That night it was both with relief and trepidation that Nancy rang in the new year.

In the shadows beneath her eyes he was able to see a whole life's worth of pain.

They were bogged down in that period between Christmas and New Years when nothing gets done.

It was a question of timing that left one lover dead and the other stuck in a Florida prison.

They were together but separated by a wall of technology.

She had the wherewithal to accomplish anything she put her mind to, which at the moment was wasted on stalking her ex over the internet.

Santa drunkenly fell asleep at the Smith's residence after imbibing in the eggnog spiked with high-proof alcohol leaving half the world's children waiting for their presents.

"I kept trying to stay positive this Christmas," said Paul,"but every present I opened was either survivalist gear or another gun."

The desultory Christmas season at the nursing home was made worse by the staff's grumblings concerning a lack of bonuses and the demise of old Mrs. Chumly, the only resident who seemed to give two hoots about the holidays.

The office's holiday spirit was fueled by spiked eggnog and mistletoe.

He spent his life between going nowhere and to jail.

Gallows humor was the only thing that kept them sane among all the blood and bullets.

Al had been excited to lecture at the canine conference until he realized the audience was completely comprised of dogs, not other scientists.

"This whole Trump thing is good for parties," says Dorothy, popping the olive from her martini into her mouth, "since no one wants to talk politics, people are really stretching to find things to chat about."

Small, simple acts of kindness would eventually save humanity from itself.

Trapped and waiting, we held hands and sang softly.

The questionnaire, to all appearances innocuous, was used to decide their fate.

America had become click bait wrapped in a reality TV show served up with super-sized fries.

Everything was for sale and nothing was free.

Even the Ouija board was rude to Burt as it would continually call him derogatory names whenever he attempted to contact the other side.

"Politics is everywhere these days—from how you greet people at Christmas to what color you wear," sighed a tired and drunken Santa Claus as he chased his eggnog with a shot of whiskey.

The change they wanted wasn't the kind they got.

Rage bubbled up to the surface much more often in those days and heralded a cataclysm to come.

The bar had become the last bastion for open debate, although it usually revolved around sports teams and beer brands.

Those days of wine and roses were full of hangovers and thorns.

It was a single sentence typed out late one night that led to his death sentence early one morning.

The fat white flakes fell ceaselessly, quieting the bustling city in a patina of pristine whiteness.

We hid in the barn that night praying the men would not find us as the border was so tantalizingly near.

Bill believed there wasn't enough comfort food and booze in the world to get him through the next four years.

The more ways they invented for us to communicate with one another the more cut off we became.

Dark thoughts faded in the presence of the morning light glowing on the wet tree limbs outside the kitchen window.