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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of holiday short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

Holiday Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Whether you’re looking for a wintery cup of cheer or a ray of sunshine during a summertime festival, our holiday short stories will have you feeling the spirit in no time.

Holiday Short Stories – Page 2

Saving Grace

Weekly Contest #343

In hindsight, it was clear that finding Tommy had saved her. Grace was adrift and nearly without hope by the time they first encountered each other. The air was cold and the sky a pale grey that morning. Grace stepped outside, her yellow scarf jumping in the wind. It was Thanksgiving Day, and she was miles away from her childhood home and its inhabitants. There would be no turkey or warm pumpkin pie on her table that night. After graduating in June, she had caught the first bus out of Missouri to New York City, embarking on the same path of ...

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Performance Anxiety

Weekly Contest #342

Performance Anxiety I wore my ecru lace dress with a burnout velvet evening coat and my lace Jimmy Choos. I wandered around my favorite park until offices started closing and rumpled people started pouring out onto the sidewalks.Then it was on to my favorite park bench near the oak grove, before the drones arrived. The human hive kind. I felt a few casual glances, and I'll fight anyone who says you can't feel someone looking at you. Call it what you want. Supersensory tentacles, ectoplasm, psychic antennae.But I'm waiting for a certain . . ....

3 likes 0 comments 0
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Fruitcake Season

Weekly Contest #341

Do you remember when your family was the center of the world and you didn’t question your role in it?December 1st generally marked the beginning of fruitcake season in the Connelly household, starting when I was 6 years old. I did not know then that ours was the only house participating. What seemed fun at age 6 was torture 10 years later. The fruitcakes became our holiday gifts to everyone we knew.Buying 30 pounds each of dyed candied fruit, walnuts, almonds, pecans, currents, and brown and golden raisins was an endeavor for Dad and me the...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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A Roadside

Weekly Contest #341

It was meant to be all so simple. A bus would take us up into the mountains. We would be dropped off at the trailhead, and then we’d start walking. At least that was the plan. “What time’s the bus due?” Carol asked. “Seven am,” I replied. “But they are never on time.” “Yeah, I know,” she muttered. “Just asking.” A smouldering cigarette stuck to her bottom lip, her dusty dirty-blonde hair advertising that it had been days since either of us had danced under a shower. Her jeans were more dusty than her hair. The singlet top had been blue, but ...

8 likes 0 comments 0
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The Power of Decision Making: My Life, My Power, My Choice!

Weekly Contest #339

I decide how my life gets to be; nobody else but me! These are my words I said; not in text but to myself - my deflation of greed, true peaceful rebellious freedom! 24 hours. 30 minutes. 32 seconds. 998 milliseconds. 24 hours. 30 minutes. 33 seconds. 114 milliseconds. 24 hours. 30 minutes. 33 seconds. 560 milliseconds. "What are you doing? You look like me during the last year of college…thank God I'm graduated." Rose said as she watched her friend, his eyes deep in his Mac Computer. "I'm counting down the hours, minutes, and even the millis...

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Taking Tillie to Bally's

Weekly Contest #339

All convention aside, the grandmother we knew would have applauded the family’s decision to take her ashes to the place she loved most on Earth, especially now that Tillie is dealing cards to a higher authority. Despite a perpetual diet of coffee, coffee-flavored ice cream, bagels with a schmear--and a smoking habit that resembled that of a recovering alcoholic with no other addiction left--Grandma Tillie lived past her 90th birthday. We speculate about whether butting into everyone’s personal business may have been the motivation that kept...

5 likes 0 comments 0
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Vertigo Mountain

Weekly Contest #339

Shoes polished like rare gemstones, brand new shirt neatly pressed, hair washed and pulled back, I'm ready for my shift at Vertigo Mountain, otherwise known as the shit-show. I’ve heard rumours that most people working there don’t last long, but I won’t let that deter me. When I leave home the sky is a gorgeous eggshell blue and I am baking in the sun's warmth. By the time I get to work, ominous grey clouds gather and the wind laughs in my face. I am greeted by an enormous sign suspended above the gate: WELCOME TO VERTIGO MOUNTAIN with a log...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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rum whispers

Weekly Contest #338

"MILK,EGGS AND FLOUR AND DON'T FORGET THE CHOCOLATE!!!" Mom's handwriting is surely a masterpiece,especially on this off white small piece of paper on which she wrote the ingredients for her new cake recipe.I've been walking in circles for the past 20 minutes,searching for MY favourite chocolate,because the secret for a brilliant dessert isn't love or passion,but just a great,and when I say GREAT,GREAT chocolate.When I finally got to the baking aisle,a bunch of ladies in their mid thirties were searching for the exact same chocolate brand,wh...

15 likes 3 comments 3
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Stone And Breath

Weekly Contest #337

The bells begin while Éva is still standing in her kitchen, holding a mug she has no intention of finishing. They strike too early, as they always do in the village, where time has never quite agreed with itself. The sound travels cleanly in the cold, crossing gardens and fences, slipping between houses that know it well. It is not a summons so much as a reminder. It says: You have done this before. Éva does not move. She hasn’t believed in God for years. She has believed in routine, in habit, in the usefulness of keeping certain doors unloc...

10 likes 6 comments 6
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Analise

Weekly Contest #337

On the fifth ring, Jonah picks up, finally. His mother has been calling for days, every attempt going unanswered. She’s been worried about him. He is a shy boy, her son. Man, she corrects herself. He is twenty-seven now. She should stop stressing about him, she knows, but that’s easier said than done. A mother will stress about her children until she is six feet under, and perhaps even after that.Jonah, though, has never been adventurous. As a child, he rarely left the house, spending every weekend inside with a book. When he went to college...

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I'll Be Quiet Now

Weekly Contest #336

CW: Strong language: “What do you mean, you don’t want to go to The Kinks?”“That’s what I mean, stupid.”“I am, but so are you.”“Why?”“Because you don’t want to see The Kinks.”“They’re old!”“So? Would you go see The Rolling Stones?”“Hell No.”“What about David Bowie?”“That’s different.”“Enlighten me.”“David Bowie is an artist.”“And Ray Davis and Mick Jagger are not?”“They’re in bands. If I want to see someone, I will. I got tickets for Oasis.”“Who?”“Their album came out yesterday.”“What’s it called?”“Definitely Maybe.”“Hm.”“What?”“Definitely M...

3 likes 0 comments 0
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The Year of The Snake

Weekly Contest #335

The Chinese Zodiac has always been fascinating to me—the idea that whatever animal the year holds, its lessons will occur in oneself. This last year, 2025—the Year of the Snake, a year of transformation—and was it ever.It was December 31, 2024, New Year’s Eve. I sat in a Ram 1500 on the edge of a cliff, watching fireworks expand and explode over the city of Reno. In the front seat, my hand lay in his—my partner of six to eight months at the time—while our four kids, two his and two mine, sat on our laps. My son’s finger throbbed; he had just...

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We All Were, Ethan

Weekly Contest #335

CW: Physical violence, suicide, sexual content “Ethan, your mask.”Clara appeared at my elbow, holding up the black silk thing I had tossed onto the limo seat. I let her tie it around my head like a child getting ready for Halloween. Her fingers were cold on my neck. A sharp pain in my chest muscles made me wince. Gym injury no doubt.The Prometheus Club looked too grand to be in the middle of the city, its marble columns rising three stories tall as if they’d airdropped the Parthenon into the middle of 8th Street. Golden capitals caught the l...

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Train of Thought

Weekly Contest #335

On the train/under the trainOn the train/under the trainOn the… “Have we met before?” Sophie pauses her inner train of thought to look round to the speaker of the question. Short, puffer-jacketed, black hair, pale face. More of a penguin than a man, she thinks, unkindly. She can’t help it. Working in the beauty industry, she critiques appearances on autopilot. He is about twenty years her junior, but on a good day Sophie could almost pass for his age. Free makeup and skincare samples. Perks of the job. “No, I don’t think so,” says Sophie, t...

9 likes 5 comments 5
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The SSC

Shortlisted for Contest #335 ⭐️

My heart was broken and I needed an egg. Partly because I’d run out, but mostly because I needed something to break so that, for once, I could be the one doing the breaking.Just like a good man, an egg wouldn’t be an easy thing to secure. Neither would a unit. At least not for me it would. To procure a unit, I’d have to brave the labyrinth, a place I didn’t have the confidence to venture out into without Quinn by my side. Despite his many flaws, most of which the way he made me feel small, incapable, like a child, only one without protection...

32 likes 28 comments 28
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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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