Wednesday, December 3,
2025
Time: 8:00 AM
Song: Are You
Lonesome Tonight?
Artist: Elvis Presley
Mode of Consumption: Listening to MP3s on the way to work.
Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4wM7V31TsZzzDBEH02Hltb?si=8080c50c8da14e75
We had our Christmas party last night at Write On. This
included a book exchange, treats, and the following writing challenge. We were provided
with a Hallmark movie challenge which through selecting random number
correlated with different aspects of the typical Hallmark movie plot. I
finished the opening scene during our writing time.
Here is the prompt:
A Hard-Working Female TV personality is unhappy because her
Christmas Tree and all her decorations were stolen, and she doesn’t have the
money to replace them. Everything changes when she meets a troublesome male
family man whose two kids are still mourning his recently deceased wife while
they’re both moping around at a karaoke bar and get pressured into singing a
Christmas duet. Through crazy circumstances and a little help from her wise old
father, she soon discovers that Christmas isn’t Christmas without someone to
love.
Here is the scene that I wrote:
About thirty seconds into stepping into the place, Stacy’s
cover was blown. The large sunglasses. The rain bonnet covering her trademark
auburn locks. The trench coat. All made obsolete by her father’s boisterous
voice over the microphone.
“There she is,” Dad’s tanned face beamed, a glass of scotch
in one hand and the microphone in the other. “My daughter – the beautiful and
talented and single if you happen to be Prince Charming - Stacy Dash.”
A few people clapped, probably either missing the blip about
her in last week’s news cycle or already forgetting thanks to the barrage of
other political, athletic or criminal outrage or hoopla careening through the
airwaves and interwebs. Some didn’t clap though. Some stared at her with
knowing looks that said: “You’re that Stacy Dash. Big-time TV Person. You’re
the one that not only had that tree with all those immaculate and valuable
decorations stolen from under your nose, but also unwittingly let the thieves
into the room at the TV station to take it.”
She thought she heard someone whisper that she was probably
in on it. Some of those ornaments had diamonds and gold and real silver. That
tree was going to the children’s hospital, you know. It was going to be
auctioned to raise money for those same kids. Thousands and thousands of
dollars lost.
“This one goes to you, my Dash of joy,” Dad said, and then
he began to croon “White Christmas” like he was Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby.
She found a table near the corner, hoping it hid her from
the angrier stares from the other patrons at “Sing-On” Karaoke Bar and Buffett.
Since Dad had retired, himself a respected news anchor for forty-three years at
the local CBS affiliate, he’d become obsessed with Karaoke bars, hitting one
almost every night of the week. The only way she could see him, it seemed, was
by showing up at one of his many performances.
She ordered a club soda from a snooty waitress before deciding
to go ahead and remove the silly bonnet – it had been her grandmothers after
all and probably hadn’t seen the light of day in ten years – and the
sunglasses.
There were two men seated at a table behind her, and quickly
she became more interested in their conversation more than her Dad’s singing.
“Aubrey’s bloodied three kids noses just this week,” one man
said.
“Really, any reason.” His companion faked a chuckle.
“Oh, yeah, important reasons. One looked at her the wrong
way. One called her name. One happened to be at the end of her fist. And then
there’s Kevin, he won’t say a word. Hasn’t since… well you know.”
Stacy didn’t know but her curiosity was piqued. She risked a
look back, saw both men. One in a suit, hair slicked back, phone in front of
him. The other was wearing a collared golf shirt and a pair of jeans.
“The doctor says that kids are resilient and they’ll get
passed this…”
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That's where I ran out of time
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