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📖 Pip and the Runaway Letter: a Santa bedtime story
5 min read
Way up north, past the last town and the last tree and the very last road, there is a workshop with a bright red door and a candy-striped mailbox out front. That is where Santa lives. And that is where you will find Pip.
Pip is an elf. He is the shortest elf in the whole workshop, with a green hat that keeps sliding over one eye and a jingle bell on the tip that rings whenever he gets excited. Which is often.
In December, Pip has the best job of all. Pip is in charge of the mail.
So many letters
Kids from every state write to Santa. They write with crayons and markers and glitter pens. They write on lined paper and on the backs of drawings. Some letters say "Dear Santa" and some say "Hi Santa!!!" with lots of exclamation points. One letter last year came with a pressed leaf from a maple tree in Vermont, so Santa would know what fall looked like there.
Every morning, Pip loads the letters into a little red wagon and pulls it across the snow to Santa's big comfy chair beside the fireplace. And Santa reads them. All of them. Every single one. That's the rule.
Whoosh!
One frosty morning, Pip came out of the mailroom with his wagon piled high. The sky was gray and the wind was feeling playful.
WHOOSH!
A gust swept around the corner, scooped the top letter right off the pile, and tossed it into the air like a paper kite.
"Hey!" yelled Pip. "Come back! You're not a bird!"
The letter did not come back. Letters almost never do when you ask them to.
Pip parked the wagon, pulled his hat off his eye, and took off running.
Over, under, and around
The letter sailed over the candy cane fence. Pip climbed over the candy cane fence.
It dipped under the bridge by the frozen pond. Pip slid under the bridge on his tummy, which was actually pretty fun.
It looped around the toy-testing room, where two elves were racing wind-up trains. "Letter coming through!" shouted Pip. The elves ducked. The letter zipped past. One of the trains fell off the table.
"Sorry!" called Pip, still running.
Then the wind stopped all at once, and the letter fluttered down behind the big snowy hill where the reindeer like to sled.
Who's got it?
Pip trudged to the top of the hill and looked around. Nothing but snow.
A snowy owl was perched on a fence post nearby, looking very wise.
"Excuse me," said Pip. "Did you see a letter go by? It's for Santa."
The owl turned her head all the way around and back again. Pip always loved when owls did that.
"Hoo-hoo," she said, and pointed one wing at the reindeer barn.
The barn
The barn was warm and smelled like hay and apples. Most of the reindeer were dozing. But the youngest reindeer, Bramble, was wide awake. She was always wide awake in December. There was just too much to be excited about.
"Bramble," whispered Pip, "have you seen a letter?"
Bramble suddenly got very interested in the ceiling.
Then, from a pile of straw beside her, came a tiny, sleepy squeak.
Pip crouched down. There, curled up in a little hollow, was a field mouse. And snuggled around the mouse like a comforter was the letter.
"It blew in the window," Bramble explained. "And Mouse was so chilly. We were going to give it back. After nap time."
Pip couldn't be upset. He knew all about being chilly.
"Mouse," he said gently, "I need to borrow that, because Santa reads every single one. But I have a trade for you."
He pulled off his mitten, which was fuzzy and warm on the inside, and laid it in the straw. The mouse sniffed it, crawled right in, and was snoring before Pip could even say "You're welcome."
Dear Santa
Pip raced back, grabbed his wagon, and made it to Santa's chair so out of breath he could only wheeze.
"Letter," he gasped, holding it up. "Went on a trip."
Santa laughed his big warm laugh, the kind that fills up a whole room. He unfolded the wrinkled paper, put on his reading glasses, and read it out loud.
It was from a boy named Mateo, who was five.
Dear Santa. How are you doing? Do the reindeer get cold? I made you a picture of you on a beach so you can be warm for once. Your friend, Mateo.
Underneath was a drawing of Santa lying on a beach towel in his red suit, wearing sunglasses, with all the reindeer building a sandcastle.
Santa looked at the picture for a long time. Then he laughed so hard his belly shook like a big bowl of jelly.
"Pip," he said, wiping his eyes, "in all my years, I have never been invited to the beach. Grab a thumbtack."
So Mateo's picture went up on the wall above the fireplace, right in the middle, where everyone could see it.
Every single one
That night, Pip tiptoed back to the barn. The mouse was fast asleep in his mitten. Bramble was not.
"Pip," she whispered, "was it a good letter?"
"It was a great letter," said Pip. "They all are. That's why Santa reads every single one."
And with a happy little jingle, Pip pulled his hat back over his eye and went home to bed.
The end.
Talk about the story
- If you wrote a letter to Santa, what would you ask him about?
- What would you draw for Santa to hang on his wall?
- How did Pip help the little mouse?