Jim rubbed his eyes. He still couldn’t believe that this was really happening.

The ghost stood up in his chair still laughing his deep, hearty laugh.

“Come here Jim!”

Jim remained in his spot in bed with his mouth open.

“I think I’m close enough already.”

“No! Get out of bed and get to know me better!”

Jim pushed away his blankets and got out of bed on wobbly legs. He took hesitant steps to the ghost.

“Look, Jim, I have brought with me some snow!” The spirit reached into its robe and threw snow on Jim.

Within a moment of the snow being thrown onto him, he felt suddenly happy. The spirit laughed again.

“I’m here to show you all of the love that is mixed in with this holiday!”

“Wow… umm… okay then!”

“I will be showing you events happening right now, on this very day. Touch my robe!”

Jim was hesitant. The spirit shook his robe at him frantically until Jim finally held onto it. The spirit clapped his hands together and Jim’s bedroom began to fade and his familiar office appeared once again.

“Why are we here? The office is empty; everyone is at the homes spending time with the people they love.” Jim asked.

“Not everybody.” The spirit motioned Jim to the breakroom. They stepped inside and saw two people cuddling on a couch covered in blankets. They were watching a movie. Jim immediately knew that they were Kelly and Ryan. He heard Kelly talking endlessly about the holidays.

“Ohmigod I can’t wait for Christmas, aren’t you excited? It’s going to be soooooooo fun, I’m carrying mistletoe with me everywhere I go, doesn’t that sound like fun?” 

He watched as Ryan stared at the screen, obviously trying to watch the movie.

The Ghost of Christmas Present danced around the couch laughing.

“RYAN! You’re not listening to me! Why aren’t you listening to me? You don’t love me, I knew it. Why don’t you love me?”

“You know what Kelly?”

The spirit reached into his robe and threw snow onto Ryan. Ryan’s angry face immediately turned into a big grin and he spoke again.

“I’m not listening because I’m planning the perfect time to do this.”

Ryan leaned in and kissed Kelly. They fell off the couch and started rolling around on the floor kissing each other crazy.

Jim looked up at the ceiling. Watching Ryan and Kelly make-out on the floor was not what he was expecting the spirit to show him.

Jim knew the spirit was trying to make him feel sentimental, but Ryan and Kelly just didn’t quite do that for him.

The spirit clapped his hands again and soon they were both at a farm.

“Do you know where we are?” The spirit asked.

“I have never been here before…”

“We are at Schrute Beet Farms!”

Jim’s jaw dropped once again in awe. The place really did exist. People really did plant beets for a living. The spirit danced around laughing again while Jim just stood there in shock.

He was led to a small house on the farm. Inside, he saw a Christmas tree with Battlestar Galactica ornaments. Sitting near the fire was Dwight, Angela, and a weird looking man who Jim suspected was Dwight’s cousin Mose.

The spirit signaled for Jim to listen to what was going on.

“Angela… Come here.”

Dwight stood up and walked in front of the Christmas tree.

“What is it? Is something wrong?” She stood up and walked up to Dwight.

Dwight got down on one knee and Jim immediately knew what was going on. He felt a sudden warmness go through his body, but at the same time he was disgusted.

“Wait, Dwight and Angela? Since when?” Jim asked the spirit.

The spirit waved his hand at Jim. “Ssshushhh it!”

  “Angela Martin. I have been madly in love with you for many years.”

“I am more than ready to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

Jim saw tears in Angela’s eyes. He couldn’t wait until it was him on one knee one day asking a woman to marry her. When he closed his eyes to imagine it, it wasn’t Karen he was kneeling down to. It was Pam.

“Yes!”

Jim watched as Dwight and Angela kissed and hugged. Mose was clapping and whistling. The spirit was cheering and hopping around the room like she had known them all her life.

The image of the extremely odd couple started to fade and Jim and the spirit were standing outside of the house again.

“You didn’t seem that thrilled to see that your friends are engaged. Is something wrong?” The spirit asked.

“I’m just… surprised?” Jim wasn’t lying. He was surprised. He didn’t even know that Dwight and Angela were seeing each other.

“Now that you have seen some of the joyous moments of which many people are engaging in, I must show you some of the more heartbreaking sights.”

The surroundings of Dwight’s beet farm disappeared and Poor Richards came into focus.

“Jim, I want to warn you that what you are about to see is going to surprise you by all means. It will be something you would have never expected.”

The stepped inside the bar and walked to one of the tables. Jim saw a woman and a man holding hands and feeding each other fries. They would share occasional kisses. He didn’t recognize them until he stepped closer.

He noticed the man first. It was Martin, the man that was part of the Stamford-Scranton merger. He quit Dunder Mifflin after Michael made a big deal out of him being an ex-convict.

It took him a little longer to see who the woman was, but when he finally did, he was indeed taken aghast.

It was Karen.

“Spirit, how long has she been going behind my back?”

“Since she first knew that you had feelings for the receptionist.”

It was what he heard Karen say next that surprised him most.

“I love you, Martin.”

“I love you too.”

Jim was surprised, but not exactly broken hearted. He was hurt, though, mostly because Karen had been going behind his back all along. She always made him feel bad about being friends with Pam when she was really the cheater. He wanted to slam his hand on the table. He knew Karen was one reason why Pam didn’t talk to him much anymore. If only Karen had broken off the relationship earlier, then things would have been much better. Then, maybe he wouldn’t feel so guilty about not inviting Pam to his Christmas party because Karen convinced him not to.

The spirit’s deep voice interrupted his thoughts.

“We have one more place to visit before our time expires. This one will be the most heart-wrenching of all. I warned you.”

Poor Richard’s began to change to a roomy apartment bedroom that was not his own. He neared the bed and saw wild and curly hair sticking out of the sheets. He classified it immediately as Pam’s.

She stood out of bed and turned on her light on her bedside table. Her face was red and blotchy like she had just been crying really hard but stopped in her sleep. She still looked beautiful. Jim wanted nothing more then to reach out and comfort her and make her feel better.

She turned on the TV and pulled the blankets up to her chest. The sight was so sad for Jim to see because he knew he was the cause of it. He watched as a tear rolled down her cheek, and then another, and then another. They started flowing out more and more when she buried her face in between her knees. He heard her talking to herself.

“What did I do to make everything so weird between us? How come I’m not invited to his party? I want to be friends again. I want things to be normal. I want him to come up to my desk like he used to and talk to me. Why is does everything all of a sudden suck. Everything really sucks.”

Jim had the same thoughts as she did. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for everything. Sorry for not inviting her to his Christmas party, sorry for never telling her how much he missed her, sorry for leaving for Stamford without saying much of a goodbye.

Her next words put him in a daze.

“I love him. I always have. I want him to love me again.”

Everything started to blur and tears began rolling down his cheeks. He couldn’t look at this Pam any longer. His heart was breaking more and more as he watched her weep. He couldn’t believe that Pam had feelings for him. He couldn’t believe that she always had.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to return to his bed and sleep.

“Take me home, spirit. I can’t bear this anymore. Please…”

The spirit clapped her hands one last time before his room came into view again.

“I leave you until the next ghost comes to visit you at 2:00 a.m. The sad things that you just saw are nothing compared to the sad things you will see next. I leave you to remember the images of the happy faces of two people in love and the image of the lonely face of the girl you are so fond of. It is up to you to make things right again.”

And like that, the spirit was gone. Chills ran through Jim’s body as he went back in his bed. He squeezed his eyes shut as tears began to flow.

He was asleep again when a cloud of smoke filled his room. A tall, mysterious, dark figure emerged from it. Jim couldn’t see its face because it had a black cloak covering it. It was holding an axe that the Grim Reaper would carry.

He was scared, and when he spoke his voice was shaky.

“Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?”