Page 1 of The Hockey Grump Saves Christmas

CHAPTER 1

GABE

“In a quarter mile, the destination is on your left,” the GPS woman says.

Thank God for that. There’s only so much driving through horizontal snow on a dark night I can take.

Right around this four hundredth bend on the narrow road that winds its way up the side of a hill is the Christmas I’ve always dreamed of—a Christmas with no Christmas.

No unwrapping of gifts, no obligatory jollity, no tree, no tinsel, no jangly music or jingling bells.

Just me in my newly purchased house on the outskirts of the sleepy upstate New York town of Warm Springs, where I know no one, and no one knows me. At least they won’t if I keep my hat pulled over my eyes on any rare occasion I might leave the house. Hopefully that won’t be necessary since I booked people to furnish it and to stock groceries already.

Two or three weeks of peace and solitude stretch ahead of me like a dream come true. Oh, what comfort and joy.

“The destination is on your left. You have arrived,” GPS woman cheerfully informs me. She’s truly the perfect traveling companion—only speaks when absolutely necessary, and if I’ve had enough of her, she has an off switch.

But she might be jumping the gun a little on this occasion because I still can’t see the house. I’ve been here only once before—last week, when I viewed the property and wrapped up the purchase—but that was a glorious crisp and sunny day. Everything looks different in the dark and the blizzard.

I’m more excited to wake up to a new view tomorrow than I expected. Although I love seeing the city from my Manhattan penthouse, it’ll be a nice change to have this refuge that looks out over the town to wide-open countryside and the rolling hills of the Hudson Valley—a view unsullied by the gaudy, flashing, festive displays that cover New York City every Christmas, the window scenes that look like they might come to life and kill you in your bed, and the mobs that swarm to see the Rockefeller Center tree. It’s just a tree, for fuck’s sake.

This festive season, my view will be full of trees, but all of them growing in their natural habitat. And not an ornament in sight.

I turn the wheel carefully so as not to lose traction as I round the corner to my new hideaway.

Holy mother of fucking God, what isthat? I have to hold myself back from slamming on the brakes and risking a skid.

My eyes are assaulted by a building covered in so many lights that it looks like a glowing spaceship occupiedby Christmas-obsessed aliens who haven’t yet become familiar with the Earth term “understated.”

“What the ever-loving fuck?”

I mean, seriously, astronauts on the International Space Station must have to scramble for their sunglasses every time they pass overhead.

Maybe I’ve made a mistake. Maybe the nice GPS woman made a mistake. Maybe this isn’t my house. It’s hard to tell since I’d struggle to recognize my own mother if she were wrapped in this many colored lights.

But no, there’s its name staring at me from the sign on the high front fence, Starlight Summit.

One of the reasons I chose this place is because of its lack of neighbors. It sits in glorious isolation, high on the side of Fool’s Hill. Yeah, it’s a dumb name. The Realtor said it comes from some old local legend, but I wasn’t listening.

Finally my eyes adjust to the dazzling exhibit before me and manage to make out the classy, architect-designed, midcentury wooden home behind the cacophony of lights—some of them flashing.

They’re not even tasteful white lights. Well, a few are white. The rest are a random hodgepodge of every color of the rainbow and some outside the scope of even the most psychedelic rainbow’s imagination.

I turn into the driveway, clearly able to see my way because it’s almost as bright as a sunny midsummer day up here.

And, oh my fucking God, it’s not just the lights…

The horror show that’s come into view on the front lawn distracts me so much I have to stomp on the brake at the last minute to stop from crashing intothe garage door. The sudden move sends a pain shooting into my left shoulder.

“Ow, Jesus.”

I rub my AC ligament and try to take in the magnitude of the gruesome display before me—a tricky task since no human eye could possibly absorb this all at once.

My attention hops uncontrollably from one ghastly vision to the next.

It’s impossible to figure out which part is worse. The glowing inflatable snowman that’s bobbing around in the wind with a smile so infuriating I’d happily stab it with a pin and watch it shrivel to the ground? The cluster of reindeer, one with a flashing red nose? The circular track that has a miniature train going around and around with passengers that include an elf, a penguin, and a Chucky-looking doll? Or the zebra wearing a red sweater?A zebra wearing a red sweater?

Azebra.

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