Here's another corny Christmas story from me!!
Enjoy!:)
Snowman Building 101
14 year old Honey Wheeler sighed as she stared blankly across the vast fields of snow outside her bedroom window. While it was a week before Christmas, she couldn't seem to get into the holiday spirit. She, her parents, and her 16 year old adopted brother, Jim Frayne, had left Sleepyside, New York to visit some family friends in Quebec.
They had come back the week before Christmas to find that the flu bug had struck Sleepyside. Everyone on lonely Glen Road, where they lived, was sick. The Bob-whites of the Glen, a club Honey, Jim, and five others living on Glen Road had started, had planned on having a Christmas party after Honey and Jim returned from their vacation. Of course, the sickness interfered with that.
Someone knocked on her bedroom door. "Come in!" Honey called, swinging her feet around on the window seat to face the doorway. Jim's red head appeared in the doorway, his freckled face showing empathy.
"You're bored too?" he asked, walking into the room and sitting down on Honey's large bed. Honey rolled her hazel eyes and flung a honey-colored hair out of her face. "'Bored' would be putting it mildly." She answered.
Jim's green eyes looked past Honey and out at the white wonderland out the window. With a childish twinkle in his eye, he asked, "Wanna go build a snowman?"
Honey shrugged, not meeting his eye. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever." She mumbled. Jim chuckled, seeing Honey's lack of enthusiasm. "What'd Frosty ever do to you?" he joked.
Honey focused her eyes on her twiddling thumbs, allowing her shoulder-length hair to hide her face. "I've never built a snowman." Honey finally forced herself to looked Jim in the eye. "See, when I was younger, the nannies would always say it was improper for young ladies to play in the snow."
Honey had been raised mainly by nannies until her family had moved to Sleepyside a year and a half before. Shortly after arriving, they adopted Jim Frayne, who just happened to be the son of Mr. Wheeler's college friend, Winthrop Frayne.
Jim asked, "I could teach you, if you'd like." Honey smiled and hugged her brother. "Thank you so much! I'll go grab my coat!" With that, she raced out the bedroom door. His mind filled with childhood memories, Jim gazed out the window, remembering a small red haired boy playing in the snow with his parents. This, Jim knew, would be an afternoon to remember...
A little while later, the siblings were standing in the midst of the white fluffy snow. Scooping up a handful of the crystal frost with his emerald-colored gloves, Jim started packing a snowball. In his best teacher voice, Jim turned to Honey and said, "Welcome to Snowman Building 101. Today's lesson will be on the snowball." He held up the round white sphere.
"Ohhh. Ahhh." Honey gushed mockingly. Jim somehow managed to keep a straight face as he answered, "Young lady, if you disrupt my class, I'll have to send you to the principal's office." Honey stuck out her tongue at her teacher.
Jim gave her a small shove, and Honey found herself seated in a snow drift. Jim laughed. Honey threw a handful of snow in his face. Jim raised the snowball he still had in his hand,
"This means war!"
An all-out snowball fight began. After many minutes of shouts and laughter, Jim and Honey dropped down side by side, their heavy breathing causing white clouds to fill the air around them. Between giggles, Honey turned to Jim and said, "See? Mess with me, and you get a face full of snow!"
"Yeah," Jim answered, his cheeks red with frost, "I'll have to remember this the next time I offer to help you with something." Still laughing, the two Bob-whites stood up and brushed the snow off of their clothes.
"Should we just skip that lesson and get to the snowmen?" Jim asked. Honey nodded.
"Okay, you just pack it like this…" Jim continued until he had a good sized snowball in front of him. "Why don't I form the base," Jim said, "and you can start on the head."
"Gotcha." Honey said, kneeling down in the white crystals.
Sometime later, Jim and Honey were placing the head on the body of the snowman. They found a carrot for a nose, buttons for eyes, strings of red licorice for the mouth, and twigs for arms. "He's perfect!" Honey exclaimed. They had built the snowman on the edge of the hill so that he would look over Crabapple farm, a small farmhouse that sat at the bottom of a semi-steep hill below Honey and Jim's house.
"Hey Honey, Jim." A voice came from behind them. "Hey Regan." they greeted the Wheeler family's groom. Regan rode up next to them on Jupiter, one of the Wheeler's many horses.
"Hello Jup." Honey said, patting the big black gelding's neck. Jupiter snorted a greeting.
"So," Regan said with a smirk, "You're both so bored you're replacing the Bob-whites with snowmen?" Honey giggled and Jim rolled his eyes. "Yeah. We're so bored we've resorted to talking to snowmen." Jim answered, equally sarcastic.
After a minute of conversation, Regan urged Jupiter to canter off. Before leaving, the horse grabbed the carrot nose and took off. "I'll go get another carrot." Jim laughed, starting toward the house.
A cold wet substance hitting the back of his neck stopped him in his tracks. Jim swiped at his neck and turned around… to meet another snowball coming at his face!
Sputtering, Jim blindly brushed the snow from his face. Honey was standing near the snowman, laughing and pointing at him. "I'll get you for that!" Jim roared angrily, racing toward her.
With a shriek of laughter, Honey stepped backward into the snowman. The snowman was knocked off balance. Honey's cry of laughter turned to a cry of surprise as she found herself tumbling down the hill with the snowman...
"Honey!" Jim called as he watched his sister lose her balance. Jim started down the hill as quickly as he could, stumbling through the deep snow. Honey landed at the base of the hill. She slowly lifted her head up out of the snow… to see a mangled snowman barreling toward her!
Honey had just enough time to lift up her arms to protect her face before the snowman crashed into her. "Honey! Are you okay?" Jim asked as he made his way down to her.
"Yeah I'm fine." Honey reassured him, "But I think Mr. Snowy here is broken beyond repair." Jim nodded, and the siblings momentarily paused in the silence of the air.
"It's too quiet without the other Bob-whites around." Jim said, voicing both their thoughts. Honey glanced from the destroyed snowman to the Bob-whites' beloved clubhouse on the top of the hill nestled in the trees.
"I have an idea…"
"Merry Christmas!" Trixie Belden greeted her friends Diana Lynch and Dan Mangan one week later. The three of them, plus Honey, Jim, and Trixie's older brothers Brian and Mart, made up the Bob-whites of the Glen. The seven Bob-whites were meeting at the Belden house, Crabapple farm, to exchange gifts.
"Merry Christmas!" Diana answered, hugging her longtime friend. "Merry Christmas, Trix." Dan said. The three walked into the cozy living room, where Brian and Mart were building a roaring fire in the large fireplace. They exchanged greetings.
The group had just sat down when the doorbell rang. "I've got it!" Mrs. Belden called from the kitchen. A minute later, Jim and Honey walked through the living room entranceway, still laden in their heavy coats and boots.
"Grab your coats and hats." Honey said to the group of friends as a greeting. "Your Christmas presents are outside."
"Can't you just give us a hint?" Trixie pleaded as the seven friends made their way up the same hill Honey had tumbled down just a few days before. "Just a tiny hint?" Mart asked, just as curious as his almost-twin. Because of the Winter Solstice, the sun was already beginning to set. "No, you can't." Jim answered for what seemed like the millionth time.
A minute later, Honey ordered, "Now you all need to close your eyes. Wait here." The other Bob-whites except Jim closed their eyes and listened to the crunching sound of Honey trudging through the snow.
Trixie impatiently tapped her foot inside her boot. She wanted to open her eyes to see the gift, but gamely kept them closed. What was the big surprise? "Okay. Now follow the sound of my voice." Honey called back to them.
The five Bob-whites, their eyes tightly closed, stiffly walked forward, their arms out in front of them like zombies.
Jim walked behind the pack, laughing silently at the image the group made. Trixie, impatient as always, was trying to race toward Honey's voice, causing her to stumble every few feet.
Mart and Dan were repeatedly crashing into each other. They kept tripped one another, and Jim was sure that many of the trips were intentional.
Brian was walking perfectly fine, but Jim suspected that Brian was peeking from under the rim of his hunter green hat, which drooped down in front of his eyes all the time.
Diana, who had fallen farther behind the group, was carefully feeling the ground in front of her before taking a small, tentative step. Jim looked over at Honey, who was impatiently waiting for the group to reach her. Putting a hand on Diana's shoulder, Jim led her at a faster pace toward Honey.
The group stopped in front of Honey, their eyes still closed. Honey looked at Jim, who nodded. "Okay. You can all open your eyes now." She told them. The group opened their eyes to see that they were standing in front of the Bob-whites' clubhouse.
In front of their clubhouse were seven snowmen, each one wearing a red club jacket with the letters BWG stitched on the back. Sneaking to the side of the renovated gatehouse, Jim flicked on a switch.
The clubhouse lit up in bright red and green lights, which lined the windows, door, and the edge of the low roof. The lights gave the seven smiling snowmen, which were guarding the clubhouse in a semi-circle, a magical glow. It was a simple, yet breath-taking sight.
"Merry Christmas!" Jim and Honey yelled, breaking the silence that had fallen over the Bob-whites. "Whoa!" Trixie exclaimed. She raced up to the snowman in the middle. It was the shortest snowman of the bunch, with bunches of straw representing short blond curls and blueberries for eyes. It was the snowman version of her!
Trixie turned to her two friends and said, "Hey! It's a Snow Trixie! You both made these?" Jim and Honey nodded. "I got an A- for the class." Honey muttered hotly to Jim, who answered with a chuckle, "I had to take off because you gave Snow Dan a very feminine-like chest."
Honey glared at Jim, "I was getting frustrated, so I threw a snowball and it landed on Snow Dan's chast. It wasn't a..." Honey's voice died off as she blushed, causing Jim to just laugh harder.
The other four walked over to their own look-alike snowmen. Mart's snowman looked alot like Trixie's with shorter straw and blueberries, but his was a few inches taller. Long strands of black licorice fell from atop Snow Diana's head, and grapes represented her violet-colored eyes. Dark brown string covered the tops of Snow Brian and Snow Dan, and large black buttons were used for eyes.
"And those are for you." Honey said, indicating the red jackets each snowman was wearing. All seven Bob-whites threw their new jackets over their bulky coats and stood staring at the glimmering reds and greens that cut through the growing darkness.
"Now if you follow us inside..." Jim began as he opened the clubhouse door and motioned them inside. The interior of the clubhouse had been decorated with red and green construction paper chains draping the walls, rows of garland framing the windows, and handmade glittery snowflakes dangling from the ceiling. The normal meeting table was piled high with food and drinks atop an emerald-colored tablecloth.
"Since we never got to have our Christmas party last week, we decided to throw it today." Honey said shyly. "Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful, Honey!" Di exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her friend. "It was so great of you and Jim to do this while we were all sick."
"I didn't really do anything." Jim answered quickly. "It was all Honey's idea, and she did most of the decorating."
Honey blushed as the Bob-whites praised on the decor. The seven teens gathered around the table, eating and chatting as slowly the sky darkened outside.
Finally, Brian said with a sigh, "We should probably be heading home soon. I promised Moms we'd be home in time to go to church." The others agreed that they should be headed home too. After goodbyes were exchanged, the seven Bob-whites walked their separate ways.
"That was a fun party!" Honey said, her cheeks tinted pink from the cold. Jim nodded as he cast an arm around her shoulders. "Yeah, Honey, it sure was. You really did a great job to make this Christmas special, sis." Honey gazed up at Jim with warm hazel eyes, "I couldn't have done it without you, big brother."
Jim and Honey were walking toward their house when Honey felt a snowball hit her in the back. "Hey!" she cried, whirling around. "Everything okay Honey?" Jim asked her.
Honey turned back around. Jim, the only person it could've been, was still standing right next to her, concern in his green eyes. Honey shrugged it off. She must've imagined it.
"Yeah. Everything's perfectly perfect." Honey answered him, reassuring him with a smile. The two siblings walked into the house, never noticing the smirk on Snow Jim's face…
The End
Ok I wrote this a while ago and while I edited a little here and there I still left all the cornyness:)
I just wanted to explore the relationship between Jim and Honey, and I hope you enjoyed it:)
I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!!! (Just watch out for those snowball throwing snowmen) :)
Reveiw me please!!!:)