"Christmas every day" by Ian Hearnden

"I wish it could be Christmas every day," sang Roy Wood and Wizzard in Colin's head. Colin hummed along. It was the first Monday in January. Back to school. Everywhere he looked, people looked glum. All the children. The teachers. The caretaker. The groundsman as he mowed the playing fields. Everything grey. It was raining too. Colin felt sad. How he wished it could be Christmas every day. And then he thought, "Well, why can't it be?"

That night, before turning his attention to some homework, Colin climbed up to the loft, and fetched the Christmas tree that had been packed away there the day before. He set it up again - the lights, the baubles, the tinsel. Scamp woofed. He seemed to've given it the thumbs up. Not that he had any thumbs, of course. He was an Irish wolfhound. Colin took him for a walk.

At school the following day, Colin redecorated his desk with all the items he'd taken down the previous morning. To his left he placed the miniature sleigh with its six reindeer. On the right he arranged the sprigs of holly either side of the beaming, foot-high Father Christmas. Colin was happy now. He heard others laughing under their breath at what he'd done, muttering that he was as mad as a march hare. But he didn't care. And the next day, after a winter of no snow, flakes appeared. Gently at first, then heavily, covering the school buildings, the groundsman's field, the cars in the car park, Colin's house, the driveway, and the front and back gardens - everywhere, covered in a crisp whiteness, under bright sunshine.

And there the decorations stayed, and it snowed every day for a week, a fortnight, through March, past Easter, into British Summertime, beyond May Day, leaving everyone happy and smiling, not grey or glum, until one day, when Colin was told by the Ofsted inspection team that the desk in his office was not in a state they would've expected for a Head of School, and when, on arriving home, Colin's wife politely asked if they could possibly put the tree back in the loft now.

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