on him twice, he appears in the apartment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young man was sitting on the couch, messing with her TV remote. \u201cSo, what do you want for Christmas? A yacht? A pony?\u201d He punched buttons on the remote, frowning. \u201cA new TV?\u201d
\u201cHow did you get in here?\u201d Lauren said squeakily. She looked at the door. The deadbolt and chain were both still on.
\u201cI\u2019m a spirit,\u201d he said, putting the remote down. The TV suddenly blared on. \u201cThe Spirit of Christmas Present.\u201d
\u201cOh,\u201d Lauren said, edging toward the phone. \u201cLike in A Christmas Carol<\/em>.\u201d
\u201cNo,\u201d he said, flipping through the channels. She looked at the remote. It was still on the coffee table. \u201cNot Christmas Present. Christmas Present<\/em>. You know, Barbie dolls, ugly ties, cheese logs, the stuff people give you for Christmas.\u201d
\u201cOh, Christmas Present. I see,\u201d Lauren said, carefully picking up the phone.
\u201cPeople always get me confused with him, which is really insulting. I mean, the guy obviously has a really high cholesterol level. Anyway, I\u2019m the Spirit of Christmas Present, and your sister sent me to\u2014\u201d
Lauren had dialed nine one. She stopped, her finger poised over the second one. \u201cMy sister?\u201d
\u201cYeah,\u201d he said, staring at the TV. Jimmy Stewart was sitting in the guard\u2019s room, wrapped in a blanket. \u201cOh, wow! It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em>.\u201d
My sister sent you, Lauren thought. It explained everything. He was not a Moonie or a serial killer. He was this year\u2019s version of the crystal pyramid mate selector. \u201cHow do you know my sister?\u201d
\u201cShe channeled me,\u201d he said, leaning back against the sofa. \u201cThe Maharishi Ram Das was instructing her in trance-meditation, and she accidentally channeled my spirit out of the astral plane.\u201d He pointed at the screen. \u201cI love this part where the angel is trying to convince Jimmy Stewart he\u2019s dead.\u201d pp. 143-144<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After this he tells her that he is there is give what she really wants for Christmas, \u201cher heart\u2019s desire\u201d, before going on to criticise her computer addressed cards, store wrapped presents, etc. Then he disappears, along with her cards, and leaves a Christmas tree growing out of her kitchen floor.
The rest of the story sees Lauren recruit Frank to help her deal with her spirit problem, and the two of them work together to try and get rid of him, as well as cope with various other changes Chris the spirit makes, such as Lauren\u2019s off-the-shoulder black party dress\u2014bought to impress Scott\u2014being changed into a Yanomano Indian costume (Frank helpfully suggests she could wear last year\u2019s pretty red number).
At this point (spoiler) I could see that Lauren was going to end up with Frank and not Scott, and so it materialises (dates with Scott are thwarted by Chris, Frank and Lauren have to come up with last minute gifts for everyone at the office when only Office Depot is open, Fred arrives at the party with the cheese puffs Lauren was meant to bring, Evie arrives wearing the black dress, etc., etc.). Finally, Chris arrives at the party dressed as Santa Claus.
This is an entertaining fantasy rom-com that gets off to a very good start, but I thought it tailed off towards the end (I\u2019m not sure if this is because of pacing\/padding problems, or because I guessed where it was going). I also thought that the two movies are referenced too much\u2014but this is maybe a function of describing enough about them to those who aren\u2019t familiar with them. Overall, though, not bad.
***+ (Good to Very Good, or, more accurately, Very Good to Good). 14,000 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miracle by Connie Willis (Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction, December 1991) gets off to a leisurely start with some office chit-chat about Christmas between the protagonist, Lauren, and one of her office colleagues, Evie, and this lays out most of the elements that will feature in this tale: two of their co-workers, Scott Buckley (\u201ctoo cute to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334],"tags":[235,217,4,542,574,575,335,7],"class_list":["post-2061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connie-willis","tag-235","tag-3-5","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-movies","tag-christmas-spirits","tag-connie-willis","tag-novelette"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2061"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2069,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions\/2069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}