Winter Holidays Story Contest 2023
Submission
Please kindly rate my story and leave me comments, I would like to hear what you all have to say, constructive criticism is welcome. If you want to troll and be nasty in your comments I will ignore them and it will be a waste of your time. This is fantasy fiction and I choose to have no STI's in this world. All participants in sex acts are 18 years old or older and similarities in names or descriptions of the characters are purely coincidental and are not based on any real person living or dead. Please enjoy!
Thank you,
-Joker
A Christmas Caroling
My wife Carol has a slight gambling problem. Now she doesn't go out and blow all our money at casinos or on lottery tickets and the like. No her gambling problem stems from our childhood and I guess you could consider me an enabler.
My name is Mike. Carol, my wife, and I grew up next door to each other. We were thick as thieves growing up given that our parents were less than reputable in our town. Not a soul that knew us ever doubted that we would be together forever. Since we knew each other since we were kids we got along well enough, but we had our share of fights.
That's where the gambling comes in. As children after a really bad fight in junior high school, we decided that we would never fight again. However, we would need a way to settle any disagreements before they blew up into a fight. Our fathers were both card players, always running games at one of our houses.
It was there that both Carol and I learned various styles of Poker as well as Blackjack. So we had decided that we would play three hands of either Poker or Blackjack, best two of three wins. Whoever won, won the disagreement and the other had to go along with it.
Over the years this way of deciding arguments evolved. We still used it for disagreements, but now my wife uses it to get or do things that she wants. I was lucky in this aspect as my father had taught me to count cards and stack the deck. This always gave me an edge over my wife.
I wasn't an ass and took advantage of her, I picked and chose my battles. As our game of decisions evolved into a way for my wife to get things she wanted, we reworked the rules a bit. If it was just a standard argument the regular rules would be in play, but if the game was to be used for my wife's wishes then we would use a different set of rules.
If my wife won then she would get what she wanted or we would do what she wanted. If I won, obviously she wouldn't get what she wanted or we wouldn't do what she wanted. Since this was her way of getting what she wanted, I had proposed that if I won she would then have to do whatever I told her to do for a whole day of my choosing.
Carol agreed to these conditions and our little game of decisions became a fairly regular occurrence. I let my wife win most of the time as long as the things she wanted weren't some big life-changing or costly item or event. Sometimes I'd just let the games play out naturally.
She wanted a puppy and thought I would be opposed to it, I had no problem and let her win. She wanted to buy a sports car, I won that game as we weren't that financially secure at the time. This is how our games played out and how it led to a pretty fun and eventful night.
It was early November and my wife was watching Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel. This always bugged me, it was too early for Christmas stuff and it seemed like just last week Hallmark had their Christmas in July. Carol was watching a movie that was set at an Ice Hotel, where the hotel is made out of ice.
Well, she got the idea that for our Christmas Vacation this year, we should go and stay at an Ice Hotel. I wasn't very fond of this idea but knew at this point in the year that she would never be able to book a stay at an Ice Hotel. So I let her look into it. She was disappointed of course when she couldn't find any openings.
In her infinite wisdom, she broadened her search and presented me with spending two weeks in the Alaskan wilderness in a tent at some sort of outdoor retreat. I looked at her like she was out of her mind, at which point she got up walked out of the living room, and returned a few minutes later with a deck of cards and placed them in front of me.
"What's the game?" I asked.
"Texas Hold 'Em," my wife stated.
"Who's dealing?" I inquired.
"Let's cut for it!" Carol proclaims. So I shuffle the deck and push it in front of her. She cuts the deck in half putting the bottom half on top. I reach forward cut the deck and pick up about one-third of the cards. Carol reaches out and grabs a small stack as well. We show our bottom cards to each other. Carol has a Seven of Hearts and I have a Jack of Clubs. I deal.
"What's your part of the bet?" I ask as I begin shuffling.
"If I win, we spend our Christmas Vacation at the outdoor retreat in Alaska," Carol says with a smug look on her face. She must be feeling confident. I am confident that I will not be freezing my ass off for two weeks. Not that it would be much warmer here in Syracuse, New York.
"Okay, and as usual if I win you have to do whatever I say for a whole day of my choosing. Agreed?" I questioned.
"Agreed!" My wife said as she nodded her head.
I let her win the first hand and then I won the last two. We would not be spending two weeks in Alaska over Christmas. She was definitely upset that we would not be in Alaska for vacation.
"Why don't we go to Costa Rica instead. It will be nice, warm, and sunny" I offered.
Carol's frown went away and she now seemed pleased at our new destination. "Okay, I like that idea too." My wife says. "So what do I have to do for you?"
"I haven't decided yet, but I'll let you know when I do." I smile and then begin to think of a worthy punishment for my wife.
The weeks passed by and it was getting closer to our Christmas Vacation trip and I still hadn't come up with any idea on a punishment for Carol yet. As I sat at my office desk pondering what on earth I could have my wife do, the restaurant manager knocked on my door and peeked his head in.
"Hey, Mike. Do you have a moment?"
"What's up, Dan?" I asked.
"There is a lady here from a local Church Choir, and she was wondering if we wouldn't mind letting them sing Christmas Carols outside the entrance?" Dan inquired.
"When and for how long?" I replied.
"She says starting on the twentieth til the twenty-fourth from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m," Dan stated.
"Sure, no problem. Just make sure they know we are closed Christmas Eve!" I answered.
"Okay, thanks," Dan said as he headed back out front.
Christmas Caroling huh! Now that gave me an idea. I quickly started looking up Christmas Caroling and found out that December 20th is Caroling Day. That would make sense as the Church Choir asked to start on the Twentieth. I then checked online to see if any local groups would be caroling that night.
Sure enough, there were quite a few groups that would start caroling on the Twentieth, and one of them would be meeting up in our neighborhood. I visited Amazon and ordered a Christmas suit for Carol to wear as part of her punishment that I now had planned.
It was getting late in the afternoon and I still needed to check in with our other restaurant across town. So I decided to call and check in, instead of heading over so late in the day. Carol and I had worked hard to get to where we were. Once we graduated high school, we got married and moved away from our deadbeat parents.
It wasn't easy being on our own but we worked hard. One day on a whim Carol dragged me into a Ralph Lauren outlet store. This stuff was way overpriced for what we could afford, but I went along with her anyway. My wife and I looked around until we came to a clearance rack we started going through it and found some really great bargains.
I pulled my wife outside so that we could talk out of earshot from the store employees. It was then, that we made a huge decision and maxed out our credit cards by purchasing all the clearance stuff we could. We then started selling the clearance items online for more than we paid but less than the original retail price.
Thus our first business was born. Once we had started banking a lot of money from our online store, we decided it was time to get into a brick-and-mortar business. We found a good chef who was doing well with a food truck and bought him out, hired him as the head chef for a restaurant, and kept the food truck for catering purposes.
With a successful restaurant under our belts, we decided to open another using the same criteria. So now at the age of twenty-seven my wife and I owned an online shopping store and two restaurants with catering businesses. We were doing quite well for ourselves which allowed us the freedom for Christmas Vacations.
Three days had passed and I got home Monday evening to find a package on the armoire by the front door of our home. I knew exactly what it was and brought it into the kitchen with me where Carol was cooking dinner. I set the package on an open counter and started looking for a pair of scissors to open the box.
My wife walked over and kissed me, "Good evening honey." Carol said to me, "Did you get me something?"
"Actually it is for you and it's multipurpose as well," I answered.
"Really! What do you mean?" My wife inquired.
I started opening the box as I explained it to her. "You see, this is something for our trip to Costa Rica and it is also going to be used for your loss in our decision game last month."
