Reader’s short story

Young Emily and her fictitious granny are back in another chapter by our reader-turned-author Lynda Mackenzie, in Clackmannan, near Stirling. The Pre-christmas Panic Buy tells the tale of Number One Granny visiting the grandchildren, only to find them worrying that Santa’s outsourced Christmas…

“Hello, Emily, hello boys. You all look very busy. Are you doing anything special? Isn’t it a bit early to be writing to Santa? Christmas is still weeks and weeks away.

“Well, as you know, Emily, I make a point of never disagreeing with your other granny – gran-upmanship not being my thing – so if she said you need to start getting Christmassy, then on you go. Did she say why you should start so early?

“Now what have I said to upset Jeffrey – or is it Tobias? You’d think I would know the difference by now and I’m really rather ashamed that I don’t. But anyway, why are you crying? There now, poppet, don’t cry. Number One Granny is here now.

“Emily, you’d better tell me what’s been going on. No wonder Mummy’s gone to bed with one of her ‘heads’. She was lucky I was able to pop round to keep an eye on you. My Zoom bricklaying class had just finished.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, Emily, let’s have the whole story.

“Gosh! No wonder Jeffrey/tobias is upset – I am too! You’re too young to be worrying about petrol queues or toy shortages and the like.

“Have you forgotten that Santa uses reindeer? He doesn’t need fuel other than whatever reindeer eat – I’ll Google it for you later – and his elves make the toys in his workshop in Lapland which is an independent state, exempt from Brexit protocols and lorry driver shortages, so everything will be just fine – won’t it?

“Now, I’m all in favour of bringing traditions up to date – well, sort of – but for Granny Number Two to tell you Santa’s workshop is really an amazing distribution depot is going too far and I’m sure Santa is

too good an employer to use zero-hours contracts. Are you sure she said amazing? Well, if that’s what it sounded like to you we’ll just go with amazing and perhaps that is how it’s done nowadays.

“In which case, yes it might be difficult to arrange for all the toys to get there if Santa has outsourced all his production to China. “Right, let’s get on with these lists and I’ll pop them in the post on my way home. You don’t post them? Of course, silly Granny, you get daddy to put them into his phone and text or email them to Santa. How very 21st century!

“When I was a little girl – don’t snigger, Emily, even Granny was young once. As I was saying, when I was a little girl we used to write out our lists and send them up the chimney, and if Santa got them he would send a reply by writing in the soot at the back of the fireplace. No health and safety fears back then. “What’s that Jeffrey/tobias? What’s a chimney? Oh dear. Granny needs a strong cup of tea before we tackle that one.”

If you’d like to write a 500-word short story and see it published, email siobhan. mcnally@mirror.co.uk.