A Christmas Story

My Mother-in-law called me a few days ago. In case you were wondering, she wants a story for Christmas. I was wondering. It plagued me. Kept me up nights. But, thank goodness, now I know. Now I can stop wondering about what she wants and try instead to figure out what on earth I'm going to write about.

She wants a story with a happy ending.

She gets scared of the Abominable Snow Monster on the old claymation Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. You know, the one who ends up just having a toothache and really is very nice at the end?

I love my Mother-in-law. I also think the world needs more people like her. She's happy and bubbly and sweet and generous and still somehow manages to get everything in the world done.

You know, the amazing type.

I think I'll write about a bubble. What's happier than a bubble? This should work.

Once upon a time, there was a Bubble. He didn't begin as a Bubble. He began as water and soap and knew nothing of the world except the inside of the small container in which he lived. Then, one day, the container was opened. A small child with stubby little fingers drew him out of the container with a stick and joyously blew into the Bubble the breath of life. As the Bubble swelled and formed, he knew real life for the first time. Colors, shapes, sounds surrounded him. He discovered the sky, and the breezes that frolicked from tree to tree. He rode them, higher, and higher, and he spun, danced, and floated through the clean air. Every moment was pure bliss. He began to understand the sounds that came to him on the wind. Laughter. As he spun, he realized that there were many children, dancing on the ground as he danced in the air. Joy filled the little Bubble, and he would have laughed with them if he could. The children followed him, left and right, faster and slower, reaching out to him with the happiness that only a child can display. They played, the children and the Bubble, reaching toward each other, but never quite touching. Always the breezes carried the Bubble just out of their reach, and the children would squeal in delight. Then, finally, the wind slowed, the Bubble slowly sank, and the children reached out to him, wanting to carry him. Closer, and closer, and POP!

That was the end of the Bubble.

After that the Bubble is a sticky mass of soap on hands that get clapped together, ground into dirt, washed down the sink, and thence takes its long journey out to the sea.

I think that happy endings really are a matter of timing, don't you?

Any ideas about what story I should write for my Mother-in-law? Ten points if I choose your idea!