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    Home for the Holidays
    Home for the Holidays
    Home for the Holidays
    Ebook55 pages45 minutes

    Home for the Holidays

    By P.J. Lowry

    ()

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    About this ebook

    After spending too many Christmas dinners alone, Artie Jackson decided to take matters into his own hands. He concocted the perfect plan to force his kids to come home for the holidays, kicking and screaming if necessary. Will the plan work and bring home some much needed love with the festive season or will it just be the opening salvo of what might be another dysfunctional family gathering.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherP.J. Lowry
    Release dateJan 8, 2016
    ISBN9781310884887
    Home for the Holidays
    Author

    P.J. Lowry

    Born in Hamilton, Ontario on October 28th 1975, P.J. Lowry has been creating fiction, non-fiction and poetry for over twenty years. P.J. graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2002 with a Bachelor Of Arts, majoring with the department of English language and literature.After traveling abroad P.J. returned home, settled down, and started composing novels and collections of poetry for formal publication. He currently resides in his hometown and is working on his next novel.Gift Shop: If you like PJ's work, wear it too!https://shop.spreadshirt.com/pjlowryshop/

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      Book preview

      Home for the Holidays - P.J. Lowry

      Written by P.J. Lowry

      Home For The Holidays

      Published on Smashwords

      Copyright 2016 P.J. Lowry

      License Note:

      Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

      If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com where they can also discover other works by this author.

      Thanks again for your support.

      It was the same every year. Artie would make calls and try to find out what everyone’s plan was for the holiday season. With everyone spread out across the nation, the only tradition old Artie was seeing every year was excuses. It hadn’t always been this way. There used to be a time when all the kids and grandkids would trip over each other to spend the holidays at his big house. Those were the good old days when his wife was still around. Before her passing, she would often joke that everyone was really there to see her and not him. Turns out her jokes were quite accurate because when his lovely wife of fifty years succumbed to cancer, everyone stopped showing up for Christmas. Artie just assumed the first year was too tough because the first holiday was less than a few months after her passing and it might have been too soon. He let it slide and thought nothing of it. But now it had been seven years and not a single kid or grandkid had sat down at the massive table in his dining room to break bread with him on his savior’s birthday.

      It wasn’t like some of his kids didn’t have good excuses. David was a surgeon and he spent his holidays working in free clinics to help those who couldn’t afford health insurance. While it was admirable from a distance, deep down Artie knew that was a shield to protect David from criticism, something he did often to deflect negative things being said about him. Sorry I missed that play I never wanted to see, but I was too busy saving lives. It was like playing chess with a grand master. Even though you knew what game was being played you still had no chance of winning.

      Then there were the kids who had no excuse. Kim was a stay at home mom with four rug rats that Artie wanted to spoil endlessly. Yet instead of taking him up on offers of free babysitting and weekend to spend with her husband, he was rejected every time he reached out to spend time when them.

      Then there was Richard, who was larger than life. Living what was his childhood dream, Richard was a professional baseball player. Making millions to play a game most people would do for free, he was also able to fly anywhere at a moment’s notice but still had no time for his old man. Whenever they would talk on the phone, they would talk about all things baseball and nothing else. It was the one bridge they had left but Artie was sad that he wasn’t closer to Richard beyond that. He couldn’t be prouder of his son, but lately he had been living up to his name and was a real dick to his old man.

      Then there was Malcolm. Professor at an esteemed university and all round know it all. Malcolm never came for Christmas dinner because Artie never invited him.

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