Winter 2020 Holiday Challenge Stories

Chapter 1 Creative Gift Recycling

Every year as long as Hank Booth could remember, old Mrs. Thomkins down the street had baked a holiday fruitcake and presented it to his parents at Christmas. His mother and father would thank their neighbor warmly and tell her later how much they appreciated her thoughtful laborious gesture. They graciously assured her that their family had relished the treat. They just didn't specify exactly how they had enjoyed it.

In truth the fruitcake's function in the Booth household did not involve their dinner table. His mother would leave the fruitcake in its muslin wrapping, soaked as it was in brandy. She encased the weighty cake twice, first in a layer of cheesecloth or an old towel, secondly in aluminum foil.

Then his skillful seamstress mom would pull out her sewing box and scrap bag to find a muted color remnant of suitable size from which to fashion a rectangular bag. Sliding the fruitcake inside, she'd baste it closed and place it at the base of whichever door in their house needed propping open. Usually the kitchen door which led to their basement.

Generally this sturdy home-made doorstop would last about a year before another was needed. And by that time, faithful sweet Mrs. Wilkins would have baked another fruitcake which would replace its predecessor by the door. Occasionally a particularly sturdy fruitcake might survive longer, and Ellie Booth would simply place the new one by a different door.

Their friendly baker neighbor never guessed how useful and handy her fruity holiday gifts were to the Booth family. After she passed away, Hank's mother replaced the last aging fruitcake with a well-padded brick wrapped in old quilting in memory of their friend. This brick doorstop followed Hank into his own home, where a teenaged Edwin learned to cuss stubbing his toe on it.

Some years later, Seeley and Jared came to live with Pops, and the fabric-covered brick impersonating a fruitcake stubbed a few more toes when chores were being done. When an older Hank moved to Willow River Retirement Center, the fruitcake brick doorstop was passed on to his secretly sentimental elder grandson.

It traveled first to a small second floor apartment over the Sportsman Liquor store, and then to a refurbished home in Rockville Maryland where its place of honor graced Booth's mancave for many years thereafter.

A/N: I'm using the 31-word challenge list as inspiration strikes me, rather than in order. Covid-19 has impacted our family in many ways this year...postponing important events, bringing new friends across our paths, preventing in-person contact with longtime friends. Hopefully soon it will come to an end.