"A Holly Jolly Holiday" is the fourth short story in More & More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps.
Plot[]
Beth is watching her favorite wrestler called The Krusher on TV when she is interrupted by her sister Jody. Jody has found a mysterious new shop in town called The Christmas Shoppe, and bought a video tape of her favorite holiday special, "A Holly Jolly Holiday", about a person called Susie Snowflake who spreads cheer to everyone at Christmas. Jody plays the video and Beth becomes bored and leaves. Some time later, she goes downstairs to see that her family has been playing the video over and over again. They have begun to act and talk like Susie Snowflake, and their hair has turned red like hers. Beth realizes to her horror that the same thing is beginning to happen to her. She asks Jody to hand over the videotape, but Jody will not do it unless Beth uses Susie Snowflake's magic words to ask her. Beth can't remember what the words are.
The tape is beginning to take over Beth's mind until she hears the words "Pretty-bitty please with Christmas trees" on the video. She repeats this to Jody, who hands over the tape. Beth is about to play it again when she sees that The Krusher is still on TV reminding her who she really is. She throws the Susie Snowflake tape onto the fire and her family returns to normal.
On Christmas Day, Beth's present from Jody is a videotape of The Krusher's wrestling. Beth didn't know he had released a video and gets very excited... until Jody says that it came from The Christmas Shoppe.
Trivia[]
- Suzie Snowflake's name could be a reference to the 1951 song Suzy Snowflake.
- Troy Steele, critic and founder of Blogger Beware, praised this story for its dry humor, describing it as "maybe the best-written, best conceived entity ever to appear under the Goosebumps banner."[1]
References in other Goosebumps media[]
- An adaptation of this story occurs during Goosebumps HorrorTown's "Attack of the Christmas Presents" event. Susie would later appear during their "The 12 Screams of Christmas" event.