It’s midday in December and the candles are lit because in winter, daylight can’t be bothered. My table is dressed, but I am not. The tree is trimmed, my hair, not so much. Because that’s what toques are for. I’m trying to recreate an authentic 19th-century holiday aesthetic that no one in my family, or postal code, for that matter, will care about. The holidays are barreling toward me like a runaway horse-drawn carriage, and I’m nowhere near ready — which makes sense, because Marley didn’t visit Scrooge when he was looking his best either. Ghosts prefer chaos.
Naturally, this is the moment the first one decides to show up.
Ex-husband’s Ghost
He appears dragging chains of unpaid child support, forgotten birthdays, and a doctorate in revisionist history.
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” he moans. “Link by link—”
“You’re not dead,” I interrupt. Already annoyed, not alarmed.
“Yeah, but my dreams are, okay?” A sulky response from the ghost of my ex-husband’s… dreams. I am not okay.
"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato,” I shoot back.
Probably. I’m intermittent fasting and who can remember what I ate 14 hours ago. But I’m very pleased with myself for remembering the line.
“Don’t be gross.” the ghost snaps, as insufferable as he was in life. Even though he’s still alive somewhere in Brooklyn, definitely not Christmas shopping for his kid. This hallucination is the worst. “Don’t you want to know how I appear before you?”
Not really. I’m grinding almonds with grim determination. If you’re going to make marzipan, you must grind your own nuts. I don’t make the rules.
“I’m here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.”
“By fate, do you mean astral projecting into your ex-wife’s nervous breakdown to complain about your dead dreams?” I ask. “Statistically, that seems unlikely to happen. To anyone. Ever.”
“Yeah, well you do all this for people who don’t even care. You live in a mountain town where Fjalraven and Fubuki pass for formalwear. You’re grinding nuts and pretending wreath-making is a personality.”
Uncalled for, but clearly I’ve rattled his chains. But he’s not done.
“Three spirits are headed your way,” he says, as he slowly fades away. “I know how much you love a pop-innn—”
The room grows icy cold, but a hot flash kicks in. So, the joke’s on him.
The Ghost of Back in the Day
The air shifts. A cloud of Chanel Coco, cigarette smoke, and hairspray rolls in, and the Ghost of Christmas Past herself materializes—unannounced, unbothered, and fully convinced the moment is about her.
She slides in wearing a slip dress my daughter would kill for and hair wrapped in Velcro rollers that promise a supermodel bounce George Michael would appreciate.
“Hey,” she says, already bored with me. “Remember fun?”
“Define fun,” I demand, tugging at my shirt and engaging my core.
She rolls her eyes (my eyes, but tighter), finishing an imaginary cigarette with an exaggerated French exhale.
“Like, fashion. You used to dress up for the holidays,” she says. “For FUN. For you…for us…whatever. Look at me. I’m wearing a slip dress on a Tuesday. In December. Because I feel like it.”
“We.” I interrupt. “We feel like it.”
She floats closer, and looks me over—leggings and thermal top, dusted in ground almonds.
She arches an over-plucked brow. I wither. She’s terrifying. I adore her.
”Maybe once upon a time,” she concedes, her voice was soft and dangerous. “Then YOU started dressing to impress idiots. Future mothers-in-law. Office parties. School concerts. Your whole ‘don’t look at me’ era. Y-A-W-N.”
She collapses onto my couch like she pays rent. “You used to be electric. Now you’re… rechargeable.”
“What does that even mean? Also, it’s called growing up,” I argue, turning back to my nut grinding with more violence than a nut needs in life.
I don’t have to look up to know she’s scowling. Muscle memory’s like that.
“Look, babe. I’m not here to drag you. I’m here to remind you that you didn’t always dress like you were prepping for a winter survival reality show. You dressed for yourself. You dressed for you—for us.”
She doesn’t mention dress size. Bless her.
She stubs out her pretend cigarette in my very real bowl of ground almonds and vanishes.
I miss her already.
The Ghost of Now
No dramatic entrance — she’s just suddenly beside me. We’re wearing identical clothing and stress frowns.
She’s panting slightly, holding a wooden spoon like a weapon.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” she asks.
I gesture around us.
She nods grimly as we both take in the scene.
The table is styled like an overachieving period drama.
The candles glow just so.
Fresh garlands layered so thickly they could smother a scream.
And a growing pile of almonds so finely ground they’d make a Habsburg weep.
“I’m hosting,” I say. “Creating ambience.”
She snorts.
“Listen. They don’t notice this. Any of this.”
“I KNOW,” I snap.
She mocks me with a dramatic clutching of her chest:
“‘Why do I do all this when no one cares?’ Sound familiar?”
“That’s not fair,” I say.
“Dude, it’s not about them,” she says. “It’s us. We love this. We love beauty. We love drama. We love candlelight, magic, and spectacle. We LIVE for that moment when guests walk in, gasp and whisper ‘Holy shit.’ We’re running a private Dickens-meets-Hecate immersive theatre experience and charging no admission.”
Her voice is shrill and she’s waving the wooden spoon like a maestro.
“What we don’t love is marzipan. Why are you grinding nuts when we look like…this?”
She pulls at our matching pilled leggings and glares at me.
“My—our—family loves marzipan. And I want to make it special.” I hold my ground-ish while taking a step back. This woman is an-ger-y.
“That’s a cop out. Sure, that’s a really fine grind.” She looks admiringly at the bowl between us. “But they love the packaged stuff. If you want to do something special, take a shower and maybe do a hair mask.”
She uses the end of the wooden spoon to shove a frizzy curl back under our toque.
“All this resentment?” she continues, “It’s bullshit and it’s boring. This is a priorities issue.”
I start grinding again, because she’s scary and I need something to do with my hands.
“If you can source a historically accurate gilded partridge and spend three days on a table inspired by 1870s Vienna, you can take twenty minutes to put on something with a zipper.”
She moves closer, rips off her spirit toque and shakes out her hair.
“You’re allowed to be the beautiful thing in the room, too,” she says softly.
She looks so sad as she drifts away that I’m not sure I’ll miss this one.
The Ghost of Future Me
The room goes still. The candles flicker. A cold draft rolls through the house even though every damn window is closed because it’s December and I refuse to heat the entire outdoors.
And then she appears.
It’s me again, but better. Future Me, I presume. Not chippy or frazzled like the ghosts before her. She doesn’t float. She doesn’t glow. She just… stands there. Solid. Grounded. Wearing the dress—the one I’ve had in my online shopping cart for weeks. The one that looks like an organza fever dream you never want to wake up from. I’ve convinced myself I have nowhere to wear it. And yet…here we are.
She points toward the table.
“Looks great, but you missed something.”
I follow her gaze. I suspect she’s setting up for something poetic, but there is an empty patch in the table garland that’s begging for a pine bough.
I’m about to say as much, but she speaks first.
“Nope, we’re not doing that. What you’ve missed—other than that gap that we’ll definitely be fixing later—is that you haven’t given yourself a seat at the table.”
I count the chairs.
“Oh my God. Not literally. I’m speaking in metaphors.” She uses airquotes. She did our nails. Nice. “As in, you deserve to be at your own damn table.”
“You mean idioms.” I interrupt. “You’re speaking in idioms.” I also attempt airquotes, but I’ve got ground nuts under my nails, so I stop.
“Wow,” she shakes her head. Her hair looks great. “FINE. I see a vacant seat and a really nice place card without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, your vibe will die.”
“My vibe?” I ask. I’m going for heavy sarcastic superiority here, but I fall short. Literally. She’s wearing killer heels. I’m wearing socks with grips—a solstice gift from a skilled frenemy.
“Yes, your vibe. The good one. The one with lipstick and opinions. Not the one in fleece and resentment.”
She smooths the dress like it’s her actual skin. It moves when she moves—the slinky underdress, a nod to slip dresses of yore, the floating overdress soft and edgy at the same time.
“We’re not a patient woman, so please just listen. You know you deserve this, right?”
“The dress?” I ask.
“Yes, the dress. And all of this. We’ve worked for it.” She does a quick Vanna White gesture toward the table. “The candlelight, the good wine, the perfectly dressed table…”
I look away from the gaping garland for both of us.
She leans in, earnest but wincing because earnestness makes us squirm.
“You don’t need a reason,” she says. “You are the reason.”
Before she fades, she whispers, “Get the dress. We look hot as hell in it.”
A beat.
Then a final ghostly gasp:
“Also… Norfolk pine. For the gap.”
Epilogue
I’m alone in my kitchen, surrounded by candles and chaos and an oft-attacked nut grinder.
Did the ghost of my ex-husband’s dreams see me in these leggings? Did the ghost of my youth call me a rechargeable battery? Do I say vibe now?
I’ve read the book, so I expect no more visitors. Is this where I hop around and shout about feeling light as a feather and happy as an angel?
I DO feel lighter and devilishly cheerful.
Not one to waste a hallucinogenic experience, I reflect. Maybe it’s me who’s been haunting the holidays instead of inhabiting them. Painting flawless backdrops for a stage without a star. Waiting for applause from the wrong audience. And to milk this metaphor even more, let’s add in something about how extras don’t get standing Os. Note to self (past, present and future): Less martyr, more main character.
I pick up my phone.
I order the dress. And some statement earrings.
I book a manicure.
I put the nut grinder on Marketplace.
And to anyone dead or alive who might be listening, I do the Dickens thing and recite my own epilogue:
“And she was better than her word. She did it all, and infinitely more; and to her vibe, that did NOT die, she was a fierce protector. It was always said of her, that she knew how to host the hell out of the holidays. And that she did indeed look hot as hell in the dress that she wore for many occasions, including a Tuesday. Bless us, every one!
