Pushkin the Christmas Gnome

A Story for You (and anyone who could use a little light)

Dec 16, 2025

Hello, friends.
I wrote a small story for this season.
I hope it brings you a little warmth and light today.
* let’s begin*

Now, elves… elves get plenty of attention this time of year.
They make sure of it.
There are songs
and cookies
and coloring sheets
and movies and television specials and footie pajamas.

Elves sparkle. They shout. They hang from ceiling fans when no one is looking.

But …
not many people know about Christmas gnomes.
Which is a shame, because they’re very nice.
Especially the very small ones.
Especially Pushkin.

Pushkin is a *very* old gnome.
His work isn’t the loud kind.
He isn’t supervising the toy assembly line
or inventing new cookie frostings
or choreographing the Reindeer Rockette Routine.

Pushkin just helps.
Quietly.
Carefully.
Almost invisibly.
By design.

If you’ve ever had a scarf settle just right on your shoulders …
that was probably Pushkin.

If a mug of hot chocolate has ever slid a little closer right when you needed it …
Pushkin.

If a lost sock magically reappears exactly where it was supposed to be…
Pushkin again.

If a small worry softens
or a long breath arrives before you ask for it,
or a small light flicks on at exactly the perfect moment,
it’s likely the work of Pushkin or any of the other ancient gnomes quietely working in the world.

He never tells anyone.
He doesn’t need attention.
He definitely doesn’t want a carol written about him that might one day be misremembered or sung incorrectly by school children or … worse …..
covered by a musical artist he isn’t particularly a fan of.

But sometimes …
sometimes he does catch someone smiling because of something he did
or hears a person sighing a little easier because of him.
Those moments feel very nice.
Those moments he holds onto.
Those keeps him going.

Today, one week before Christmas,
Pushkin watches the elves rehearse their big holiday spectactular.
There are fireworks.
There are spotlights.
There is a fog machine so powerful it briefly counts as weather.

Pushkin stands in the fog,
very small,
feeling smaller.

“What if my little good things don’t matter?”
he wonders.

So Pushkin tries doing big things for a change. The biggest things he’s ever done!!!

He marches over to a leaning mailbox,
one that’s been crooked since anyone can remember,
and shoves it upright with all his tiny strength!

It leans back down immediately, more sideways than ever.

Pushkin drags a huge inflatable snowman across the yard.
He musters all the breath in his little lungs to fill it up,
but it isn’t enough.

The snowman half-inflates
just enough to fall on Pushkin
like a sleepy, confused giant.

Pushkin tries one last big thing. THE BIGGEST THING!!!

He tugs on a star.
A real one.
Just a slight adjustment,
a gentle attempt to bring it a little closer
and tad brighter for all to see.

The star wobbles, tilts, then drifts back to it’s crooked place in the sky, completely unbothered.

Pushkin sits in the snow,
hat sideways,
heart sideways.
Sad, small, and tired.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A beetle climbs onto his boot.
“I saw you,” the beetle says.
“My name is Bixby
and I am a Wishing Beetle.
Licensed.
Mostly reliable.”

Puskin nods politely.
This is all so new.
He’s never met a magic beetle.
Plus, he isn’t used to being seen.

“What seems to be the trouble?” Bixby asks.

“I want to do something big,” Pushkin says.
“Something that makes a difference,
but every big thing I try just…”

He gestures to the leaning mailbox,
the deflated snowman,
and the crooked star above them.

“Make a wish,” says the little bug.

Pushkin hesistates.
He doesn’t know this beetle
and isn’t even sure if it will work.
Though it feels silly,
he whispers one anyway:

“I wish … I could do something that stays.”

“Wish granted,” Bixby says.

Nothing happens.
Pushkin looks at him.
The beetle shrugs.
“I said mostly reliable.”

Bixby’s antennae lower,
gentle now.
"Take a look,” he says.
"Dear gnome. Your small things…
they stay much longer than you know.”

At that moment,
a window flicks on.
Then another.
And another.

A door opens.
Someone laughs.
Someone welcomes someone else inside.
A kettle hums.
A child sings a song they only half remember,
but mean entirely.

“That was you,” the beetle says.

Pushkin shakes his head.
“No no. I didn’t do any of that.”

“Not the big parts,” says the bug.
“Big parts are rarely the important ones.”

He taps Pushkin’s knee
and shares an old, but very true thing:

“When you make the space..
when you do small things…
kind little nudges….
these tiny, seemingly unnoticed acts of thoughtful care …

they softened the world’s edges,
they steadied the corners…
the prepare the way
for light to get in.”

Pushkin looks at the glowing windows.
The warm, ordinary miracles.
For the first time in a very long time,
something quiet and bright moves through him.