Behind the Scenes

Inside the Christmas Cabinet: Cooking a Christmas Feast

/ Timothy G. Huguenin / Leave a comment

It’s our Christmas Cabinet. We only open it once a year. The Christmas Cabinet Man lives in there. Every Christmas Eve we let him out and he cooks us a midnight feast. He’s the best cook ever.

Welcome to the third part of Inside the Christmas Cabinet, a behind the scenes series about my Christmas horror novelette “The Christmas Cabinet” published in the Summer 2026 issue of Assemble Artifacts Short Story Magazine. If you haven’t already, first read Part One on the setting and Part Two on literary/film inspirations, as well as the story itself. The following contains spoilers! You have been warned!

For many American families, special seasonal recipes and large meals surrounded by family and friends are essential highlights of the holiday season. Arnold, Greta, and Carol have some rather peculiar Christmas culinary traditions, it’s true. But some of the more, um, conventional foods in the story are very good.

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Inside the Christmas Cabinet: From Shirley Jackson to James Wan

/ Timothy G. Huguenin / Leave a comment

This is the second installment in my behind the scenes series I’m calling Inside the Christmas Cabinet. Let’s open up that box and see what’s inside! Warning: potential spoilers in the following post! If you haven’t yet read it, but still want some more information, go back to the original announcement which includes links to purchase the digital magazine in which my story appears. The first part of Inside the Christmas Cabinet would be fine to read beforehand, but you probably want to read (or listen) to the story itself before reading this one.

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Inside the Christmas Cabinet: Port Crayon, West Virginia

/ Timothy G. Huguenin / Leave a comment

Those who have followed my short stories are familiar with Augustus Valley, my fictional southern-WV town, once a thriving hub of the mining industry, “now a blip on a long detour you’ll never take, the coal having run out there, as is its way” (as I describe it in the prologue to my unpublished novel, Schafer). Wind up the mountain along steep, narrow backroads and you’ll find High Point, where the Yellow Carousel secretly turns, where Mr V reclines in his fire-lit library, where some have reported seeing a black horse with glowing embers for eyes galloping through the night.

Readers of my new story, “The Christmas Cabinet” (appearing in the Summer 2026 issue of Assemble Artifacts Short Story Magazine) are introduced to a new mysterious, small mountain town: Port Crayon, West Virginia.

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