Shopping for a last-second gift on Christmas Eve isn't for the faint of heart.
The Westbrook Trading Company is a struggling department store, slowly losing its battle with online shopping. With flickering fluorescent lights, outdated shelves, and the relentless buzz of the Rat Pack Christmas playlist, the store is a weary monument to a retail era long gone by. But tonight, it’s the unlikely epicenter of desperation, nostalgia, and absurdity.
As crowds descend in search of the elusive Plastic-Thing-3000—this year’s must-have gadget—an ensemble cast of bargain hunters, exhausted employees, and misguided romantics collide in a night of chaos, longing, and tender moments. At the helm is Archibald Hensley III, a joyless miser clinging to cassette tapes and outdated ideals, whose personal regrets echo through the aisles like the Ghost of Christmas Gone Wrong.
Between a pastor who cut his service short to go last-minute shopping, a mother trying to win a toy for her daughter, a chintzy snow globe with too much history, and two best friends fumbling to relive their glory days, the night unfolds as a bittersweet, darkly funny reminder that sometimes the worst places bring out the most human parts of us.
Shopping for a last-second gift on Christmas Eve isn't for the faint of heart.
The Westbrook Trading Company is a struggling department store, slowly losing its battle with online shopping. With flickering fluorescent lights, outdated shelves, and the relentless buzz of the Rat Pack Christmas playlist, the store is a weary monument to a retail era long gone by. But tonight, it’s the unlikely epicenter of desperation, nostalgia, and absurdity.
As crowds descend in search of the elusive Plastic-Thing-3000—this year’s must-have gadget—an ensemble cast of bargain hunters, exhausted employees, and misguided romantics collide in a night of chaos, longing, and tender moments. At the helm is Archibald Hensley III, a joyless miser clinging to cassette tapes and outdated ideals, whose personal regrets echo through the aisles like the Ghost of Christmas Gone Wrong.
Between a pastor who cut his service short to go last-minute shopping, a mother trying to win a toy for her daughter, a chintzy snow globe with too much history, and two best friends fumbling to relive their glory days, the night unfolds as a bittersweet, darkly funny reminder that sometimes the worst places bring out the most human parts of us.
December 24th, 2016 – Christmas Eve - Westbrook, New Jersey
It was the last fifteen minutes of peace before the horde descended on the Westbrook Trading Company. Archibald Hensley III turned away from the clock on the wall and faced the Art Deco mirror in his office. It was time to begin the ritual.
The fluorescent lights cast a harsh glow over every wrinkle and line on his face. There was nothing to be done about his age, but at least he could dress like a man who still mattered. He flipped his collar with mechanical precision and reached for the silk tie hanging from the hook beside the mirror.
He slid his hand along the smooth fabric and admired the design. It was an old tie, given to him by his father sometime in the 1970s. It was subtle for its era: a cheerful red herringbone background, dotted with tiny green Christmas trees in a checkerboard cascade. It was slightly wider than a modern tie, just enough to seem out of fashion, but Hensley wore it with pride. He slipped the tie over his shoulders and could still hear his father’s voice.
“A proper man,” his father had said, “ties a proper knot. A full Windsor or none at all. Half a knot, half a man.”
Wide end over narrow. Under. Up through the loop. Down to the left. Across the front. Back through the neck, and down again.
It was the perfect balance of symmetry and quiet confidence.
“A tie is the first thing people see,” his father’s voice echoed in his ear. “They see it before your résumé. Before your handshake and before your good intentions.”
Hensley tightened the knot—clean and centered—where it sat against his throat like a badge of honor. He flipped the collar down, smoothed the tie flat against his chest, and buttoned his blazer with the same cold dignity he’d worn every day since he was twenty, without flourish or frills, just simple form and function.
He turned away from the mirror to gaze at the large portrait of his father, still looming in judgment above him. He gave the picture a nod of acknowledgment before shifting his attention to his desk. The wooden surface was polished to a meticulous sheen. Every item had its proper place: the pens, pencils, and bronze letter opener rested beside the calculator. Perpendicular to them sat the stapler, all aligned with reverent precision. In contrast, the fluorescent lights above buzzed and flickered—perpetually on the brink of dying, yet never truly succumbing.
There was a soft tap-tap-tap at the door. It could only be O’Dell.
“Enter,” Hensley said, not bothering to look.
The door creaked open, and Devin O’Dell slithered in like a salesman who’d long since sold his soul.
“It’s just about nine o’clock, sir,” O’Dell said. The man was a leech, but even leeches had their uses. O’Dell was the store manager, and Hensley had to admit that he ran a tight ship. O’Dell was dressed in an immaculately tailored double-breasted suit with slicked-back hair. “The crowd’s getting fidgety.”
“Let them fidget,” Hensley said. “They came here out of desperation. Let them steep in it.”
O’Dell chuckled—a conniving sound that reminded Hensley of a jackal tearing into prey. “Shall we descend?”
Hensley gave a slight nod and pushed past him into the hallway.
It was the last few moments of peace before the doors opened and chaos reigned. Inside, there was a golden hush—a last breath before the plunge. Outside, the mob waited, breath fogging the glass, eager for the latest trinket and convinced they needed it.
The corridor from his office opened onto the second-floor balcony overlooking the Westbrook Trading Company’s grand atrium. He paused there, his hand resting on the brass railing, cool and slightly sticky to the touch—no doubt from too many grubby fingers and not enough cleaner. Below him stretched the heart of the store.
Built in the early 1900s, the Westbrook Trading Company had once aspired to greatness. It was the kind of place where people came not just to buy things, but to feel like they were a part of something. A temple to commerce. But time had taken its toll on the building. It featured four floors of faded opulence: plaster moldings were now chipped, and archways sagged beneath the weight of age and neglect. The festive garlands did little to hide the imperfections and were hung with more speed than skill, while chandeliers—too large and too tired—swayed ever so slightly each time the front door opened, their crystals dulled by decades of dust.
Despite the years, the atrium still possessed a tragic beauty. Four stories of open space soared toward a vaulted ceiling of aged wood, even if the skylights were encrusted with grime. Balconies with brass rails circled the upper floors, reminiscent of the galleries of an old opera house, though now, instead of velvet-draped patrons, they held bored employees and tired decorations. Hensley remembered a time when fur coats and tailored suits leaned over those railings to marvel at the Christmas magic below.
The times had changed. The rise of online shopping had sent many of his competitors into early retirement.
And yet… His store still lingered.
Barely.
The atrium was designed to impress, with a floor of cracked yet dignified black-and-white marble tiles. Beyond this grand entrance, the rest of the store made do with cheap linoleum, but here—right in the heart of it all—stood the true showpiece: an impressive, if artificial, Christmas tree. It towered forty feet tall and nearly reached the fourth floor. It was adorned with shimmering silver tinsel and multicolored string lights, which were draped throughout its branches. Ornaments swayed gently, some new and shiny, while others were broken and turned around to hide their imperfections. In front of the tree stood a small stage where Santa would typically be seated on his gaudy throne, but the store Santa had called out at the last minute. No doubt he had found a nearby bar stool to occupy. Tonight, the throne had been removed and replaced with a large steel-barred cage, padlocked securely and filled with boxes of whatever this year’s hottest ticket item was. Two large TV screens flanked the stage, both flashing the Westbrook Trading Company logo.
Hensley surveyed his kingdom. It lacked the glitz and grandeur from his youth, but it would have to do. He rechecked his watch. It was 8:48 pm.
Twelve minutes to madness.
Hensley stepped onto the old escalator with O’Dell right beside him. The grooved steps moved steadily beneath his feet, their edges worn smooth from years of use. The rubber handrails, once cutting-edge, were now polished slick by countless hands. He remembered children squealing with delight on these very steps. Now the machinery creaked with every turn, like old bones protesting the movement.
“I hope the crowd is calmer than last year,” O’Dell said. “Remember, someone cracked a rib trying to cut the line?”
Hensley did remember. The holidays always seem to bring out the worst in people.
“The year before that, we had to use pepper spray.”
Hensley recalled the blood on aisle six. The candy cane display hadn’t stood a chance. He glanced sideways at O’Dell. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Hensley became aware of Bing Crosby crooning through the overhead speakers as they descended. Thankfully, it wasn’t that shrill harpy, Mariah Carey.
Beside him, O’Dell yammered on. “The employees are ready, sir. Or… at least they should be.”
“It’s a big night,” Hensley said.
“Yes, sir! Absolutely, Mr. Hensley,” O’Dell’s voice dripped with eagerness.
They reached the bottom. The escalator gave a final shudder before spitting them onto the main floor. Here, the illusion of grandeur wore thin. Scuff marks lined the marble underneath the light fixtures, which buzzed, as if they were trying to communicate in Morse code.
Hensley didn’t believe in miracles. Never had. But he believed in Christmas Eve. It was the one night when logic went out the window, when last-second desperation disguised itself as planned generosity. A night when the store—his store—felt alive again. Like a great, aging beast summoned from hibernation for one last roar.
Hensley’s eyes moved across the atrium, taking in the stage, the cage, and the tree. He then turned towards the doors, beyond which the crowd grew larger by the minute. He could almost picture the first shriek, the first elbow, the first toy snatched from a stranger’s grasp as the horde reached its boiling point.
The madness was coming, and Hensley wouldn’t miss it for the world.
A Retail Carol by Lee Vetter is an entertaining Christmas satire and an unexpected holiday treat; it is a story of desperation, connections, and redemption of random strangers brought together by time, place, and misdirected wants. The need they believed was critical for the perfect Christmas was the acquisition of the “IT” toy of the year – the Plastic-Thing-3000, but it turned out to be the need for human connection and understanding.
The Westbrook Trading Company, with its aging edifice and barely on-the-edge relevancy, had miraculously held back a cache of what was to prove to be the “IT” toy of the holiday season that year and planned a stunning hourly raffle and midnight-hour final release of its stockpile for Christmas Eve. With the coveted Plastic-Thing-3000 having been sold out everywhere else for weeks, desperate parents crammed into the downtown store for a last-ditch effort at winning Christmas. Among the throng is a hopeful father of two and his single best friend for company; a worn-out single mother and her young daughter; a downtrodden husband, his clueless wife, and their bored teenage daughter; a local pastor with a secret past; the exhausted store employees; and the elderly store owner, who had concocted the last-minute holiday stand-off and hoop-jumping. Each customer goes to the store in hopes of scoring the prize of the season but comes away with something much more precious.
The story is a novelization of a Christmas production and clearly conveys each scene and character encounter with precise, cinematic-quality images, humor, and touching emotional impact. The narrative unfolds from the multiple points of view of the main characters, and readers share in their thoughts and motivations for what is to come. While the story foreshadows and seems to promise that deserving characters will achieve their hearts’ desires this Christmas Eve, there are some truly unforeseen twists in the plot that will surprise, entertain, and warm the heart. I would have loved to have seen this performed on stage, and I know I will be sharing this book in the future.
I recommend A RETAIL CAROL to readers of holiday stories.