The Summer sun was shining brightly as I walked across the courtyard.
I noticed Lyra sitting on a bench near the gazebo, and called out, “Good morning.”
Lyra turned and smiled. “Hi, Santa. It sure is a beautiful day.”
“I agree. Mind if I take in the warm sun with you?”
“I’d be honored Santa,” she replied and slid over to make room. “It’s too bad we don’t have weather like this when it’s time for you to deliver Christmas gifts.”
“It is like this in the southern hemisphere, south of the Tropic of Capricorn, at Christmas. Right now, the people who live there are getting the cold and snow.”
“Too bad it’s not the opposite!”
“Why do you say that?”
“Don’t you remember that time long ago when a horrible storm slammed the Christmas Village?” Lyra shook her head. “You almost never got to make your deliveries!” she said, her voice serious.
I rubbed my beard and nodded. “How could I forget. It lasted for days. Finally, I was able to leave.”
Lyra pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “That’s true, but I was too young to remember how you did it.”
“Well,” I began, “if it weren’t for the elves, Christmas would not have happened that year.”
* * * * *
I stood at my office window, gazing out at the snow storm that had been blowing hard for three days. Hearing a knock, I turned to see Weller entering the room.
“You wanted to see me, Santa?”
I pointed to the window. “Since you monitor the weather, can you tell me my chances of delivering gifts on Christmas Eve? That’s only two days away!” My face was intense as I paced around the room.
“I wish I could Santa,” Weller responded nervously. “This system seems to have stalled, and I don’t see it moving any time soon. “I can’t control the weather, Santa. I can only predict it.”
Silence fell over the room as I stopped to stare out the window at the storm.
There was a hard knock on my door that made both of us jump. Highstep, the reindeer wrangler; Sledge, manager of the sleighs; and Quinten, director of research and development, stepped inside.
“Thanks for coming,” I said as I moved toward my desk and motioned for the elves to take a seat.
“Weller does not seem to think this blizzard is going to end in time for my departure in two days, and I am hoping one of you may have a solution. I can’t possibly disappoint all the good boys and girls who are counting on me to leave presents for them.”
The three elves looked at each other.
“We have worked on a few things,” Quinten began. “A shield to slice through the snow and wind was our first attempt.”
“That had promise,” Sledge jumped in. “We tested it and had some good results with a smaller sleigh and four reindeer. But, with your large sleigh and nine reindeer, the shield had to be a lot larger.”
“Yeah, and heavier,” Highstep said in agreement. “The reindeer would never have been able to lift all that extra weight.”
I agreed and looked at Quinten. “What about fairy dust. You said that might work.”
“I talked with Queen Gwendolen, and I’m afraid that is not an option,” Quinten answered.
“Why? I thought for sure that either the Green Magic Fairy Dust we use to tele-transport the toys from the North Pole to my bag, or the blue dust that manipulates time would work.”
“According to the Queen of the Artic Fairies, the Green Dust uses your bag as a target. However, there is no target on the other side of the storm. So,” Quinten continued, “we could not transport you, the reindeer, and sleigh. It wouldn’t work. And the Blue Dust is designed to make the time you spend in a house disappear after you’ve left. The Queen thought you could use it to make the time the storm has been here disappear.”
“Then it would not be Christmas Eve,” Highstep interrupted and sighed.
Quentin dropped his eyes and mumbled, “She did say that the Yellow Dust could work if you had some sort of tunnel to be transported through. But that doesn’t exist.”
“All the magic we have here at the North Pole, and we can’t work around this weather,” I grumbled, placing my head in my hands on the desk.
“Now Santa, you know elves never give up,” Sledge began as he looked at the other three.
I stared at him. “OK, what is it?”
“Back on Korvatunturi Mountain there is a hidden cavern near our home town of Ferrishyn, called Crystal Cavern.”
“Santa, these enchanted crystals have a special property. They repel things around them. Elves have been working with these crystals for hundreds of years and understand how to use them,” Quinten explained.
“Do we have any here?” I asked.
Highstep shook his head. “Not really, we’d have to go to Crystal Cavern to get some, but. . . “
“Wait a minute,” Weller shouted excitedly. “Doesn’t Lector have some in the Elf University’s Lab?”
“You may be right!” Quinten exclaimed. The four elves got up and rushed out of my office.
On Christmas Eve I went over to the Sleigh Barn early, worried whether the crystals would work.
When I arrived, my elves had just completed the installation of the crystals on my sleigh and reindeer harnesses.
“You’re just in time for the big test Santa,” Sledge said.
“All we have to do is activate the crystals, and you can take your sleigh out for a test drive.” Quinten grabbed an elven magic wand.
The elves went together to each crystal on the sleigh. While holding hands, they began to chant an ancient incantation while waving the wand in a specific pattern over each crystal.
The crystals began to glow, getting brighter as the energy got stronger. Soon they shimmered and emitted a faint hum.
The elves turned to me. “The sleigh is ready.”
“Santa,” Quinten directed, “take the sleigh up and test it out. Everything should be fine, but if it isn’t, make sure you come right back.”
I was very nervous, but trusted my elves. With a snap of the reigns, I called out to my reindeer, and they responded. It was as if there was no storm. The snow moved out of the way and the only wind I felt was from the movement of the sleigh.
After giving the crystals a good test, I returned to the barn and immediately jumped out of the sleigh to give my elves a huge hug for what they were able to do.
* * * * *
Lyra clapped her hands. “The rest is history,” she laughed.
“Yes, it is, but it made me realize how special my elves are,” I said and gave Lyra a side hug. “I can’t do everything. Having friends that I can rely on, especially those who never give up, means everything to me. They are the ones who help out when you need it the most.”
Notes From Santa
I hope you enjoyed today’s story. Stories are posted on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of each month, except December. Santa’s next story will be posted on Saturday August 3, 2024. If you have any comments or if there is something you would like me to tell you about, please feel free to leave me a comment. Until the next time . . .
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Reminds me of the blizzard of 1977/78 (Cincinnati) and the one here in 1994 (Bo Co)! And do you remember when they shut down the freeway? Woody was on his way to work in Cincinnati, and was the only one on the road. A Sheriff stopped him, he explained he works in the ER at Christ – he said , “you can drive on, but if you have an accident, it won’t be covered because technically the road is closed!! Thank again for your Great stories!!