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A short Christmas Story by PETER FAIRHURST m©miv
We all know that Santa Claus lives somewhere near the North Pole, he has a little house surrounded by workshops where the his Elves are very busy all the year round, making toys and presents to give to good children everywhere at Christmas.
Last year preparations for Christmas were coming along very well, the workshops were extremely busy, everyone was working as hard as they could to get the toys ready for delivering on Christmas Eve, as usual. Parcels were wrapped in Christmas paper with little tags to say who they were for.
Santa spent a lot of time looking after his reindeer, he loved the animals and he made sure that they had plenty of food and brushed their coats to make them look as splendid as they always did on their big night. Two days before Christmas while Santa was brushing the reindeer, he started to sneeze, it started with one single sneeze.
"Bless you, Santa," said one of the Elves who heard it.
Santa sneezed again.
"Bless you, Santa,"
Santa sneezed again...and again...and again.
Before long, Santa Claus was lying on the floor in a dreadful state, he couldn't stop sneezing, his face was all puffed up and he was finding it hard to breathe. Santa's wife, nobody knew her name, everybody, including Santa, called her Mrs. Claus, came running from the house to see what all the noise was about. She saw her husband lying on the floor. "Santa, whatever is the matter?" she said, " What's happened, what are you doing on the floor?"
Santa looked up, his face all red, gasping for breath and still sneezing terribly. He tried to answer but he couldn't speak, he felt terrible.
Mrs. Claus told one of the Elves to go and telephone the doctor, "Tell him to come straight away, Santa is very poorly," she said, and then asked four of the strongest Elves to carry Santa into the house, "We'll put him to bed so that he will be more comfortable while we wait for the doctor."
As Santa was so very important, the doctor stopped what he was doing, he was dressing a patient's sore leg, and said, as he picked up his bag and rushed out, "Hold this bandage 'till I come back, I'll be as quick as I can.” The doctor hurried to Santa's bedside and told the Elves to go back to work, "There is nothing you can do to help and you will only get in my way," he told them.
"Mrs. Claus,"
"Yes Doctor,"
"Perhaps you should wait outside as well, I will call you when I have finished examining your husband; and please don't worry, I'm sure he will be all right."
Mrs. Claus sat on a chair in the hall outside the bedroom but could not sit still. After a few minutes, though it seemed to be much longer, the doctor called Mrs. Claus back into the room. Santa was breathing more easily now and his face was less puffy. He smiled, weakly at his wife as she came into the room and the doctor said, "No problem, Mrs. Claus, your husband will be fine in no time."
"Thank God for that. What was the matter with him? Why did he become so terribly ill so quickly?" she asked.
"The old chap,” the doctor replied, “has become allergic to something, quite suddenly; I think that it is his reindeer, in fact I am sure that it is the reindeer. I have done some tests and we will know for certain in a few days."
"Allergic to his Reindeer, he can't be,” said Mrs. Claus, “he has had those animals for as long as anyone can remember, he can't be allergic to them, don't talk nonsense."
"I'm sorry Mrs. Claus, but I think I'm right, this sort of thing can happen, without warning; I have given him an injection and here are some tablets he must take every four hours; now you must let Santa rest and recover for a few days and then make sure he doesn't go anywhere near those animals, he’ll be as right as rain in a day or two.
"But Doctor......"
"Nowhere near the reindeer !"
"But Doctor, what about Christmas?"
"I'm afraid you will have to cancel Christmas this year."
Santa sat bolt upright in bed, "Cancel Christmas, you can't be serious, we can't cancel Christmas. No-one has ever cancelled Christmas and I certainly won't be the first Santa to let down all those children." Santa had another attack of sneezing and then continued, breathlessly, "Find me some stronger tablets or a more powerful injection that will make me fit enough to deliver the presents this year, as usual."
As the doctor was leaving, word went round the workshops that he had finished with Santa and all the Elves gathered in the yard to hear what Mrs. Claus had to tell them. She found it very difficult to explain the problem and impossible to tell the helpers that Christmas would have to be cancelled. However, one of the senior Elves asked the question, "He will be well enough for his deliveries, won't he?"
"I'm afraid not," she replied very quietly.
"What, he won't be fit enough ? He's got to be, no one else can do his work. He's got to be all right." All the Elves joined in the chorus of disbelief, they were making a terrible din, and Mrs. Claus had to shout to be heard above the noise,
"I'm sorry, there is nothing else we can do; we have got to cancel Christmas this year. I really am most dreadfully sorry."
One of the senior Elves was not going to be beaten and decided that it was time to do something about it. He gathered the older Elves together for a meeting and told them that it was up to them to try to sort out the problem. "There must be another way, we can't let Christmas be cancelled, we've got to find a way to get the presents delivered."
"Why don't we take the parcels to the post office and post them to the children ?" Suggested one
"That's no good, it's far too expensive and we haven’t got any money to buy stamps."
"And postmen don't deliver at night, do they; and, most definitely, not on Christmas day.”
"Postmen won't go down chimneys anyhow and they haven’t got any experience of the work...."
"It's highly skilled work..."
"Can postmen drink sherry while they are working, and eat mince pies?
It was obvious that using the post office was not a good idea.
"What about US delivering the presents ?" asked one helper.
"It would take too long."
"We can't drive the reindeer."
"We would probably get lost, we have never done this sort of work before, have we? Santa is the only one who can do it. Oh why does he have to be ill?"
Another senior Elf thought that he had a good idea, "Why don't we borrow some huskies from our Eskimo friends, they could pull the sleigh for Santa?"
"Don't be daft, dogs aren't strong enough to pull that sleigh with all the presents and, anyway, dogs can't fly."
It soon became obvious that there was no solution to the problem; it looked as if, for the first time ever, Christmas would have to be cancelled.
Chippy, the senior electronics Elf, came into the room at about the time his friends agreed, very reluctantly, that Christmas would have to be cancelled. "Hold on a minute," he said, "I think there might be a way."
"There can't be, we've thought of everything, there is no...."
Chippy interrupted, "Have you thought about converting the sleigh to electric power, Sparky's very clever with electricity, I'm sure he could manage it, we could do without the reindeer and Santa could do his deliveries as usual."
"We'd need an awful lot of batteries," mocked Oakey; the senior woodwork Elf, "where would you get them from ?"
"We could borrow them from the cars in the car park," he replied
"All right then, clever clogs, what about the electric motor, where would you get that from ? "
"It would have to be very powerful, the motors we use in the toys wouldn't do, they are far too small," added Sparky.
Chippy said, "Why don't we borrow the electric motor from the milkman's milk float and put that into the sleigh, that would be powerful enough."
"Why don't you use the milk float as it is, it would save a lot of work," said Oakey, sarcastically.
"That's a brilliant idea, why didn't I think of it?” said Chippy, “That's the answer, we could use the milk float as it is, it would work, it’s brilliant, brilliant.” He was getting quite excited, “The most important thing about the sleigh is the jingle bells, if we put them on Milko's float and give Santa his wooly rug, it will work, I'm sure it will."
The following morning was Christmas Eve and, while it was still dark, the 'chink, chink' of the milk bottles rattling and the gentle hum of the milk float, as the milkman came up to Santa's workshop, were the only sounds that could be heard. Mrs. Claus had been up for some time, she always got up early, she said that it was the only time she could have any piece and quiet.
As the milkman, they called him 'Milko' but that wasn't his real name, walked up to the door, Mrs. Claus went out to meet him, "Good morning, Milko, will you come inside for a minute, please, there is something we need to talk to you about."
"Of course, Mrs. Claus, is the kettle on?"
"I'll make you a cup of tea, if you like; come on in."
While the kettle was boiling, Chippy and Sparky came into the kitchen; Chippy was rubbing his eyes and Sparky was yawning, it was really very early in the morning and they would much rather have been in bed. The four of them sat around the table with their cups of hot tea, Milko was sorry to hear that Santa was poorly and said that he would be very pleased to help if he could. "I am not sure, what I can do," he said, "I've got to deliver all the milk, it's going to take quite a long time. I won't be finished until after dinner."
Sparky said that he thought that they would be able to manage, there would be enough time if they worked quickly. Converting the milk float to do the deliveries and loading the presents should only take a few hours.
The doctor came back to see Santa during the morning and was told of the plans to use the milk float instead of the sleigh before he went into the bedroom. He said that the tablets he had given Santa would clear up the problem very quickly as long as he stayed away from the reindeer. He would not be completely better but, as long as he had some help, he should be fit enough to do his deliveries.
When the doctor went in to see Santa he asked him how he was feeling and was told he that he felt a lot better. Mrs. Claus and some of the Elves came into Santa’s room and told him about the milk float idea, he became quite excited. "What an interesting idea," he said, "but how will it work? Milk floats trundle slowly and silently along the road, they don't fly like my reindeer and the sleigh."
Chippy tried to explain to him that ordinary sleighs didn't fly either and that his reindeer were perfectly ordinary animals. "It's the Santa factor that makes the difference, we are sure that if we put the jingle bells onto the milk float it will work just the same, particularly if you take your wooly rug with you."
"I suppose you are right," Santa replied, after a short pause, "and as the milk float is silent, not like a van or small lorry, it could do the job very well."
During the morning, the Elves finished off all their work, checked everything very carefully and made final preparations for loading the presents. Milko turned up, early in the afternoon as he had promised and all the Elves watched while Chippy and Sparky did the work on the milk float. By nightfall, the milk float was ready and all the presents were loaded.
Mrs. Claus went into Santa's room and told him it was time to get up. While he was getting dressed, putting on his best red outfit, she went into the kitchen to cook him a hot meal, she said that he mustn’t go out on an empty stomach. Mrs. Claus was pleased that everything seemed to be sorted out but she was still very worried about Santa's health; what would happen if he was taken ill again while he was flying above the houses or, even worse, half way down a chimney. “Who are you going to take with you love?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know, I should really do it on my own, if I have to take someone, it could be Chippy and Sparky, I can only take two so why not them?"
"What happens if you are taken ill again, what could they do?" she asked, "why not take Stuffy's assistant from the soft toys department, she used to be a nurse?"
Chippy butted in, "Sparky should go because he knows about the electrics and could fix the milk float if it broke down and I don't mind staying at home. Take the nurse, you mean Flossy, don't you?"
"Yes," replied Mrs. Claus, "her real name's Florence, after Florence Nightingale."
When everything was ready and the time was right, Flossy and Sparky helped Santa into his seat and climbed in beside him, Mrs. Claus tucked the blanket round his knees, gave him a hug and told him to be careful. The journey  started very well, the milk float was fine, and Santa was soon hard at work rushing up and down, or down and up, chimneys with his parcels and packages. Sparky and Flossy made some of the deliveries, the simple ones that did not need Santa's special skills.
At one point they were parked on the rooftops near to a church and the sound of carol singing filled the air. Santa paused to listen and then said, "How could anyone think of canceling Christmas, just listen to that singing...."
A little while later they heard singing coming from another church as the three of them hurried about their work. They were doing very well indeed but Flossy thought that they were not going as fast as they had been when they started and said so. Santa agreed, "This milk float does seem to be getting slower, Sparky, have you got any ideas? Or are we imagining it?"
Sparky said, thoughtfully, "We didn't think about this.....I reckon that the batteries are getting flat; Milko used it all morning, the batteries must have been pretty flat before we even started."
Santa was not at all pleased, "I never had this trouble with the reindeer, what can we do about it? What will we do if it stops altogether...... and just look at that sky, I know that it is the middle of the night but that sky looks very dark and stormy to me."
By now, the milk float was parked among the chimneys in the town center and, in a house nearby there was a Christmas party going on. Loud singing filled the air; "God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay....."
"Flat batteries and a stormy night most certainly dismay me, what are we going to do?" asked a very worried Santa.
The only thing they could do was to carry on for as long as possible and hope that the storm didn’t develop and that the milk float kept on going. It did keep going for quite a long time but it got slower and slower, the night got darker and darker, the storm clouds got blacker and blacker.
Eventually it got so slow that it was obvious that it would not be able to go much further. Santa was very depressed and wondered what to do, he was very upset and said, "I think that that’s about it, we should be able to deliver the presents to those houses over there, near the park, but after that we've had it and I reckon we are going to get soaked; see, here comes the rain."
At that moment the clouds burst and the rain came pouring down. Santa and the two elves watched the downpour, the rain was absolutely tipping down and there was thunder and lightening, flashing and crashing in the distance, as they glided, very slowly towards the next rooftop.
Santa went on to say, "We've got a lot of presents still to deliver, I really don't know what we are going to .........."
At that moment there was an almighty flash and a terrible bang. The milk float shuddered violently and, then, suddenly it was flying at terrific speed, straight past the houses they were supposed to be stopping at. It was going faster than it had ever gone before, zooming in and out of the chimneys, almost crashing into a big oak tree in the park. Flossy was terrified, she held on to her seat and closed her eyes.
"What's happened..., what's going on?" shouted Santa
"Slow down, Santa, slow down, take your foot off the pedal," shouted Sparky, "we've been hit by lightening and it must have charged up the batteries."
Santa took his foot off the accelerator and put it, gently, on the brake, the milk float soon came back under control and the three of them were relieved to be back to normal. The storm lasted for only a few minutes and before long the rain had stopped and Santa and his helpers were back at work finishing off their most important job. Long before it was light, all the presents had been delivered; Santa, Sparky and Flossy were very tired and were glad to be on their way home.
For Santa and his helpers, that Christmas Eve had been very different from usual, Santa had always worked alone, but this time he had company and was delighted about it. He was most pleased, however, that Christmas had been saved.
Just before dawn, the milk float glided silently into the courtyard and everyone was very relieved, they all rushed over to welcome Santa and his helpers back home, safe and sound.
"Thank God you're back safely, love," said Mrs. Claus, giving Santa a big hug, " welcome home dear, was everything alright?"
"Yes, fine, absolutely fine. There was a bit of a storm but we got over it in a flash,” he said, winking
at Flossie, “that certainly was a night to remember."
"How do you feel, dear?"
"I feel wonderful,” he replied, “but tired..., very tired."
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