“You think I’m selling toy ponies? Don’t be ridiculous!” Discord laughed. He paced around David’s apartment, inspecting everything. “I would never sell anything but the most authentic of products!”
David rolled his eyes and shut off the TV. “You can drop the act,” he said, tossing the remote onto the couch. Discord was inspecting the small Christmas tree that decorated the corner of the living room. The salesman’s yellow eyes seemed to get wider as he looked back to David.
“Act? What act?” he asked sheepishly. “Do you really not believe me? Why, you seemed so enthused last night, I thought—”
“You got me drunk and convinced me a bunch of toys were real,” David said angrily, interrupting Discord. He took out his cell phone and began to dial the police station. “I’m calling the cops and they’re gonna bust up your little counterfeiting scheme.”
Discord crossed his arms, shook his head, and said, “Davey, just stop and listen to me.” He snapped his fingers and the phone in David’s hand turned into a banana.
“Hello? Hello? Manhattan Police?” David asked into the curved, yellow fruit. When he no longer heard the ring tone, he turned to look at the phone and flailed when he saw what it had become.
Discord laughed as the banana fell to the floor. “Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring…Banana Phone!” He continued to laugh and picked up the fruit. David watched as the strange gentleman peeled his “phone” and took a bite.
“What the HELL was that?” David asked, shaking and backing up from his guest.
“A children’s song from 1994; I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it,” Discord said, tossing the peel of the banana into the kitchen’s trash can.
David just looked at Discord in confusion for a moment. “What—No! Not the song!” he stammered, “the, the—How did you do that to my phone?!”
“Let’s just call it, ‘Christmas Magic’, okay?” Discord smiled with a toothy grin. “Back to business. Let’s say, hypothetically of course, Fluffy is not the pure bred talking pony I promised her to be. You are still under binding contract.” Discord reached into his blazer and removed the document with David’s signature on it. He waved it tauntingly in front of David, pulling back when the angry man grabbed for it.
Discord unhinged his jaw and crammed the scroll down his gullet. David fell back onto the couch as his knees gave out from under him. He felt an arm wrap around his shoulder and he looked to his left to see Discord sitting next to him.
“I assure you, she is what you paid for,” Discord said.
“Which is nothing, by the way,” an identical voice said to David’s right. He felt another arm wrap around his shoulder and he turned to his right. Sitting on either side of him now, was a Discord. They both grinned as David dove off of the couch.
David’s chest heaved and his heart pounded painfully within. “Okay, what the hell are you?!” David asked, standing in a defensive stance. The two salesman slid together to form a single being on the center cushion.
“I am Discord,” he replied. “Embodiment of chaos! Purveyor of ponies! And I will be delivering your pony tomorrow night…or sometime Christmas morning.” He scratched his head and snapped his fingers with his free hand. A little black book appeared in front of him, levitating at eye level.
“Yes, business has been good,” Discord continued. “I’m going to be very busy delivering all these ponies. But don’t you worry, Davey,” he said, dismissing the black book, “as my loyal customer, I will ensure your daughter gets her pony on time; even if you didn’t pay me quite as much as my other clients.”
David ran his hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end. He turned wide eyed to Discord and tried to speak. After several moments of stuttering and stammering, he managed, “So, I-I can t-trust you?”
Before Discord could answer, he burped and put his fist to his chest. There was a faint ringing noise coming muffled through Discord’s stomach. His cheeks expanded and his tongue unraveled, traveling the length of the living room, and he presented David his phone.
Through the saliva on the screen, David could clearly see his wife’s name and picture. He grabbed the phone hesitantly and Discord’s tongue raveled back into his mouth. David pressed the Talk button and held the slimy phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“David, I almost forgot to tell you! Jen and her fiancé are coming over for Christmas dinner. I hope that’s not a problem.”
“Right. Your sister? Got it,” David said rather quickly. He was keeping his eyes on his guest for obvious reasons. Discord just smiled and went back to examining the Christmas tree. He tapped on a few of the hanging ornaments, turning them into apples and oranges. What is with him and fruit?
“Everything alright, David?” Kristin asked.
“Uh, yeah, everything’s great,” David said, watching Discord take a bite out of one of the tree’s ornaments. “I’ll see you when you get home tonight, bye.”
He rather abruptly ended the call and looked to his phone.
“Where’s my phone case?”
“Oh, check the trash,” Discord said, popping an entire orange into his comically elastic mouth.
“Would you quit eating all my stuff?!” David asked angrily. He fished his cell phone case out of the garbage and popped it back onto his phone. His guest pulled ornament after ornament out of his mouth and hung them back on the tree.
“Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself,” Discord said, taking his cane from thin air. He leaned on it and waited for David to say something.
Okay, first thing after Christmas, you’re getting a CAT Scan, David thought to himself. He rubbed his eyes, just to ensure his vision wasn’t deceiving him. Discord was still there with a big grin that stretched the entirety of his face. His large, white eyebrows bobbed up and down as he looked to his host.
David finally said, “Christmas. My daughter will get her pony and that will be the end of this, right?”
“From the sound of things, you don’t enjoy my company,” Discord said with big, sad, yellow eyes.
“Not particularly.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that, David,” he replied. “Because, of all my clients, I find you to be the most likeable.”
David was a little too confused to be flattered. “Why?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Discord said, walking toward the apartment door. “I’ll be sticking around to witness the New Years Eve chaos; we should have a drink before then.”
“You make good on your word, and I’ll buy the next round,” David said. Discord smiled, and with a wink of his eye, he phased through the solid door.
--
Kristin and Tiffany returned later that day to find David had cleaned the entirety of the apartment. The rug was vacuumed, the dishes were done, Tiffany’s toys had been cleaned up, and everything had a fresh, clean smell to it.
David came out of the bedroom with an armful of brightly wrapped boxes. He nearly dropped them when his leg was unsuspectingly attacked by his daughter. “Daddy!” she shouted happily, wrapping her arms tightly around him.
“Hey, welcome back! How was Grandma?” David asked, dragging his daughter with him as he placed the presents under the tree. With his arms now free, he picked up his daughter and gave her a proper hug.
“She’s still old,” Tiffany replied honestly, in the way only a child can. “And she only got me three presents this year. Last year, she got me four!”
David set his daughter down and waited for Kristin to set the three presents beneath the tree before taking her in his arms. “Did she at least thank Grandma this time?” he asked, giving his wife a kiss.
“With some coaxing,” she smiled. They turned to see their daughter re-organizing the presents so all the ones that were for her were at the front of the tree. Tiffany stepped back, sizing up her gifts with her arms crossed. Kristin and David watched as she counted the boxes over and over again.
“If you’ve been good this year, Santa will be bringing you some more,” David said, kneeling down to look at his daughter. Her face lit up and she put on the most innocent expression she was capable of. Of course, David didn’t buy it, but she was his daughter and no matter how much of a brat she’d been the ENTIRE year, he loved her.
The family spent the rest of the evening enjoying old Christmas classics: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph, and David’s favorite: the 1991 version of A Christmas Carol. Even after the rest of the family had gone to sleep, David watched as Patrick Stewart, his favorite Scrooge, confronted the three ghosts of Christmas.
Once again, David found himself waking up on the living room couch. The VHS tape had reached the end and the VCR spat it out. David stared at the blue screen of the TV until his eyes adjusted. As always, the VCR was flashing 12:00. He only pulled it out of the closet once or twice a year, and had never bothered learning how to set the time.
He pulled out his cell phone instead, and blinded himself temporarily by looking at the screen. Every damn time, he thought to himself as he waited for his eyes to stop burning. Coincidently, the clock on his phone said it was 12:00.
A few seconds passed and his phone updated to show 12:01 A.M., December 24th. He just had to get through one more day, and Christmas would finally be upon him. The holiday madness would hit its peak, and it would be all downhill from there. That is, if he could survive dinner with his prissy sister-in-law and her hoity-toity fiancé. Tiffany getting her pony was suddenly second on his list of worries.
He stretched before getting off the couch and shutting off the TV. The only light left in the apartment was that of the Christmas tree, and he used it to navigate to his bedroom. Kristin was lying there alone, and David couldn’t have been happier to see his spot hadn’t been taken by his daughter. He stripped down to his boxer shorts and got in bed next to his wife.
She stirred a little as he settled next to her and she reached her arm over him. “About time you came to bed,” she said sleepily. He grabbed her hand and sighed before they both drifted back to sleep.
Several hours later, David awoke and found himself alone in the bed. Kristin always got up so quietly—and so early. David could have easily rolled over and gone back to sleep for a few more hours had his daughter not decided to jump onto the bed.
“Daddy, is it Christmas yet?” she asked, placing her face inches from his. She knew the answer, but felt the need to ask regardless.
“Almost,” David replied groggily. He felt the bed raise a little as Tiffany jumped off and ran toward the living room. She sat right in front of the tree and began shaking her presents one by one.
Kristin poked her head into the bedroom and smiled at her husband. “Breakfast is ready if you want some,” she said with a smile. David’s stomach answered for him with a loud rumble. She opened up his dresser and tossed him some clothes, leaving him to dress.
He walked to the kitchen and sat down in his usual seat. On the table in front of him there was a plate with the stereotypical eggs and bacon smiley face. It amused him, but not as much as destroying the face’s eyes with a piece of toast and spinning the mouth to form a frown.
“Stop playing with your food,” Kristin scolded him jokingly. She sat next to him and stared at him silently. It was that look that meant she was either pleased with him, or thought she may have a reason to be. “So, have you talked with Santa about the you-know-what?”
“I have,” David said quietly, not looking up from his meal. “I told you yesterday morning.”
“Okay, well, where is it?” Kristin asked, lowering her voice. Tiffany was still in the living room, listening carefully to the rattling noises her presents were making.
“Santa’s Workshop,” David whispered, taking another bite of egg and toast. Kristin scowled at his response and he smiled. He knew she wouldn’t believe him if he told her about Discord. He wasn’t even sure he was ready to believe it.
Kristin slid the morning newspaper over for David to look at. Hasbro’s new My Little Pony doll had an advertisement right on the front page. David looked at it and then up to his wife. She said nothing, but tapped her finger on the picture of the colorful pony, all the while maintaining eye contact with her husband.
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up. “Thanks for breakfast,” he said, planting a kiss on his wife’s cheek. He walked off to the bathroom for a shower and felt her eyes on the back of his head. By the time his shower was finished, she was in the process of baking Christmas cookies to give friends and neighbors. Tiffany was right beside her, stirring a big wooden spoon around in a bowl of cookie dough. Neither she nor Kristin paid David any mind as he exited the bathroom.
Aside from last minute gift wrapping and baking, the day held no plans. That fact made the day drag by excruciatingly slow for David. He kept bringing his phone out to check the time, always disappointed to see a maximum of five minutes had passed since he’d last checked.
After all the baking was done, Tiffany and Kristin went into the bedroom to wrap more presents. Tiffany came out to join David on the couch after only a little while. David assumed Kristin was in the process of wrapping Santa’s gifts to the family, or gifts to herself labeled “To Kristin, From David.”
David got up to grab himself some eggnog, and as he opened the fridge, he heard Kristin whisper to him. He turned and saw Kristin beckoning to him from the bedroom doorway. With a quick glance to make sure Tiffany was preoccupied, David snuck into the bedroom.
“So,” Kristin asked, closing the door behind him, “did you figure something out with the pony?”
“Yeah,” David said, opening the carton and giving the contents a quick sniff. “It’s taken care of.”
“Well, what did you get? A toy? THE toy?” she asked, clearly referencing the MLP doll from the newspaper ad.
“Even better,” David said, taking a drink of the eggnog.
Kristin looked at him with one eyebrow cocked. “You didn’t buy her a real pony. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Are you crazy? How much did it cost? Where is it now? How are we going to take care of it? Where did you get it?”
The whole while Kristin shot questions at David, he simply smiled and drank from his eggnog carton. His lack of answers only made her tone and volume increase.
“Why?” she finally asked, running out of questions. “Just…Why?”
“Wait until you see her, then you’ll understand.”
“David, how much did it cost?”
“Only two hundred dollars, but it was mostly, er, entirely the delivery fee.”
“Delivery fee?” Kristin asked. “You aren’t having it delivered here, are you?”
David nodded. Kristin just threw her hands up in frustration. “Honey,” David said, putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder. She tensed up, but turned to face her husband. “I’m just kidding.”
An expression of mixed confusion and relief washed over Kristin’s face. “B-but, you did buy her something, right?”
“I bought her one of those fancy talking pony dolls, but the store was out of stock. She’ll be getting an IOU from Santa tomorrow, good for one pony. When the store gets them back in stock, it will be mailed here.”
David was amazed at how easy the lie came out. It did help he’d been working on it all day. Even the conversation leading up to it went mostly as he planned. One of the rare moments when a rehearsed conversation played out like he’d imagined it would. Kristin smiled and poked David in the chest with her finger.
“You’re getting coal for that one,” she said, laughing. “Making me believe you bought a real pony, shame on you!”
David laughed along with her and brought her in for a kiss. No mistletoe in sight, but they didn’t need an excuse. The bedroom door creaked ever so slightly and they turned to see Tiffany peeking in at them. A pile of unwrapped presents still sat on the bed and both parents tried to shield the sight from their daughter.
Kristin lunged for the door and Tiffany scampered back into the living room. While those two chased each other around the couch, David continued wrapping where his wife left off. His skills paled in comparison to hers, but after an hour, he’d finished wrapping all the gifts.
The clock on his phone displayed 6:00 and he wondered if Discord had begun delivering the ponies yet. Probably still too early, he thought. He cautiously opened the bedroom door and saw Tiffany and Kristin sitting on the couch watching Rudolph for the hundredth time. They both held mugs of hot cocoa, sipping from them occasionally.
David wandered into the kitchen and grabbed himself one of the broken gingerbread men Kristin had deemed unworthy of being put into a gift basket. He joined his wife and daughter on the couch, and tried to kill the time until Christmas.
At 8:00, they got Tiffany ready for bed and let her leave cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer. They ushered her into her bedroom and tucked her in for the night, knowing she would soon be up, peeking out her door. Not once had she managed to stay up late enough to see David putting out Santa’s presents, and Kristin usually had to go into her bedroom and put her back in her bed.
This Christmas, Tiffany made it until a little past midnight. Kristin went in when she was sure and tucked her daughter back into bed. She gently closed the door and gave David a nod before retiring to the bedroom. David watched his wife get into bed as he removed all the presents from the closet.
It took him three trips to get all the presents under the tree, in which time Kristin had fallen asleep. He stayed up a little later, nibbling on the cookies that had been left for Santa, and hoping “Santa” might actually show up.
An hour passed by without incident. David finished the last of the carrots and got ready to go to sleep. He gave the Christmas tree one last look before trudging to his bedroom and hopping into bed. As he drifted off to sleep, he could have sworn he heard the jingling of sleigh bells.
He and Tiffany were awoken in typical Christmas fashion, with their daughter jumping on the bed way too early in the morning.
“It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas!” she shouted over and over. When neither of them made any effort to get up, she began shaking her mother’s shoulder. “Presents, Mommy! Presents!”
Kristin looked at her daughter and yawned. “Okay, give us a minute and we’ll be right out.”
Tiffany bounded off the bed and ran into the living room. She sat down in front of the tree and began organizing her presents in the order she would open them in. With her mountain of presents set aside from the tree, only a few small boxes remained: the ones for David and Kristin.
Slowly, the parents got up and prepared for the morning activities. David threw on his bathrobe and stumbled barefoot to the living room couch. Kristin joined him moments later in her own bathrobe, putting fresh batteries in the digital camera.
She snapped a few pictures of her daughter waiting anxiously, and then turned to David. He was still half asleep, but his eyes were quickly looking over all the presents. There were none he didn’t recognize.
“Alright Tiffany, which one do you want to open first?” Kristin asked, turning back to her impatient daughter. Naturally, she picked out the largest present. “Tell us who it’s from,” Kristin said, taking another picture.
“To me, from Daddy!” she said, tearing away at the wrapping paper. While she opened her present, David went to the kitchen to grab some trash bags for all of the discarded Christmas wrap. He heard Tiffany finally reach the actual gift and waited for a reaction.
“What do you say, Tiffany?” Kristin asked as David returned to the living room.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she said half-heartedly. She pushed the E-Z Bake Kitchen to the side and looked through her presents for the second largest.
“Why don’t you let Mommy open a present now?” David asked, taking the camera from his wife. Tiffany sighed and tried picking at the tape on her gift without them noticing. Kristin looked under the tree and removed a small box that said, “To Kristin, From David.”
It was one of the few gifts he’d actually gotten for his wife, and she knew by the wrapping job it wasn’t one she’d bought herself. She slowly unwrapped the gift, and her eyes lit up when she saw the Jamb’s Jeweler’s box. David snapped a picture of that moment to save in the scrapbook.
He’d spent his Christmas bonus to get his wife a necklace with her birthstone set into 24k gold. The gift had sat under the tree for the past two weeks, and he wondered how many times she must have picked it up and shook it.
“It’s beautiful, thank you,” Kristin said. While they kissed, Tiffany finally decided she’d waited long enough to open her gift. The tearing of paper made them turn to look at their daughter. She had unwrapped a gift from Santa, but it wasn’t the pony she’d been hoping for.
“Wow, Santa brought you a house to put all your dollies in,” Kristin said with a bit of forced enthusiasm. Once again, Tiffany set the gift aside and looked for the next largest. This continued for the rest of the morning until only a few presents remained in her pile.
David and Kristin ran out of presents to open long before their daughter did. Kristin was wondering why David hadn’t given their daughter the IOU yet, and David was wondering where the hell Discord was. He nervously scratched the $1 scratch tickets from his stocking while keeping his eye on the door.
As the wrapping paper fell from Tiffany’s last gift, she looked up to her parents with tears in her eyes. “You said Santa was bringing me a ponyyyy!” she cried.
Before she could start bawling, David dove to the floor in front of the Christmas tree. “Did you check the way back?” he asked, looking up at his daughter. Her tears stopped and she instantly got on her stomach to look beneath the tree. To both of their surprise, there was a large box with a bow at the very back of the tree.
There was no way that had been there any longer than five minutes, David thought to himself. He had placed the IOU envelope, his backup plan, in that very spot when he grabbed the last of Kristin’s gifts moments before.
David reached out for the present and slowly dragged it through the bed of pine needles. When he got it out from under the tree, he, Tiffany, and Kristin looked at the unfamiliar box.
“Who’s that from?” Kristin asked, kneeling down on the carpet. To little Tiffany, From Santa Clause was written on a tag that hung from the bow. The box was wrapped with a bizarre apple wrapping paper Kristin didn’t recognize as one she’d bought. She looked up at David and he just continued to stare at the gift.
“To me, from Santa?” Tiffany asked excitedly. “It must be my pony!”
She lifted the lid off of the box and Diamond Tiara cautiously stuck her head out. Her eyes met with Tiffany’s and there was a brief moment where they stared at each other. David felt Kristin’s hand on his chest as she too stared at the little pony.
“IT IS A PONY!” Tiffany shouted, grabbing Diamond Tiara and pulling her out of the box. The pony flailed and resisted the little girl's hug. “YOU’RE MY NEW BEST FRIEND AND I LOVE YOU!”