A Very Orphan Christmas

Or, The Parable of the Orphans.

There are a bunch of orphans. Say, three of them, and their names are Moe, Flo, and Joe. They’re not related by blood but have become a found family as they scratch out a living on the streets.

On Christmas Eve, the orphans save the life of an old man who falls in the middle of a busy intersection and nearly gets run over by a taxicab. The old man tells them a secret: he’s not really an old man, he’s an angel. This is the third time today that he’s pulled the old “fall in the middle of a busy intersection” trick and the first two times all the passersby just let him get hit by buses. He was ready to smite the entire city until the orphans came along. Instead, he will spare the city and grant them each a wish. But they cannot tell each other their wishes, or the wishes won’t come true.

Christmas morning, Moe wakes up in his mansion surrounded by piles of money. When Flo and Joe come to the door, he turns them away and says, “You should have wished for your own mansion!” But they both wished for Moe’s happiness. “Because you’re suckers,” says Moe, slamming the door.

Flo decides to follow Moe’s example and become rich. She attends business school and becomes a Wall Street executive. When she’s sent to Antarctica on an urgent assignment, she gets adopted into a penguin tribe. She decides to stay and volunteer as an egg sitter while the penguins feed her fish. In the end, family triumphs over fortune.

But not for Joe, who lives outside the mansion gates and begs for scraps. On a cold night, Joe breaks into the mansion and starts sleeping in the bowling alley. Moe would think the bowling alley was haunted, if he ever went down there.

At first Moe is happy with his piles of money, but after a while he starts to miss his found siblings. The following Christmas, Moe hears a voice, clear as a bell, singing carols. “But who could it be?” he says. “I’ve alienated everyone I’ve ever loved. I must be imagining the sweet voice of my brother.” He’s not! In the bowling alley, he finds Joe. Joe shrinks into the corner, fearing losing his only indoor home.  But Moe embraces him and they are both filled with the holiday spirit. Moe flies them on his private jet to the South Pole where they meet Flo and her new penguin family. Everyone hugs Moe, happy that he has repented and is back to his old loving self. Even though he never really did anything to make amends. The end.