I couldn't resist giving my opinion. I hope you'll forgive me for the following, but you have a vigorous, clear prose style and storytelling ability.
Only a couple of suggestions...dump the word "seemed" every time you used it. Weakens your prose, the Christmas holiday was either magical or it wasn't. If it was, say so. In the words of Elmore Leonard: "write like you have balls." Never use parenthesis, either, but that's more my personal taste. I also think you're introducting your "fantastic" element with the stone a bit too early. You've got a good 'day in the life' going for the widower and I think if you extened it a bit we'd get grounded in him and be more willing to accept the appearance of the stone.
On the plus side you've got appealing, well-drawn characters that I'd like to know, which is half the battle.
Keep going, by all means!
~Snake
It sure is!
Thanks for the tips! I'll try to work on my tendency to write without gumption. ;-) I don't know that I could live without parenthesis...I do think they should NEVER be used in a characters dialog. Isn't that a grammatical rule, even? I can't remember. But I'll be more careful not to overuse 'em!
Of course, some of what you've pointed out I can't do much about unless I get to rewriting, which I'm not sure I will. We'll see if I finish this challenge first...