Christmas 2013

A liminal space holiday tale for the digital age

As I mentioned in my first post of the month, I feel like there is a great opportunity for utilizing liminal spaces and horror elements in holiday ghost stories for this era. So, I decided to A) put my money where my mouth is and try my hand at writing such a story, 2) give my subscribers a little holiday gift on the weekend leading up to the big night, and D) reflect on my own experiences growing up and my perspectives on Christmases past.

Since the trend of liminal spaces is a largely visual medium, this story is my shot at a “word picture” and holiday mood piece. People who grew up around the late 2000s and early 2010s could only watch as the last of analog technology and toys gave way to the rage of smart devices. Physical albums gave way to shared cloud service collections, doing away with cherished traditions of collecting and sorting through scrapbooks and albums containing decades worth of familial memories. In only a few short years since smart devices were released, we’ve entered a new world that kids in the coming years will be growing up in, potentially indifferent and unaware of how things used to be “back in our day.” The use of analog technology and liminal spaces in the current wave of internet horror—created largely by small, independent filmmakers and storytellers—already shows how the internet regards the technology of yesteryear as “haunted.” I discussed this movement as the “folk horror” of the digital age in more detail way back one of my October posts:

Although I admittedly haven’t spent much time looking at my own family’s physical albums, my reflections on Christmas time come primarily from memory. Each year, I try and piece together what made my Christmases growing up special. Even amidst the more fond memories, there are things that emerge which remind me not every Christmas can be “perfect.”

That is the feeling I hope to capture in this story, of struggling to remember what made one particular Christmas special but removing the rose-tinted glasses to discover not everything was as it seemed.

While reading this story, I think the following playlist is the perfect soundtrack to have on in the background:

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I don’t remember the last Christmas I celebrated with my sister. Our family albums don’t seem to remember either; they’re filled to the brim with pictures from when Mom and Dad started celebrating it together, with my sister and I later appearing in them, all the way up to 2012—the year we thought the world would end. My parents and grandparents held onto “outdated” tech for as long as possible, mainly because we couldn't afford many new devices. I too preferred having physical reminders to put together in big albums, like piecing together a puzzle or a map of memories. It was something my sister and I looked forward to after our Christmas breaks ended—going to the drugstore with rolls of film and bringing them home after they were developed, careful not to get the oil from our fingers on the photos as we inserted them into the album sleeves. We would smile and laugh as the red-eyed stills of ourselves and friends and family smiled back from their glossy prisons.

We never got to immortalize Christmas 2013; there is no record of it in my memory or in our albums. After my sister went missing on New Year’s Eve, all traditions fell to the wayside in favor of finding her. I was too young to help Dad and the other grown-ups in town look, so I helped Mom dole out hot drinks and soup to the volunteer searchers. I couldn't focus on classes when I had to go back to school; my mind and eyes constantly wandered to the shifting wintry mix cascading outside the windows with residual holiday décor, pinning me with the thought of my sister being stuck out there in the snow, rain, and ice. Although my family never really gave up the search until the summer, the town officially called it quits by Valentine's Day.

The whiplash of my sister's disappearance must have completely wiped the joyful memories we made that Christmas from my mind. Bits and pieces came to me in dreams in the years following, but they slipped away as soon as I would wake up—a sliver of a scene here, a familiar phrase there, a specific scent wafting out of the darkness. I never worked up the strength to ask my parents or anyone in my family about that Christmas. It hurt to even open my mouth at her memorial service; I cried my eyes out and my family didn't force me to say a word.

Ten years later, in the days leading up to my holiday break from college, I had another dream about Christmas 2013. My roommate put on a quiet piano album of Christmas music on his record player and we both fell asleep to the softly-played keys. A rendition of “The Wexford Carol” started on the vinyl just as I drifted to sleep, and my mind recognized the gentle, rising notes that would—if accompanied by voice—underlay the lyrics—

Good people of this Christmas time,
Consider well and bear in mind…

I dreamt of my sister humming the tune as it played in the background. She cradled my head in her lap while I reclined with her on our family's antique fainting couch, wearing in our wooly PJs. My eyes were fixed on the lights twinkling on the tree; the windows looked out on the dark blue sky and black treeline surrounding our neighborhood—it was Christmas night.

“Smile!” someone next to us said, then a white flash washed over us before I could slant my eyes over to look. A whirring followed.

I shot awake, my heart pounding, cold sweat clinging to my skin. The record player had gone quiet, but my thoughts screamed in my skull, making me feel small in that dark room, a sliver of yellow from a streetlight slipping through the blinds the only illumination.

A camera!

I realized that although my memories of Christmas 2013 had been lost from my head there was still proof it had happened—my parents had most definitely used their old, yet reliable Canon 35mm film camera to immortalize the day. It was there every Christmas I could remember, but I seldom saw it at any family gathering after 2013. Everything—decorations, presents, leftovers—had been shuttered away in the wake of my sister's disappearance without much consideration of our post-holiday traditions to take our minds off the tragedy. The camera still had to be in our house, and with it the proof of that last normal, happy Christmas a full decade ago. I lay awake for the rest of the night and almost missed my final the next morning. Dad picked me up from college nine days before Christmas.

We spent the first part of the ride bantering about classes. Once that conversation petered out, it took a while for me to muster up the courage and finally ask, “Do we still have the 35mm?”

Dad sighed, his eyes fixed on the road. “I think it's in the attic. Why?”

“Just wanted to take a look and see if it still works.”

“Maybe.” Dad shrugged. “Hopefully it hasn't gotten any water or mold in it.”

My stomach flipped at that possibility; with all the time that passed there were at least some casualties lost to unforeseen conditions of tucking artifacts away. Like dreams or memories, if they aren't held onto tight enough they fade. The thought of truly losing those memories bugged me for the rest of the ride home.

Once we parked in our garage, I hurried inside the house, hauling in my laundry and luggage with my mind on the attic. Mom and Tucky, our arthritic golden retriever, stopped me before I could rush off. Mom and Dad sat me down for an early dinner, and I repeated the same answers I gave Dad in the car ride home to Mom. The whole time, especially during the lulls in our conversation, I felt this emptiness hanging over the table. I noticed the same feeling after my sister went missing, but hadn't felt it as strongly as I did in recent years. My fixation on getting to the camera and unlocking its secrets must have been what permitted the emptiness to emerge—the last memories of my sister that anyone would ever get to see.

After dinner, Mom and Dad helped put my things away and start my laundry. I then asked Dad about the 35mm and, with another sigh, he walked with me to the attic door in ceiling of the master bedroom closet. He pulled the cord and gently lowered the ladder, then handed me a flashlight.

“Give a holler if you need anything else,” he said, walking out of the room and downstairs where Mom relaxed with Tucky while a Christmas movie played.

Swallowing as the emptiness crept back in, I flicked the flashlight on and climbed up the ladder. The musty smell and the frigid air of the attic emphasized the slow, crushing grasp the emptiness had over my heart. I swept the pale blue beam of the flashlight over cardboard and hard plastic boxes with makeshift labels of masking tape and marker slapped on their sides. In one corner, covered in plastic, sat the white cradle my sister and I had slept in when we were babies. Around it, like a crumbling fortress wall, were boxes labelled things like “Baby Clothes” and “Baby Toys.” My sister made Mom promise she would keep those for when she started her own family. I swallowed again and blinked away tears, visions of an adult version of my sister rocking an infant that would never be born to sleep flashing in the back of my mind.

For almost an hour I sifted and set aside box after box of stuff—Halloween and Easter decorations, antiques we had no room for downstairs, toys I was too stubborn to give away. I worked up a sweat moving things around, fighting the chill air of the attic. I took a minute to catch my breath, but a child's scream sounded from outside. I speed-walked over to a small, circular window that came up to my waist and overlooked the front yard and street of my neighborhood. A duet of giggles arose as I crouched and peered out the dusty glass to see a pair of kids that lived across the street throwing snowballs at each other in the yellow-orange light of the lampposts. The front door of the house nearest to them swung inward and the silhouette of a woman leaned out.

“10 more minutes, kids!” she called, her breath misted in the chill.

“Okay, Mommy!” they replied before hurling another volley at one another.

I smiled and thought back on similar winter nights my sister and I had. The kind right after a snow day where we tried to squeeze the last few minutes of freedom and fun out of the evening before it was back to school.

As I turned back towards the slight mess I made, my flashlight swept across a shelf near the window. A small, blank cardboard box sat upon it, the top flaps sticking at an angle to form a small tent shape. I flipped them open and my heart leapt as the glassy, black, single-eyed stare of the old 35mm gazed back at me. I swept it up and set it beside the ladder as I reordered the boxes and replaced the contents I'd removed from them. I closed up the attic once everything was back in order, save the 35mm, which I clutched gently in my hands. The metal and plastic were icy from it being locked away in the uninsulated attic for a decade; even as it warmed in my grasp a slight chill lingered. I worried again about the cold and heat over the years potentially damaging the film. I even worried about opening the hatch and potentially exposing it to harmful light. I brought it downstairs to show my parents, and once they laid eyes on it they smiled but their eyes betrayed the heavy sadness that had been weighing on them for years.

“What do you want with that old thing?” Mom asked.

I shrugged. “I just remembered we hadn't put photos from here in the albums since…”

Dad cleared his throat and cast his eyes down. Mom covered her mouth and blinked. Tucky, maybe sensing their welling grief, gave a whine and looked up at them from his beat-up bed before the couch.

I turned the camera over in my hands, staring at the lens. “Just thought it'd be something nice to do.”

Dad nodded and sniffed. “You could probably get the photos developed at the mall. I can drive you over tomorrow.”

I went to bed early, the weight of travelling, scouring the attic, and thinking of my sister dragged my energy down. The sheets and mattress of my childhood bed felt too cold and unfamiliar for me to relax, so I laid awake, my eyes gravitating towards the sole source of light in the darkness—a miniature tree in the corner of my room with fake presents surrounding it. I stared at it for so long I think I dreamed while I was awake; my brain conjured a vision of me sitting with my sister beside it, whispering little stories we made up about Christmas to each other or writing our lists to Santa. Sometimes we’d even have our cassette player on low volume, playing crackly Christmas tunes.

I managed to get some sleep but not enough, so I woke up with a sway in my step and hunch in my shoulders. I kept the camera at my side while I ate breakfast with Mom and Dad, none of us saying anything but each of us stealing glances at the little artifact. Dad drove me over to the mall, a place that fell into disuse over the years as hangout spots turned digital, families moved away, businesses went broke, and kids grew up. He dropped me off at the curb before the main entrance, then drove off to work, promising to pick me up at his lunch break and leaving me with some cash. In addition to the photos I needed to do some Christmas shopping anyway so I didn’t mind the prospect of the wait.

It had been a while since I set foot in that particular mall, many of the stores I remembered being in there were either replaced by new outlets or caged shutters over white-tinted glass. Holiday decorations were up but seemed sparse compared to the huge spaces of white linoleum and pallid, fluorescent lights. Music echoed hollowly across the air, any lyrics sung sounding like the singers were emerging from sleep. I wandered through the maze of abandoned stores until I reached one that advertised it developed film. I entered and showed the 35mm to the clerk, a tall, twenty-something guy with a shaggy bowl-cut and acne scars. He told me the film would be ready by Christmas Eve, but I would have to return early in the day if I wanted it. I paid and left, wandering aimlessly through the mall, thinking about the times my sister and I came there during the Christmas season, or really any other time of the year. I wandered for so long my surroundings blended into a blur of white and the songs, soft taps from distant visitors of the mall, and other noises morphed into a drone of white noise. I sweat under my layers, a little too warm in the air-conditioned space but not uncomfortable enough to take any off. It truly felt like I drifted through the emptiness, unsure of where I was going or even where I started—I was just waiting.

Dad pulled up before noon and drove me back home. It was one of those 40 degree days where the rain turned some of the snow to slush, revealing patches of green and killing the Christmas mood.

The days I waited for the photos to develop were mostly spent in my room, sleeping in. At night I'd come down for dinner and watch a movie with my parents, then stay up much later than them looking at our Christmas tree in the sitting room. It held all the same decorations we put on it for years, give or take a few from some being lost over the years and the odd new addition that didn't hold as much sentimental value as the others. The lights from the tree made a melancholy pool of gold in the darkness, like a little sanctuary. Though its glittering boughs held my attention for hours, the wonder I'd felt as a child wasn't there, replaced instead by a feeling of nostalgia wrapped up in the emptiness.

Christmas Eve came with little fanfare or excitement from anyone in the house. Relatives and neighbors were all busy this year or just not in the mind the venture far, so Mom did odd chores to prepare for our small dinner. Dad drove me over to the mall and I made it to the store just before it closed. The same guy I gave the camera to a week before handed back the 35mm and the prints in a white, glossy envelope with my last name sharpie'd on it. Once we got back home, Dad started helping Mom with dinner.

I grabbed our family photo album from the sitting room, out of a rustic crate next to the tree, and rushed up to my room. Once I sat down at my desk and snapped on the dimming orange light of my squat lamp, I flipped through the album. The large, red-backed tome held memories from when Mom and Dad were kids; black and white photos of relatives I never met playing with younger versions of my parents came to be dominated by stills from Mom and Dad's wedding, then lots and lots of baby pictures of my sister and me. I slowed down as I looked, spending minutes on almost every photo, longing, nostalgia, and veins of sadness welling in my heart. I wondered if I could ever provide such happy memories for a family if I had one of my own.

I turned the last filled sleeve over with a heavy sigh, staring for a few moments at the last pictures in them—they captured my sister and me seated at the kids' table during our last Thanksgiving dinner with her. I had a bit of mashed potatoes on my nose and my sister grinned a big, gap-toothed smile at the camera with bits of turkey sticking out of her teeth.

“One last Christmas,” I muttered, grabbing the pull tab on the envelope. I tore the cardstock open with a shrrp and slowly pulled out the stack of photos. The first one was of my sister and me with Mom setting up a gingerbread house, the date stamped in the lower righthand corner read 12-13-'13. Almost immediately, I was flooded with memories of that Friday when Mom picked us up from school, smiling as she showed us the gingerbread house kit she bought along with a pack of glass Coca-Cola bottles.

“Daddy's getting pizza for dinner!” she'd said, getting a cheer out of us. We spent the whole evening in our PJs, licking frosting from our fingers, playing Christmas music from our CD player, and munching pizza and laughing hysterically as we watched Elf and Home Alone.

I gave a soft laugh, a single tear rolling down my cheek as I placed the picture into a sleeve. One photo after another rebuilt my memories of that Christmas season—us picking out our tree that year, decorating the house, our school's holiday music recital, us having a snowball fight. Though images and visions of those moments resurfaced in my brain, there still remained a huge, gaping sense of emptiness that gripped my brain and heart.

Slowly, I filled the sleeves, the dates in the photos' corners counting down to Christmas. On Christmas Eve—12-24-'13—a flood of gold-tinged memories rolled into my mind; my throat grew tight with a strained sense of longing. The day had started quiet and calm, with my sister and me sitting on the stairs, chins rested in our hands while Dad got the final touches ready; the anticipation exploded as we were finally allowed to unwrap our presents, the camera caught our faces frozen in wonder and glee at the gifts. In the evening, a parade of relatives flooded through the front and garage doors, presents and tinfoil-wrapped dishes in hand. The world outside the house grew darker, the shadows creeping against the windows and in the backgrounds of the photos, beyond the twinkling LED and candle lights. I remembered the euphoria of Christmas having worn off by then and just wanting to settle in for a winter’s nap; I found a picture of myself and my sister on our fainting couch, the still of the very memory that triggered my search for the camera. For some reason, my breathing hitched as I held up that picture, my eyes wandering to the dark space of the window above us. Although the pane appeared to be pitch black, I thought I could make out a silhouette of a person in the shadows. Deciding it was probably a reflection, I slipped the picture into a sleeve and moved on.

The next dozen or so pictures captured random moments at the tail-end of our Christmas celebration, with the last one dated 12-25-'13 showing my sister and I asleep on the fainting couch, tucked under some blankets and illuminated solely by the flash from the camera. With a smile, I put it in a sleeve and sighed, my memories of Christmas 2013 seemingly rebuilt.

However, I noticed a few more photos remained in the envelope. I pulled the first one out and checked the date—12-26-'13. It was a tad fuzzy but seemed to be a bird’s eye view of two figures in a snow-covered street. I stared at the picture for a few moments, when suddenly my chest grew tighter and my hand trembled as I realized the picture had been taken from the attic, out of the little window facing the street. A new memory bloomed in my mind of me and my sister playing outside in the snow the day after Christmas. Dad had gone to work that day and Mom was watching us from the garage—no one else was supposed to be anywhere in the house.

I dropped the photo on top of the album and pulled out the others from the envelope. The next several were shots of decorations around the first floor of our house and the Christmas tree with its lights out, dated 12-26-'13 and 12-27-'13. The smiling snowmen and Santas seemed much more sinister and bleak in the flash of the camera.

There was one dated 12-28-'13, another shot from the attic, this one focused on a figure laying in the snow on the front yard, making snow angels.

My sister loved making snow angels.

My throat grew tighter, my hands trembled harder, and a single tear rolled down my cheek. Someone had been in our house and watched us. Amid the joyous distractions of the holidays they had snuck inside and spied on us—on my sister—without any of us being the wiser.

The next photo, dated 12-29-'13, hit me like a punch in the guts. It captured a shot of my sister’s sleeping face from the slit between a slightly open door and a threshold, the flash of the camera lighting up her fair skin and glinting off her blonde hair. I wanted to vomit as dread clawed at my insides.

Through stinging, blurry eyes, I mustered the courage to look at the final three photos. The first, dated 12-30-'13, was another shot from the attic, this one looking down at the lamplit streets where our Christmas tree lay bare on the curb. The sight of Christmas trees tossed in the trash always brought me down as a kid, making me realize the magic of the season was truly over. Looking at the one in the photo—the last Christmas tree my sister and I sat next to—really forced the tears out of me.

The picture dated 12-31-'13, the second to last one, was outside on the road near our neighborhood. It captured my sister from behind, wearing pink snow gear and dragging a sled through the snow next to the slush-covered asphalt, not another soul or car in sight.

The day my sister went missing—New Year’s Eve—she had gone out to go sledding with one of her friends on a hill a mile from our neighborhood. She never made it to the hill. By the time anyone realized she was gone, the new-fallen snow had covered any tracks she or anyone potentially involved in her disappearance could have made.

Slowly, I reached for the final picture, squeezing tears out of my eyes before opening them to look upon it. Dated 1-1-'14, it showed a girl in pink snow gear, without any boots, sat on a concrete floor hiding her face behind a sign she clutched in her bright red fingers reading Season’s Greetings.

I sobbed and dropped the photo, recognizing the sign as the one my family hung on our front door every year. We never saw it again after Christmas 2013.

Just another thing we lost over the years.

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“Christmas 2013” © Ethan Sabatella 2023 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.