Lean Your Ear This Way

When I was your age I had to walk a mile uphill in the snow, every day of the year. I mean it, I grew up in a small town not quite five miles south of geographic north. It isn’t part of any country in fact I’m not sure many people know it’s there. It’s called Pole. My parents are woodworkers. I would beg or steal wood to make toys, yet they wouldn’t be mine for long I gave everything away. I had gone to school at Pole school. I learned mathematics science, social science , literature, and grammar. I had friends. My friends were a large family whose last name is Elphe. Of the nine children two of them are my best friends, the twins Clarice and Saxton. Clarice was a short pretty ginger haired girl with freckles, blue eyes, and the Elphe family signature, pointed ears. Saxton was only slightly taller than his sister, and he had dark brown hair, bright green eyes, and a pointed head to go with his ears. I was much taller than the Elphes though I was still only at about five foot four inches. I had light brown hair, and hazel eyes, that turned emerald when I was excited or scared. All through middle and high school I had a normal teenage life. I was in school; I had friends. I was in sports. I was the best Ice Hockey player there was, and you should have seen me ski. My family was generally well off being the only woodworkers in Pole.

Then the new mayor took charge. He was a tall, slender, high browed man on the outside. On the inside he was a thirty foot tall beast with purple fur, horns, an awful sinus infection, and smelled of garbage and rotten eggs.
The entire town went straight to the poor house. The Elphe family stayed out of jail, but there wasn’t much keeping them out. My family was only slightly better. Once a month Dad would go out of town to buy wood because it was so expensive in Pole even in a good year. The toys I made began to pile up so high in my bedroom I couldn’t see out the window, for toys were something the old miser outlawed.

“Kris. Clarice and Saxton are here,” my mother called down the hall. I knew my friends came to go to the drive in for a movie, so I came out.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kringle,” Saxton told her.

“You three get out of here, or you’ll be late to the Drive-In.” We obeyed willingly and piled into that into the old love bug car. We drove 150 miles south to the nearest town. We watched a story on St. Nicholas. Jolly old St. Nick was a giving man and a bishop of Myra. Many legends are told about him, but this was the one telling of a poor man with three daughters. Nick left the man with three dowries, or tokens saying a woman was marriage material, on three different occasions. Every time he came it was at night.
Nicky gave me an idea. I could give the toys at night; two people a night should get that pile to disappear in a couple of months. It started with one person a night and not a soul knowing about it the first week to about three the second week, and on the third week the mayor found out. He took all the toys away from the kids again. Blast it all, I thought to myself. I still had quite a pile in my room though, so I decided to just give to everybody in one night.

That night I put enough bags in an old potato sack. When I got to the first house I could just walk in the front door. As it was with all the houses until town came. That’s when I started to see guards stationed here and there. They saw me, so I had to think quick. I climbed a gutter pipe up to the roof. I searched for some way into the house. Of course there couldn’t be a big red arrow saying, “This way to the back yard.” In fact there wasn’t even a backyard.

My alternative was the chimney. I got in. It smelled like pine sap, and smoke rising slowly it began to heat up. The smell got thicker as I slid down the chimney and the heat level rose. Finally I stood flat in a roaring fire. Snoring came from down the hall. I stopped, dropped, rolled, and put this house’s toys on an empty chair.

I ran out the door and the wind hit me in the face. The next house was point B; I repeated the previous process three or four times until the guards caught me. They let me off with a warning that time, but if they even saw my face in town again they would take me straight to prison.

I packed up the very next day. Midday the Elphe twins came here.

“Kris! I can’t believe you.” Clarice yelled at me.

“How did you get yourself an outlaw anyway?”

“Giving away toys,” I replied quite calmly.

“Where are you going to go?”

“Oh, about five miles north of here.”

“Well you can’t go on your own,” Clarice told me.

“Are you asking to come with me Clarice?”

“You’d let me?”

“After I build a home, and do something with the Ikletus Draunume,” I replied. The Ikletus Draunume is a snowy blue color. He has a pointed thorn of a skull. Usually he eats lost birds or even the occasional puffin. Sometimes an adventurer (usually from Siberia, Greenland, or the far north parts of Canada and Alaska) will set off to see the great dragon, but only one has ever returned. The man who returned wrote a book on the foul creature. This man is how we know anything about the Ice Dragon.

Clarice and I had been dating since we were sixteen which was three years ago; people have been putting our names together as Clas.

I set off to the winter mountain which is right at geographic north. The wind scooped and whirled about past my face and ears until I got to the lair of the Ikletus Draunume, or better known as the Ice Dragon. It then became scarily quiet. The trees ensnared me in their long leafless branches; the scent of the drying leaves still lingered upon them. I saw the dragon saunter out of his cave.

“Who are you who dares enter into my dominion?!” he boomed.

“Sir Ice Dragon sir, I am Kris Kringle, an outcast from Pole, the town just south of here,” I said, and my voice shook and quivered.

“You should see your face,” he laughed. His eyes wrinkled up, and his nostrils enlarged slightly. His mouth stretched so far I thought it reached all the way around his head.

“You mean you don’t want to eat me?” my voice still quivered slightly.

“Where did you get such an idea as that?” he just couldn’t seem to stop laughing at me.

“Nowhere in particular,” my voice stopped quivering.

“I won’t eat you, but I will take you far into the south if you can’t please me.”

Please him? How can I do that, actually with a bag of toys it can’t be that hard, I thought. “A train,” I suddenly said.

“You’d give me a train?” he looked at me quizzically.

“Well, a choo choo train, I’ve got one there in my bag.”

“That would certainly please me. All I’ve ever wanted is a choo choo,” he began to look like the kids in pole. His eyes became hopeful, and he had a pleasant smile.

“If you’d please call off the trees please?”

“Let him go!” He called again looking very regal; it was good to feel the ground beneath my feet again even if the trees did throw
me face first in the snow. I grabbed a choo choo train from my bag. I gave it to him.

“Nobody’s ever given me a choo choo before. Here this is for you.” He dumped some snow on me. What else could you expect from a dragon?

“Uh, thanks.”

I started travelling north again, and the wind picked up. It began to snow which made it virtually impossible to see. I made it to the top of the mountain; as the mountain sloped off a valley sat just waiting for me. I would build my home here, but I forgot wood. I wish I already had a home here, I thought. There was a castle smack in the center of the valley. Must be the snow, I thought again. Take me to Clarice. I was in the Elphe sitting room with Clarice and Saxton the smell of baking cookies flooded me as did the warm smiles of my friends.

“Kris!” she exclaimed and hugged me. “You got the Ice Dragon!”

“Well I befriended him,” I said simply. She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Does that mean you don’t want to come with me?” I laughed.

“Take me with you.” I wished, take us home. We were there.

I showed her about the castle. Inside there was a library, a study, a kitchen, a dining room, a ballroom, 4 bedrooms, an attic, and a basement. The library was covered in books. There were books of all kinds: classics, modern, Sci-fi, reference, etc. It was painted a lovely green color. The study, or library as Clarice called it, was just simply that. It had a roll top desk, a couple of big fluffy chairs, and a picture of St. Nick. The kitchen was set for baking complete with a pound of sugar. The dining room sat eight people. It had a silver and light blue candelabra in the middle of the table. This room was painted a warm orange. The ballroom was fit for a king. On the far side it was lined with tables with beautiful white tablecloths. In the center hung a huge chandelier. The attic was simply storage. The basement is to this day my favorite part. It is fairly big. On the far wall was neatly arranged tools such as hammers, crow bars, and screw drivers. Next to those was a huge pile of wood boards. On the right and left wall was fabric and stuffing for dolls or stuffed animals. In the center of the room was a work table.

“Where did you get all of this?”

“My new friend has magic snow that he dumped on me. Now I can wish for anything I want and get it,” I explained.
That night I went back to pole to deliver toys. I wished myself from house to house. I made it to Saxton’s house. He and his wife, Antabeth were in the front room.

“Hi, Kris, being good to my sister?” Saxton asked with a smile.

“Yeah she’s great,” I replied.

“Well I knew that,” He laughed.

“Do you want to come back with me?” I asked.

“Would we ever?” Antabeth piped in. Take us home, I wished. We were there.

“Saxton! Antabeth! It’s great to see you,” Clarice said coming around the corner with a couple of hotpads.

Clarice and I had been married for three months, and we started dating four years ago. I still remember the first time I asked her on a date. It was the first monday of advent. I was a nervous wreck; I was so worried I’d mess up our long time friendship, but we hit it off.

“I need to start using a new name on the toys I give out. You know so the mayor won't recognise it,” I said one morning after I had been quiet for a while.

“What if you took one of the current gift bringer names like Pere Noel, Knecht Ruprecht, Pelzmartel…” Saxton offered.

“No, those mean things like Father Christmas or Christ Child, and I am far from either of those,” I said. There was a long silence.

“What about Clas?” Antabeth asked.

C-l-a-u-s, so it doesn’t look like you. Another offer I’d like to suggest is a first name,” Saxton said. He was right Clause is a great name, just not a first name.
“That’s easy, Santa,” Clarice piped in.
“How on earth did you come up with that?” I asked.
“Saxtabeth,” she said in reply. Our classmates combined Saxton and Antabeth’s name in this way. “Take off ‘Beth’ so you don’t look like a female, and put Antabeth back in.”
“Santa Claus, I like it,” Saxton said. I’d go out once a week with toys for children. Each toy had the name Santa Claus on it.
The gifts began to pile up again; for a while I just let them. Finally Clarice yelled, “Kris do something with all these toys!”
“Alright, I’ll deliver toys in Greenland too?”
I think that’s when the legends started, but the disbelief among men didn’t begin until a few months later when the entire stash of toys ran out. It was August, I think, of eighteen fourteen. On Wednesday, the day after I delivered myself dry. My wishing had diminished to the point that I could wish for wood, but not toys. I went to see the Ice Dragon. It was white out conditions.
“Hello friend,” the Ice Dragon approached me from straight ahead of me.
“Oh, hello Icey.”
“How can I be of service to thee?”
“I ran out of toys, do you think I could have about five hundred of them?”
“In your basement you’ll find them, but for the future you might want to find a better system so you don’t deliver so many a week. whether thats not going so many places or not seeing so many kids. I couldn’t say.”
I went the mile back north to discern how to do what the dragon had told me. I tried thinking of everything, but none of them seemed fair. I walked down to town square of Pole only to see some rotten bullying. That’s when I knew what I’d do to cut down on the kids I was giving to.
I scurried up to the castle at the bottom of the mountain. I raced down to the basement. I sat down at a little desk on the left wall of the room and began writing a long list of names with V’s by the nice kids and X’s by the naughty ones. The list started out looking something like this.
John Clemmens V
Susan Boyle
Arianna Axemen X
Douglas Tyler
Betty Doppler
Georgia Fesman
Daisy Victor X
Todd Marino
Matthew Penasco
Jaidee Lowrey
Annie Cook
Silverberg Santrey V
Millie Santrey
Angus Gentauro
Mason Haddock
Fern Haddock
This continued on roughly five hundred more names, and only ¼ of them got either a V or an X. I was getting nowhere but square one.
I went back up to where Clarice and Antabeth were sewing doll’s heads on. I picked up a third doll and head and began to sew the head on. Being a twenty two year old man I would rather stab a doll in the head and shoulders with a tiny sword dragging along a tiny rope much more than writing a long list of names with V’s and X’s next to them.
“Do you think you could tell us you're genius idea now?” Antabeth asked.
“Idea, yes. Genius, no. I’ve started writing a list of nice and naughty kids,” I answered discouraged.
“That is pretty genius, what’s the catch?” Clarice asked suspiciously.
“I can’t seem to categorize children.”
“Make a list of how children are nice and how they are naughty,” Antabeth replied.
“Do you have any idea how hard that can be?” I asked.
“What is a nice kid.” Antabeth was slightly exasperated.
“A nice kid forgives, er, kind.”
“Good, now what is a bad kid?” Antabeth continued.
“Bully.”
“Good, hand over the doll and try again,” Clarice said finishing the doll she was working on.
I obeyed, but my lists seemed so specific. To fit in you’d have to be a saint or the right hand of the devil. I threw away that piece of parchment and started again. Now it was acceptable. It ended up a naughty kid was a bully, and a nice kid was everybody else. Clarice came down at my last V with an armful of dolls.
I delivered the toys that Tuesday. On the southern reaches of Pole where the Gackly girls lived a large brown package sat on the sitting room table. Out of curiosity I looked at the little tag attached to it. The tag said it was to Santa Claus. I had known Mrs. Gackly my entire life. She was a fifty-year-old widow with seven girls ranging from twenty three all the way down to five. She was the best cook alive; she could sew and knit. She was well educated. Seeing as my alias was on it I put it in my pack, and left seven toys in the room.
I completed my rounds early the next morning the Missus noticed that the pack wasn’t empty, but had a large cubic package inside it.
“Mrs Gackly left something for Santa Claus,” I began reaching into the potato sack. “Here.” She carefully lifted the brown paper packaging to a wooden box I recognised as my father’s. I opened the box with a crowbar from the toy factory downstairs. Clarice pulled out a bright red suit that and was lined with pure white wool just next to the wool was a ½ inch Ribbon of gold with little green fern like structures on the ribbon. It reached just down to my knees. Along with it was a hat, pants, gloves, cloth sack, and boots to match. I was still quite indifferent; I didn’t mind the overalls I had gotten when I was fifteen and hadn’t quite outgrown.
“You seem to have made an impression in someone’s heart,” Clarice said.
A couple weeks later I faced the incident I dreaded most. I wished myself from one house to another until I got stopped. Bring me next door. Nothing. Bring me to the next house. Nothing.
“Santa Claus?” little Cindy Delaney quietly asked as she came out of a small bedroom down the hall.
“Yes. Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me,” I replied. I was still in junior high school when Cindy was born, but it had been three years since I’d left Pole. I’d grown a beard, and gained some muscle. I walked over so that I was standing in the fireplace. Please just send me up the chimney, I wished. Whoosh! I went flying up the chimney and landed lightly on the roof top.
I leaped over to the next roof after trying to wish myself there. I slid down the chimney. It got hot, then hotter. Then I was standing in the fire. I stood just a bit to see if I would catch fire. I decided that Mrs. Gackley had made the suit fireproof so that I could go into fireplaces. I left the toys and continued on to the next house.
I came to another of the Elphe homes. This was the home of the eldest of the Elphe children, Aboroo. He and the other six of his siblings along with their families sat in the sitting room when I went down the chimney. It smelled like candy canes and hot cocoa.
“Young mister Kringle, I should have known, only you would be so bold as to directly defy the mayor's orders. Plus the the twins left not long after you did,” the second oldest, Clyde said with a huge smile.
“Hi,” I said nodding at each in turn.
“Do you want to take us and our families back with you? I’m sure it would help you to have even more help, and it certainly would be nice to be out of the clutches of the tyrant of the north here,” Elkhazel said; she is the first born female, and fourth born child of the Elphes.
“It would be a great honor,” I replied. “I’ll be back I have to go down to Greenland.” After I’d finished my fun in Greenland I suddenly remembered that my wishing was pretty selective now. I tried many combinations of wishes until one worked, Give me some way to transport twenty people to the castle. A sleigh appeared pulled by eight reindeer. Each reindeer had a name tag; the two up front were Dasher and Dancer right to left on back are as follows: Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and on the left closest to the sleigh was Blitzen. The eight of them were tied to the sleigh by gold reins with silver bells. The sleigh was a bright red with gold rails, and gold fern like designs along the sides. The inside of the sleigh was the color of the evergreen trees. The sleigh had three rows of benches each of which probably sat four people; with the reindeer it easily had room for the entire Elphe family.
“Go to Aboroo Elphe’s home,” I called to the reindeer expecting them to go into a fast gallop. Instead they began to fly. Two by two they rose off the ground, and the sleigh followed. They soared through the air quick as lightning. The reindeer and I landed on the rooftop of the Elphe family.
I slid down the chimney and there sat all eighteen or so of them in traveling clothes.
“Well come on, into the fireplace,” I said, and just like that they went in single file. Send them up and into the sleigh, I wished. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! One at a time they flew straight up the chimney. I went up last, and I sat up onto the head of the reindeer, Dasher. The seven Elphe men and I had to ride on the backs of the reindeer.
“To the North Pole,” I called to the reindeer.
Each in turn rose off the roof and soared thru the frozen sky at a leisurely pace showing us the snow covered mountains. They showed off the beautiful evergreen trees. The wind slowly slid past our face and ears. We came up over the northern mountain to the great valley. In the center stood the castle more beautiful than I’d ever seen it before. It towered high as the eight reindeer flew around it’s light blue castle spires.
Clarice and Saxton were ecstatic about having their siblings with them again.
The weeks past and life moved as normal until one amusing day. The mayor of Pole passed away of old age on December the tenth of 1816.
“Well Kris, you don’t have to go out once a week anymore,” Saxton told me with a pat on the back.
“I suppose so,” I started. “But when else would I go?”
“How about annually?” Elkhazel replied.
“Sure Elkhazel. One day in the whole year, we’d be up to our ears in toys by that point, and with only three thousand kids in Pole, and north Greenland we’ll still be up to our ears after you’ve delivered Kris,” Artin, the third born Elphe said.
“That is a simple problem, with fifty three more weeks to make toys do you think you could do the rest of the world Kris?” Clarice asked.
“Yeah I could do that, infact I could finally feel the warmth of the equator,” I laughed.
“Great, so ol’ boy what great day are you going to do that on?” Saxton asked.
“Christmas!” Antabeth replied with a laugh. It was settled,” I would start the very next Christmas for the entire world. With a wish I succeeded in travelling all around the world in only twenty four hours.
I came home that very Christmas day to a happy surprise. Clarice had had a son while I was gone.
“Kris, what shall we call him?” she asked me.
“Nicholas,” I replied.
Nick grew up as best as any young man like him could. Antabeth, Elkhazel, or any other of the Elphe women, most commonly Clarice sang him to sleep at night. He soon learned the joyous gift of giving to others with the help of all the Elphes and their children. He learned woodworking and how to sew and knit. As he got older Clarice made a red and a green floor length coat lined with wool. She also made a pair of raven black boots with flannel on the inside that folded over at the top to still be raven black.
Young Nick didn’t have much more than his first Christmas before the next Claus came along. This time it was a girl Clarice and I called Noel. Noel was born January first of 1818. She grew up much the same way as her brother did. She always wore her deep red hair in pigtails with red green white or gold ribbons holding them in. For her Clarice made a red and a green tunic and a few pairs of striped tights. Her shoes were green with a gold spiked foldover at the top. The toes came up and curled over.
Neither of them could we ever seem to keep out of the snow for more than a fifteen minute cocoa break. They’d be making snowmen or snow angels. They would ice skate or round up the youngest Elphes and play hockey. Sometimes the Ice Dragon would teach them to like bend the snow or something over in a corner of the valley.
We decorated for Christmas in the greatest of ways. There stood an evergreen tree twenty five feet tall decorated with red, green, and blue lights glass ornaments, and a gold star. Something I learned travelling through Germany my first year. There was another tree at an average of ten feet tall in each of the other rooms in the castle. A Christmas village with sixty christmas houses on raised platforms. Each house was different, and painted in different color themes. A train ran through the village, into a mountain, and over a broken mirror Elkhazel made look exactly like a frozen pond. After making it all the Elphes and us four Clauses looked at it.
“It looks like Pole,” Saxton said. It did; it looked exactly like Pole.
We had four nativity scenes throughout the castle. One was made entirely of unpainted wood. Another was entirely made of porcelain except of course for the manger was still wood, as was the straw. The third was one Nick and Noel made when they were only toddlers. It was all stuffed toys in the shapes of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, oxen, lambs, cows, and a shepherd. The fourth were all chess pieces. Baby Jesus was king. Mary was queen. Joseph was the rooks, and the little drummer boy and the shepherd were the bishops. Lambs, oxs, and cattle play the part of the pawns.

Nick and Noel were the most generous kids I’d ever come across. When Nick turned twelve, or rather the day before he turned twelve, I took Noel and he with me to help deliver toys. The two had more fun slipping up and down chimneys than I’ve ever seen them; they’d hardly ever stop smiling or laughing. A different Christmas, I think it was the winter of Nick’s seventeenth birthday I rarely laid eyes on them. They took about a country a day and spread Christmas cheer to the people there. After a couple years people came from hundreds of miles away just to see them. They told the kids all about Santa Claus that came to their homes every Christmas Eve and about the Elves who helped me make the toys….