One Thursday in December, on the first morning of the first snowfall of the Christmas Season, four kids were walking to school. They were three brothers named Jon, Roy, and Jake and their younger sister, Hope.
Jon said, “It sure is cold, I wish it was warmer!”
“I’m glad that it’s cold”, Hope replied.
“Are you crazy?”
“No I’m not!” Hope said, as she stamped her foot.
Jake said, “Remember what Dad told us? The first snowfall of the season means Santa was here checking up on everyone to see if they were being good!” When the kids were around the corner from the school, Roy saw something lying out in the middle of the street and said, “Hey, what’s that?”
“I don’t know, let’s go see!” Roy exclaimed.
So the boys began to run into the street, but when Hope started to go, Jon told her, “You stay here, Hope. You’re too young to go into the street.” Hope hated being the youngest sometimes.
When the boys got out into the street, they saw that the thing on the ground was a mitten, a green one with beautiful golden threads. About that time the school bell rang, so Jake grabbed the mitten and put it in his book bag. The boys ran back to Hope and the four of them went on to school.
Later that night after the children had all done their homework, after the family had supper and after everybody was in bed, Jake took the green mitten out of his book bag. Quietly, so he didn’t wake his brothers, Jake slipped the mitten onto his hand. When he did this, the room grew very bright, the mitten got very warm, and the golden threads started to sparkle. Of course this woke up his brothers and they couldn’t believe their eyes!
“What is that?” asked Jon.
“Why is it so bright in here?” wondered Roy.
Jake said, “This is that mitten we found this morning, the green one with the golden threads. I waited ’till everyone was in bed, then I got it out and put it on. That’s when it got warm and bright in here!”
“What else does it do?” demanded Jon.
“I don’t know” said Jake and pointed the mitten at one of his stuffed animals.
Suddenly it rose up and started shaking. This scared Jake, so he quickly took the mitten off and the stuffed bear fell back on the bed. His brother, Roy grabbed the mitten, put it on and pointed it at the stuffed animal again. Once again, the bear rose up and this time Roy moved the mitten and the bear moved, too! Wherever the mitten pointed, the stuffed bear moved all around the room.
“Wow!” said Jake.
“How does it do that?” wondered Jon. “Why does it do that?”
Roy said, “I have an idea.” Then he pointed it at their dog, Abby. Just like the stuffed bear, she began to rise up and move when the mitten was pointing at her.
“This has got to belong to Santa!” exclaimed Roy as he lowered the mitten and let Abby back down on his bed. “Think about it, we found it the morning after the first snow fall of the winter when Santa was flying overhead checking up on who is naughty and nice.
“He must have dropped it,” Jon said.
“This is cool!” exclaimed Roy as he pointed it at their dog again. And before any of them knew it, Abby was flying around the room, wagging her tail and barking happily. The barking must have woken their parents up, because just then, the hallway light came on. “Oh no!” Jon said, “Its Dad! Roy put Abby down; Jake, hide the mitten; we’ll talk about this in the morning!” So Jake quickly put the mitten under his pillow and for the rest of the night he dreamed about mittens, and flying, and all sorts of wonderful things.
The next morning the children’s Uncle brought their little cousin Brandon over. The boys were very sleepy because they were up so late the night before playing with the mitten. Mom was pretty busy baby-sitting their cousin and making their lunches, so she almost didn’t notice that the boys were running late. In their rush to get ready, Jake forgot the mitten under his pillow, and the boys went to school without it.
Later that afternoon around his naptime, Brandon began to get a little fussy. So Jake’s Mom put Brandon down for his nap in Jake’s bed. While Brandon was supposed to be taking a nap, he found the mitten under the pillow where Jake had left it. Without giving it a thought, he slipped the mitten on. The room grew very bright, the mitten got very warm, and the golden threads started to sparkle! Of course Brandon was frightened and without meaning to, he pointed the mitten at his cousin’s dog, Abby.
This time Abby was ready and she took off flying through the house! Brandon laughed and laughed crying, “Look at Abby! She can fly!” He ran after Abby as she flew into the kitchen. Mom and Dad ran into the kitchen to see what the racket was all about. You should have seen the look on their faces when they saw their dog flying through the air!
“What is that dog doing?” yelled Mom.
“Come here, Abby” Dad called and grabbed the dog.
Well, you can imagine how many questions they had for the boys when they got home from school.
“Where did you get that mitten?” Mom wanted to know.
“Who gave it to you?” asked Dad. Brandon started laughing and tried to grab the mitten. “No, Brandon, you shouldn’t play with this you might get hurt.”
“Nobody is going to play with this!” stated Mom, “Because tomorrow I’m taking it down to the police station. They will know what to do with it.”
That night after everyone was asleep; Roy got out of bed and woke up his brothers. “Come on,” he said, “we gotta get that mitten back. If Santa doesn’t have that mitten, then there won’t be any Christmas.”
“Do you think Santa really dropped it on the street by our school?” wondered Jake.
Roy replied, “Of course, he did; and we’ve got to get it back to him.”
“Well, we’d better get the mitten from Mom before she gives it to the police, then.” Jake warned.
“I know!” said Jon, “Jake, you could pretend to be sick and when Mom goes to get the thermometer, you could grab the mitten!”
“No way! I’m not getting into trouble this close to Christmas.” exclaimed Jake. And before Jon could ask him, Roy very firmly said, “Forget you, pal!”
“It looks like I’ll have to do this myself,” sighed Jon.
“Well, you are the oldest,” said Roy. All of a sudden, Jon didn’t like being the oldest. But he walked to his parent’s room and very timidly knocked on their bedroom door. When there was no answer, he swallowed hard and knocked again, louder. This time he heard his Mom say, “Who is it? – What’s the matter?”
“It’s me, Mom.” Jon answered.
“Come on in, son.” his Mom replied as she turned on the light, “What’s wrong?”
“W-W-Well, I-I was w-wondering if you would t-t-take my t-temperature,” stammered Jon. He was very nervous. While his Mom was getting the thermometer, Jon grabbed the mitten off of her dresser and tossed it into the living room where it was dark. She returned with the thermometer and Jon said “I feel better, Mom. Guess it was just a-a bad dream.”
Mom said, “After all the excitement today, it’s a wonder you can sleep at all! Now go back to bed.”
So Jon turned and walked out of his parents’ room. When his Mom had closed the door, Jon grabbed the mitten and ran back to show his brothers that he had gotten it!
“I got it! I got it!” exclaimed Jon.
“SShhh!” warned Roy, “You wanna wake up everybody in the whole house?
“Okay, okay.” Jon sighed, “But now in the morning Mom will see that the mitten is gone and she’ll know that I took it!”
“Well, we gotta get it to Santa before Mom finds out then.” added Jake.
“How are we going to do that?” asked Jon, “It’s not like he lives across town. I mean do you know how far away the North Pole is?”
“But if Santa doesn’t get that mitten he can’t make his reindeer fly. And if he can’t make his reindeer fly, then there won’t be any Christmas!” cried Jake.
“Looks like we’ve got no choice, we’ll have to leave tonight and take the mitten back to Santa,” Roy decided.
“Oh right, we’ll just hop in Dad’s car, cruise up to the North Pole and say ‘Hey Santa, how’s it going dude? Oh and, by the way, here’s your mitten!’” laughed Jon.
“Come on, think. What do we have that can take us anywhere we want to go?” asked Roy.
“The mitten!” answered Jake. Once again Jon laughed and said, “Yeah! I’ll be right back. Just gotta go outside and harness up all our reindeer!”
“No duh, we’ll have to use something else.” Rubbing his chin and thinking out loud, Roy said, “Well, Abby isn’t big enough and doesn’t have thick enough fur to keep her warm at the North Pole, but I do know where there is a dog that could do the job.” answered Roy.
“No way!” said Jon. “That’s too dangerous.”
”But we’ve got to do something,” Jake replied. “I mean if Santa doesn’t get this mitten back, there won’t be a Christmas!”
“Come on, Jon” said Roy. “Jake is right, we have to do something.”
“But Killer is a HUGE dog. And his name is KILLER! And he is a KILLER dog!!” cried Jon.
“I think he’s just a Saint Bernard,” Jake said.
Roy was talking about the biggest, meanest dog in the whole town. Killer. Killer belonged to Old Man Foster, who lived in the creepiest, scariest house in the whole town.
“Look, we have to try. How would you feel if we didn’t even try?” asked Roy.
“Okay, okay,” Jon finally gave in, “let’s go. But remember, this wasn’t my idea.”
Quietly the boys got dressed and snuck out of their house and started down the road on their way out to the edge of town, to the scariest old house around – the Foster House!
As the boys got out on the road, they heard footsteps behind them. Jon said, “Run and hide!” so the boys quickly ran over to the side of the road and hid behind a telephone pole. All they heard was laughter. Peeking out from the telephone pole, Jon saw his little sister standing in the middle of the road, laughing at her brothers.
“It’s only Hope, guys. Come on out.” said Jon as he turned to his sister, asking “What are you doing here, Hope?”
“I heard you guys sneak out of the house, so I followed you,” she said. “What are you doing way out here, anyway?”
“We’re getting Old Man Foster’s dog, Killer and we’re gonna use him to go to the North Pole and give Santa his mitten back and save Christmas!” Jake gushed all at once.
“Be quiet Jake,” Roy said, “now she knows what our plans are. You’ll have to go back home, Hope.”
But she would have nothing of that, “I wanna go with you!! If you make me go back I’ll tell Mom and Dad all about your dumb plans!”
“We don’t have time to argue,” Jon added, “so you’ll have to listen to us and do whatever we say.”
“Okay, I promise!!” Hope said, excited to be included in her brothers’ adventure. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being the youngest.
So now the four of them approached the old Foster house. They snuck into the back yard through a hole in the fence between two bushes.
“There’s Killer,” said Jon.
“I hope he’s already had dinner!” gulped Jake.
Just about then, the back porch light came on and a gruff voice said, “Okay you kids, come on out. I know what you’re up to!”
“Oh no! How’d he know what we’re doing?” asked Jake. But the kids stood and slowly walked up to the old house.
Once inside they found the house very neat and tidy. Then they reluctantly told Mr. Foster the whole story. Instead of yelling at them or calling the police, Mr. Foster smiled and said, “Well, after that adventure, I bet that you kids would enjoy a cup of hot chocolate!” And with that he turned and went into the kitchen to make four steaming cups of hot chocolate – complete with marshmallows. While he was gone Jake said, “Wow! I thought he was mean and grumpy.”
“I guess we were wrong about him,” Roy offered. “Remember that Dad says to look for the best in everybody.”
“Hey, don’t forget, we’ve still got a mitten to deliver.” Jon reminded everyone.
Just then there was a knock on the front door and Mr. Foster went to open it. Never in a thousand years – no – never ever even in a million years would Jon or Roy or Jake or even Hope have guessed who was about to step into that old house just then!
But there he was – red suit, black boots, white beard and only one green mitten!!
“I understand you children found something that just might belong to me.” he said with a voice that was at once booming with authority and yet soft and gentle at the same time. None of the boys were able to say a single word, but Hope stood up and yelled “Santa Claus!” and ran straight to him. Then she gave him the biggest hug that she knew how to give!
For the next half hour the children told Santa how they had found the mitten and all the trouble that they had gone through to try to return it to him. Finally, Santa looked at his pocket watch and said, “Well children, if you’ll give me the mitten, I’ll be going now. After all, Christmas is only a week away and I still have a lot to do!” So Jon handed the mitten to Santa and all the children and Mr. Foster told Santa goodbye. And as he walked out the door everyone heard him say, “Ho, ho, ho! Thank you children, and Merry Christmas.”
Shortly after Santa left, the children saw car headlights pull up to the house. “Uh-oh,” said Jon, “its Mom and Dad.”
“I bet we’re really gonna get it!” cried Jake.
Roy said, “Since it was my idea to try to make it to the North Pole, I’ll take the punishment.”
Then Jake realized that in all their excitement over meeting Santa Claus, they forgot to ask him how he had known that they had his mitten. So, he asked, “But how did Santa and Mom and Dad know where we were and what we were doing?”
“I guess I can answer that,” said Dad as he walked through the door. “Mr. Foster gave us a call a little while ago. He said that you were all over here and he also told us about the mitten.”
“But how did you know, Mr. Foster?” asked Jon.
“Yeah, how did you know about the mitten and how did Santa know?” demanded Hope.
“Okay, okay kids!” Dad exclaimed, “That’s enough for tonight. It’s late and we need to get you kids back home to bed!” Then he turned to Mr. Foster and said, “Thanks so much, we’re sorry if the kids bothered you or Killer. You know how excited kids can get around Christmas time.”
“Oh don’t worry about it. It was fun to have visitors. They’re welcome anytime for a cup of hot chocolate!” replied Mr. Foster.
With that Mom and Dad ushered the kids out the front door. As they were on their way out and just before she walked out Mr. Foster’s front door, Hope looked back and she saw something that made it all very clear for her. On a table in the other room, where she could just see it through a partially open door was a bright red phone next to a candy cane-striped pole with a sign on it that read
“So that was how they knew!!” Hope said to herself.
No one else saw it, only her.
And all of a sudden she was glad she was the youngest.
The End
I always wondered how that worked.
anticsrocks; I would not have miss this story for the world, lovely so lovely,
I saw myself as hope and it meant so much to travel back in that wonderfull land of fantaisy,
that I lived in, every time I wanted to run away from reality, thank you
I have seen hope and she is so beautifull just like her MOM and DAD, bye
Thank you ilovebees for the wonderful words.
And thanks to Skookum for encouraging me to post this. It is a story I wrote for my kids years ago. Now the four kids in the story are all grown with kids of their own, but when they were little, I would read it to them each Christmas.
That’s great Anticsrocks. Thanks for posting it.
Thank you, Matt. 😀
Reading that story to your kids, years ago, will affect generations yet unborn. I love that type of family history.
My three year old granddaughter told her parents she wants to grow a mustache like mine. If that sounds unusual, trust me, I have a striking mustache.
Thanks Skookum, and thanks for your encouragement.
That was a great story. Thanks a lot for that.
You’re welcome, Mamba. I am just happy that people enjoy it.
What a great Christmas story! You should publish it so many more children and parents could enjoy it.
Thank you Tooth, I would love to publish it but so far, I have had no luck in that regard.
That is a fun story, can’t wait til my great-grandson comes by, will read it to him probably over and over and over, that’s how he is. He’s found that Gigi has fun stuff on her computer, a couple of weeks ago we sat here playing Shirley Temple youtubes til my little snuggler fell asleep on my lap. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a little movie made out of your story!
Once when his mother was tiny we had them all overnight on Christmas Eve. I tore a red piece of cloth and stuck it in the fireplace doors, in the morning I told her Santa must have ripped his coat as he was leaving. She still has that piece of cloth and your children, grands and great grands will all have your story forever and ever. And thanks to Skookum for encouraging you to share, tis the season for sharing! 😉
Thank you Missy. It makes me feel great that others are enjoying my story.
Yes Antics, I will have another story for my grand kids this Christmas. I tell stories with sound effects and facial expressions, its very effective.
LOL!!
Coming in late here to catch up with the posts, instead of just comments (thru the back door author comment view…). And anticsrocks! What a charmer! Truly you may have missed your calling heretofore by not being a writer for children’s books. You should find yourself a gifted artist, team up, and start churning them out. Some for holidays, and others for political lessons for the young.
Many thanks for a most endearing read.
Thank you Mata. That really means a lot coming from you. I have long admired your wit and wisdom and to hear you say that, makes me feel like maybe I ought to pursue this a bit further.
Well then, anticsrocks… I expect to see e-books from both you and Skookum soon! t’would be an FA honor to have two such talented novelists/writers published in the new age print media. Who knows…. both of you might get well known enough to end up on the NYTs best sellers list.
Antics, I suppose you saw James’ advice to me concerning SmashWords.
You can be up and published by tonight. The Christmas season is here my friend! and you are burning daylight.
Sit deep in the saddle and get that faraway look, you’ll do just fine.
That I did, Skookum. I was already checking them out, but I will for sure get going with them soon. They are one of the very few services that don’t ask for money up front.
What a charming and whimsical Christmas story, Don. It’s good to have a breath of innocence and wonder and hope these days. I enjoyed it.
Peregrine
Thank you so much for this great story. My kids just love this tale!
ANTICROCKS
HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU,
WE ALL MISS YOU HERE,
AND THE BEST FOR YOU AND YOUR LOVED FAMILY ,
I WISH HEALTH ALSO TO YOU and , ALL,
yes we are on november but 2013, the second day of the same month,
and I felt the same joy to re read the WONDERFULL CHRISMAST STORY.
i MAKE A WISH, THAT THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN READ IT THIS YEAR AND THE NEXT YEAR AND THE NEXT, UNTIL THEY GROW OLDER TO READ IT TO THEIR OWN CHILDREN,