Reena's Miracle

Whatever happened to Marley's ghost?
That's the question Reena asked herself many times as she decided to take matters into her own hands and force her neighbors to open their eyes to each other and the miracle of Christmas.
Nancy Schmidt was not interested in anything to do with Christmas. After the death of her husband three years ago, she found no reason to celebrate any longer. The last thing she needed in her life was a perky, overly friendly, cookie-bearing new neighbor who wouldn't take no for an answer.
Antonio Caruso was a retired widower who kept to himself. He didn't get out much; he had a hard time navigating the steps with his walker, so he just played his old saxophone until the neighbors complained and waited for the day when he would be reunited with his wife. He didn't need a neighbor who could make minestrone the way his mother had. He didn't need a busybody who could make him smile and forget how lonely he was. He didn't need someone reminding him about Christmas.
Nadine Carmichael was trying her best to hold it all together. Her husband had lost his life in Afghanistan, and now she was a single mother of three. The Veterans Administration had misplaced her husband's paperwork and denied her survivor's benefits, so she was struggling to pay the bills, not to mention providing Christmas for her truly deserving children. She really didn't need an over-friendly neighbor knocking on her door, offering a deep-dish pizza to her children just when she had been despairing over what to feed them for dinner. She didn't need a platter full of Christmas cookies. And she didn't need some nosy neighbors interfering in her life.
Or, maybe that was exactly what they all needed.