Day 66: 12 January 2026

 Short Story -- The Giving Tree: Part 2

‘The winter was bad the year I was six,’ she started…

Snow whirled outside the small home. Wolves howled: not close but not so far as they’d usually be either.

A bitter wind and a flurry of snowflakes whipped in as the girl’s father entered. It took him using his full weight against the door to get it shut again. He was coming back from checking on their animals in the barn: a few chickens, a pig and a cow. He latched the door with the wooden peg behind him. Beneath his woolly hat and above his brown jacket, ice clung to his hair and eyebrows making them white and his cheeks were red.

‘Come warm yourself by the fire, my love,’ the girl’s mother, Annette, said to him shooing the children off to one side.

The girl was the youngest of five children. She had two older brothers: Thomas and Dirk; and two older sisters: Liesel and Fiona. Her name was Stella.

The three youngest — Dirk, Fiona and Stella — had been playing on the rug in front of the fire with toys their parents had crafted for them. Each of the girls had a small simple wooden doll with a modest dress and Dirk had a small soldier. They were lucky that their father had the beneficial hobby of woodcarving. Sticks from the forest were free and every man (and most women) carried a small knife with them always anyways.

The older two had been sat reading on low stools in the light of the fire. Their mother could read and she was working on passing down the skill to all of her children, but books were hard to come by.

‘How were the animals, Papa?’ asked Stella, who’d always had a soft spot for anything with fur or feathers.

‘They’ll manage. They’re protected from the worst of the wind by the barn,’ her father answered.

But she also knew what he wasn’t saying. The harvest in the autumn hadn’t been as big this year. There wasn’t as much straw or grain for the animals. There wasn’t as much food for them — the people — either. The dry summer had hurt many of the local farms and most were feeling at least some want.

‘Don’t worry, little one,’ her father said coming over and tousling her hair. ‘Everything will look brighter tomorrow. It usually does in the morning sun.’

There hadn’t been much of that — sun, that is — that winter either.

‘Off to bed with you,’ her mother said to the children.

The boys shared a room downstairs and the girls shared a loft. Perhaps it seems odd that they all went to bed at the same time, but all five children had been born in as many years, so the oldest was only ten.

The older two put their books back on the small shelf next to the fireplace. The younger three brought theirs to bed with them.

Tucked in their beds — simple straw mattresses resting on the floor covered in a few blankets — Stella could hear her parents talking softly.

‘I went by the Giving Tree this afternoon before the storm got too bad,’ her father was saying. ‘I left a handful of carved toys. Hopefully they’ll make some children happy this Christmas. And I picked up a skein of yarn for you, my love. I hope it’s enough to make the mittens and scarves for the children as you hoped to.’

‘I’m sure it will be wonderful. What a beautiful colour! Thank you!’ Her mother’s voice radiated a soft warmth.

Looking over at the pegs by the door where the children’s current coats hung, their father sighed. There were no scarves or mittens in sight. And the coats were either too small and threadbare or too big.

‘It’s not your fault, my love,’ her mother said following his gaze. ‘The children are all growing so fast. And mittens and scarves are prone to getting lost or forgotten or just wearing out.’

Christmas was a few weeks away, but on the morning, when the children woke up, there was a small present at the foot of their beds: a pair of forest green mittens or a forest green scarf (slightly varying patterns) for each. Each was just the right size. Which made it all the more special since it didn’t feel like anyone’s hand-me-downs.

‘And that,’ finished the great great grandmother, who you may have correctly guessed is Stella, ‘is my first memory regarding the Giving Tree.’