Story - The Secret of Santa Claus - The Beginning

Every child around the world knows who Santa Claus is.  They also know that he must be very old as he has been visiting Children at Christmas time for ever.  But how old is he? – the best estimation is 1749 years old.  

How old? I hear you say. Yes, very old…..so to the beginning.

When he was born, the man we now know as Santa was given the name Kris by his parents.  He was the first and only child of a humble family that lived in a very, very long time ago.   They lived in the far North in the area we now know as Lapland.  The village was small but very pretty, surrounded by beautiful pine trees, babbling streams and high mountains.  The villagers worked hard making wooden furniture to sell, growing food in the fields, and catching fish to eat.  It was a long way to visit other villages so the carpenters of the village made carts to use in summer and sleighs for the winter when the snow was thick.  They used these to visit other villages and take their goods to sell.  They didn’t have horses or oxen to pull the carts and sleighs but used reindeer.   These roamed freely in the woodland and mountains.  Reindeer liked helping the villagers as long as they were treated with kindness and were fed well.   Fortunately, carrots and good grass grew in abundance in Lapland.

This was the world of Kris – a tough but pleasant life, and like most boys and girls at that time, learned all they knew from their parents and the people around them.  Kris’s Dad was a carpenter who taught him all the skills to be a very good carpenter.  His Mum was also very clever at weaving and made cloth for both the family and other families in the village.  She was also a very kind caring person and loved to take Kris with her to visit other families and for him to play with their children.  When she had time, she took Kris for long walks into the woodlands and fields, pointing out the beauty of nature and teaching him patience and kindness when meeting with the animals that lived wild near the village.

So, as Kris grew up, he worked with the village carpenters to make furniture and carts and sleighs.  He also loved making little toys for himself out of the offcuts and waste.  He got so good at it that other children wanted toys he made,  so he made them toys as well.  He also taught them to make their own.  From this they learned the satisfaction and sense of achievement of making something for themselves.  It actually became a bit of a business, with the children of the village making toys for themselves but also to sell.  Meanwhile Kris’s Mum gave offcuts of cloth to make clothes for dolls.

As Kris became a man, he actually started up the village’s toy making business. He was very popular in the village for doing that and was known far and wide for being a great toy maker and also a very kind and caring person.

What people did not know was that Kris was actually quite a shy person.  He liked nothing more than going for a quiet walk in the woodlands enjoying the natural surroundings he had been taught to appreciate and talking kindly to any animals he met on the way, especially the reindeer.  There were hundreds of reindeer, but over the years as his business grew, he had some very loyal reindeer that always liked to work with Kris because he was so kind to them.   They all had names like Blitzen, Clyde, Comet, Cupid, Dancer to mention just a few.  Kris used to talk to the reindeer not realising they could understand what he was saying.  His biggest worry was making all his deliveries on time as he was travelling further and further delivering toys.   One day something very special happened. 

He went to the woods and called out for his reindeer – they all came as usual, but this time there was one more.  There was something rather special about him, he was strong like the others, he had kind eyes like the others, he had furry antlers like the others, but he had a bright shinny nose which none of the others had.  Kris looked at him and the special reindeer looked back and the other reindeer sort of gave a reindeer like smile and Kris was sure he heard one or two of them laugh.  Suddenly the special reindeer spoke.  “My name is Rudolph, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.  I can fly. I can fly very very fast and any reindeer or sleigh harnessed to me will be able to fly just as fast”.   Kris was very unsure about this but not wishing to seem rude lead all the reindeer to the barn were the sleighs were stored.  He hitched up the reindeer to a sleigh with Rudolph right at the front, sat on the sleigh and waited but nothing happened.  He shook the reins, nothing happened.  So he called out “Rudolph, let’s go”.  Whoosh, they sped up into the sky so high that Kris could see the whole world below, they went round the world so quickly they were back where they started almost immediately.  Wow, thought Kris, that was amazing, but it gave him an idea.  What do you think that idea was?

© copyright Brian Hagley 2020

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