A Xmas story

Santa was driving slowly towards the airworthiness test centre. Mrs Claus had been on at him for the last ten days or so, to go and get the new certificate for his sleigh and at last he’d given in to her.

‘It’s all a big con by the goblin mechanics to get money out of me,’ he grumbled to himself as the reindeer trotted along. He was sure there was at least a week before the new certificate was necessary and in any case the sleigh had never been known to fail a test before.

Then he rounded the last corner before the test centre and tried to find a parking space among the clouds that were queuing up for their annual check over.

Rather to his surprise the goblin foreman came out to meet him and directed him straight into a vacant testing bay.

“Left it a bit late this year haven’t you?” he asked, “you’ve only got this afternoon to go, so I thought we’d better try to speed the process up a bit!”

Santa got down from his sleigh feeling rather worried, he’d been sure that he had far more time than that, so he pulled last year’s certificate from his pocket and checked the date. Unfortunately the goblin was right!

The sleigh had already been moved over an inspection pit and one of the goblin mechanics was checking the bottom by the light of half a dozen glow-worms kept in a glass bottle. He was not making encouraging noises.

“Oh dear, oh dear, tut tut tut! Would you just look at the state of these runners? That’s a weeks work at least or I’m a fairy! Of course that supposes we can get the parts at such short notice!”

He came up out of the pit and walked over to Santa wiping his hands on an oily rag. “Looks as if Xmas is going to be a bit late this year squire,” he said, “these old models require an obsolete type of glitter dust to make them fly, I’m not sure if there’s any that old around these days. If not, it’ll take weeks to have a special order made up. In the meantime I’m afraid you’re grounded.”

Santa was practically in tears as he went home. If Xmas was late it was all going to be his fault. The old saying ‘You’re only as good as your last Xmas’ came to mind. He was going to need help fast and the only person he knew who might be able to help him was a wizard called Robert. He was not only in charge of servicing the cloud transport for the Witch’s Home, but also maintained the glitter dust on the witch’s flying broomsticks.

Santa was lucky enough to get a lift with a snowman who had just delivered a load of toys to the Xmas warehouse and was about to take his cloud back to the Witch’s Home.

He found Robert in his workshop at the northern end of the castle. He was working on a defective rain cloud at the far end of the room.

“Glitter for that old sleigh?” he asked incredulously, “not in a million years my old chum! Definitely a special order I’d say.”

Santa explained that without the use of his transport there would be no Xmas that year. Robert leaned against the cloud and looked thoughtful.

Santa looked around the workshop with interest, while Robert was trying to think of an answer to the problem. Then it suddenly hit him. “How much rain does one of those clouds carry?” he asked.

“I’m not sure, the goblins just fill up the tanks as requested. Must be hundreds of gallons, several tons,” he explained seeing the question on Santa’s face.

“More than the weight of my sleigh and a full load of presents?”

Robert and Santa laughed, as they both realised that they'd just solved the problem

That Xmas eve a group of people had gathered on top of a hill, warming their hands on mugs of tea and stamping their feet to keep warm. They comprised the more enthusiastic members of the local UFO society and every year they came out to see if they could spot Santa’s sleigh. It had all started as a bit of a joke, but by now had become more of a social occasion than a serious attempt at a sighting.

It was a beautifully clear night and had turned very cold. One or two of the faint hearted had already left, the remainder were now thinking wistfully of their nice warm beds and that it had all been intended as a bit of a laugh. Then just as the last one turned to follow his friends down to the car park, he spotted a single cloud coming towards him rather more rapidly than a cloud should.

He quickly unpacked his binoculars and stared at the magnified image with astonishment. A fairly small rain cloud was sailing past his eyes, travelling against the wind and carrying a stout old gentleman with a white beard, dressed in red robes and sitting in a sleigh.

“Hey you lot come back here, I’ve just seen Father Xmas sitting on top of a cloud!”

“I don’t know what you’ve got in that flask of tea Bill, but whatever it is hurry up and bring it down here and we’ll help you finish it!”

Bill hurried after his friends and had his leg pulled for the next month, as being the only grown-up ever to have seen Father Xmas.