TO EMILY

WITH LOTS OF LOVE FROM

AUNTIE BECK

It was Christmas Eve and all the little boys

and girls in England were in bed, except for

Emily. Emily sat at the bottom of the stairs,

awake and worrying about Santa.

“What about Santa?” she had asked when her mother had hung up their stockings and left a carrot out for Rudolph.

But her mother had just laughed. “Santa doesn’t eat carrots!”

Emily sighed. Sometimes adults were so silly. “But Santa will be hungry,” she explained. “He has to visit every house in the world in one night.” When Auntie Becky flew from Hong Kong she/he had two meals and snacks, so if Santa was flying around the world he would need a lot more food than that. “Can’t we give him a mince pie?” she asked.

“Well, we could,” her mother said softly, “if we had any. But Granddad

ate the last one, remember?”

Emily had sat down again on the bottom of the stairs and sighed. “Poor Santa!Whatever shall we do?” She was still thinking long and hard when Mummy said it was time for bed.

“Santa can’t come if you are still awake.”

“But Santa will be hungry!”

“Nonsense,” her mother said. “He will get plenty of snacks at every other house he visits and when he gets back home to Lapland tomorrow he will have a huge feast with Mrs Claus and all the elves to celebrate Christmas. Just like us. If he eats too much now he won’t want his dinner, and he certainly won’t fit down our tiny chimney!”

This made Emily laugh and they sang “When Santa got stuck up our chimbly, he began to shout....” She had soon forgotten all her worries and went to sleep dreaming of the big feast she would have with Santa the next day.

Emily wasn’t long into this dream - they had just reached the part where the turkey is carved and the gravy poured over her potatoes - when she was awoken by a loud “thump!” and a lot of coughing. She threw back the covers and crept downstairs. And what do you think she saw? Only a rather round old man sitting on the floor covered in black soot with a bag of presents all tumbled about around him.

“Santa?” she cried with astonishment, not sure whether to give him a great big hug or tell him off. “Oh Santa! How dirty you are!”

“Ho ho ho! A little soot, my dear, never hurt anyone,” Santa chuckled getting up and brushing himself down, but

Emily was not so sure. Mummy was forever picking invisible bits of dirt off her carpet. “Now, let me have a look at little Emily,” said Santa cheerfully.

“You know my name?” she gasped.

“Ho ho ho, of course! I know all the little boys and girls names in the world. It’s what I spend the other 364 days of the year doing.”

“But Santa, I’m not little,” Emily replied seriously. “I’m a big girl now.”

“Is that so?” cried Santa wiping the soot from his glasses and peered at her again. “Oh, yes, now I can see. My, how much you’ve grown!”

“Have you really flown all the way around the world, Santa?” Emily had been dying to ask, for they’d told her he did but she didn’t think it possible. You only had to look at Auntie Becky to see how sleepy it made you but Santa didn’t look at all sleepy - a little fat and bloated perhaps, but it did that to Auntie too. “And did

you visit Auntie Beck?”

“Ho, ho, indeed I did, Emily, and she sends you a hug.” Emily was a little disappointed that Auntie had sent nothing else, and peered about Santa’s sack just to make sure. “But you know,” he continued,

“Santa gets a little help. It is never nighttime everywhere at

once. I travel with the night, as it moves across the world. I start

in the farthest East - in New Zealand and Australia, then I go to Japan, China, India and Russia, Europe and Africa...”

“And does it make you very hungry, Santa?”

A loud chuckle shook his belly. “Oh, it is quite tiring, but you know I only have to work one night a year. It’s a pretty good deal. I bet your mummy and daddy work more than that, huh?”

“Daddy works a lot,” Emily agreed. “And Mummy too. And I go to playgroup. But what do they give you for snacks?” she asked. “At playgroup they give us milk and biscuits. Would you like a biscuit, Santa? We don’t have any mince pies.”

“No mince pies, eh? Well, to be honest, Emily, I’m glad. If I saw another mince pie I’d be sick! I never really liked them much in the first place. Once a year is more than enough for me.”

“That’s what Mummy says,” Emily replied. “She feeds the rest to Granddad.”

“Quite right she is too. I wish I had a granddad to give all mine to. You can’t think how many poor Rudolph, Prancer and Vixen have to eat! Dancer and Comet don’t like them at all, so they share the carrots. But I must say, it’s quite a wonder we ever manage to eat again after Christmas Eve, and its such a shame. Mrs Claus always does such a nice roast.”

“But Santa, if you don’t eat them... Aren’t there starving children in Africa?”

Emily did not really know where Africa was, but she had heard a lot lately about the children there. Whenever she wouldn’t eat her greens or her fish fingers and beans, she was reminded about these children in Africa and was told to eat up. But she was puzzled. Were they starving because she wasn’t eating? And would eating more help them? She wasn’t sure but didn’t ask. She was worried that if she didn’t eat and went to bed hungry she might be sent to Africa too. But the problem was that whenever she did try to think of the starving children she felt so miserable that she couldn’t finish her food. She wasn’t starving; she just wasn’t hungry.

“You are quite right, Emily,” said Santa, seeing her forlorn little face. “It is a problem, but they don’t like mince pies either. Too sweet. They want proper food, not sweets.”

“So what do you do Santa?”

“That’s a very good question Emily. Come, sit on my knee and I’ll tell you all about it. Your Mummy won’t mind me sitting on her sofa will she?”

Emily was sure that she wouldn’t and fetched them a glass of milk each. “Now we’re ready Santa. Tell me

your story.”

“Well, as you know, very far away in the East -”

“Where Auntie Beck lives?”

“Where Auntie Beck lives, the people do not eat bread and potatoes like we do.”

“I love potatoes,” Emily chipped in.

“Indeed, so do I,” said Santa. He never minded interruptions in his stories. In fact, with so many elves, he was rather used to it. “But what do you

think they eat instead?”

“Chicken’s feet!” Emily cried, remembering Auntie’s stories of Hong Kong.

“Yeesss,” replied Santa a little doubtfully. “Yes, they do, but they also eat rice. Lots and lots of rice. Have it with everything in everything.”

Emily had only had rice a few times in her life, but each time had been fairly forgettable. “Pooh, boring,” she moaned. “Poor them!”

“No, this is what they grow and just as we love potatoes, they love rice. They love it so much they use it for everything - for noodles -”

“I like noodles.”

“For dumplings,” (Emily didn’t know what dumplings were) “for pancakes, sushi and

even for dessert. So what do you think they offer me when I got visiting their houses on Christmas Eve?”

“Rice!” Emily cried.

“You got it. Rice. In every different shape, size and flavour. And boy oh boy, were Donner and Blitzen happy with that! But sadly, they’re the only ones. I like a bit of rice now and then, on a Friday night with an Indian curry, but rice really fills you up, and I’m supposed to be saving myself

for the big feast. Your mummy tell you about the big feast?”

“Yes,” replied Emily, wide-eyed with wonder. So it was true, she thought. Her mummy was right after all.

“Well, then you’ll know it’s worth saving a bit of room, and besides Mrs Claus was starting to talk about putting me on a diet. Now, a bit of fat I told her is necessary; it comes with the job. Not just anyone can carry off jolly, you gotta have a bit of something about you, and I told her, I said, ‘Mrs Claus, you married a man in a suit and it’s my duty to make sure I fill it out.’ ‘But any more weight,’ she said, ‘and the sleigh won’t be able to take off !’ And, to be honest, I had to agree with her. And that’s when it came to me. Why not take all these lovely little rice dumpling and pancakes where they would be appreciated-”

“To the poor children in Africa!?”

“You got it!”

“And did it work, Santa? Did they like it?”

“Well, I think they were a little confused at first. They had no idea what these little presents were. I can’t say I blame them; I had thought the same at first. But once they bit into a sticky sesame mochi from Japan, steamed sweet bahn bo from Vietnam, tteok from Korea or a coconut ketupat from Indonesia, they thought they were in heaven!”

Emily laughed. She like to think of all the people in Africa waking up on Christmas morning to find all these delicious rice treats in their Christmas stockings.

“It was perfect because, since they didn’t believe in me - and still don’t really (they just think I’m the person who delivers the Coca Cola) - there was never any food to take away!”

“So you solved the problem of having too much to eat while in Africa they have too little!”

“I sure did,” said Santa, beaming with pride. “And as the years went on and more and more people left me treats: America, Europe, Russia... I had even

more food, so much that Mrs Claus was starting to talk about sending me to the gym! Luckily not everyone left me mince pies though. Some people gave me nuts or an orange. Especially in Victorian times, oranges were very popular.”

“Don’t you like oranges, Santa?”

“Oh, I do!” Santa exclaimed. “But they’re a devil to peel, especially when you’re trying to drive a sleigh. So I have a few for the elves - we don’t see many oranges in Lapland you see, and they’re good for filling the lads’ wee stockings - and then I’d drop the rest off on the nearest sailboat to help the sailors keep off scurvy.”

“It’s good to share.”

“Yes, it is Emily, but you know what I realised the longer I did the job? I realised that a lot of the people who left me food were poor. They couldn’t always afford to leave me gifts, but they did because they cared that I would go hungry. Can you imagine that? Fat old me?” he said, patting his enormous belly.

“So what did you do, Santa?”

“I took food from Australia to feed Asia, from Europe to feed Africa and America is last on my list, so I took food from the wealthy to feed the poor. It has ended up being quite a mission, I can tell you!”

“But, Santa, how everndo you manage to carry it all on your sleigh?”

“Ah, that’s magic. If I told you that, I’d have to eat you,” he chuckled, making munching sounds and tickling her till she cried with laughter. “Yum, yum, yum. And what about you Emily? Have you been a good girl?”

Emily was quiet for a few minutes before turning to Santa and whispering something in his ear.

“Ah, I see. Well,” Santa began. He had come across this little problem any number of times but it never failed to break his heart. He and Mrs Claus had never had children. They had more than their hands full with the elves. But Santa wasn’t so old that he couldn’t remember what it had been like when his parents had split up.

“Your parents too?” Emily gasped in astonishment.

“Yes indeed,” replied Santa sadly, “And my father moved all the way to Australia.”

“Ooh, but that’s far. How did you get to see him?”

“How else?” Santa cried proudly. “I invented a sleigh that could fly me from one side of the world to the other in a flash. Then I could have one Christmas Day with Dad in Australia and the same Christmas Day with Mum in Lapland. You see, I was like you: I couldn’t bear the thought of either of them being alone so I would travel half-way around the world every year in one day to make sure I could be with them both.”

“But, Santa, if you really are magic why couldn’t you...?”

“I’m afraid not. No amount of magic could bring them back together,” he replied sternly. “For the magic to work, they would have to want that and I could see they were happier apart. But with my sleigh I could see them both on Christmas and that was what mattered. And what about you, young lady? Will you get to see both of your parents tomorrow?”

Emily nodded. She was still amazed by what she had heard. The fact that Santa was like her was more surprising than that he could make reindeer fly or feed the all the hungry people in the world in a single night. But poor Santa! When his parents had divorced, his dad had moved so far away he couldn’t see him every day.

“You really only got to see him once a year? Only on Christmas?” she asked, thinking how she would feel if one of her parents lived so far away.

“Yeesss,” Santa said carefully, “but you have to remember that in Lapland it is always winter, while in Australia Christmas falls in their summertime. So, it

wasn’t all bad. It was pretty good in fact. I’d normally go for a few weeks and hang out with Dad on the beach, go surfing, have BBQs... You know, all the things I could never have done in the snowy cold North with Mum.”

“That’s like me and Daddy, but he only lives on the other side of town.”

“Ah, then you’re lucky. You don’t have to race halfway around the world at Christmas.”

“No,” said Emily happily, thinking of all the exciting things she would do the next day. “I get to wake up here and open my stocking with Mummy. Then after lunch with Nanny and Auntie Sam, Daddy will take me to Nana and Granddad’s and I will have more new toys to play and then I will sleep in my bedroom at Daddy’s house...”

“It sounds great,” said Santa, placing a kiss on her forehead and lifting her off his still sooty lap. “Now, speaking of Christmas. I’d better get on with it and you’d better get to bed. Can’t spend all night sitting around talking now, can we?”

“Oh, but Santa, what shall I give you to take to the poor children?”

“But you know now that they will have plenty to eat tomorrow Emily.”

“Yes, but I want to give them something too. It is Christmas.”

“Humm, okay, if you insist. Whatcha got?”

Emily led Santa into the kitchen and they looked around for something good to eat. There was Mummy’s liquor chocolates, but “Ah, no,” said Santa, popping one in his mouth, “too sweet, and a little too alcoholic! Woah! They’re definitely too much to give to little children,” he said, feeling suddenly more merry than usual.

There was some fruit, but “better save that for your breakfast,” Santa said. “I’ve got more than enough bananas already.”

“How about this?” said Emily holding up a small pot from the fridge. She had thought hard about what Santa had said about the poor people giving the thing they truly prized the most and this was hers.

“Oooh, are you sure?” asked Santa, knowing how much it meant to her. “You might miss that.”

“No,” said Emily, very sagely. “It’d be nice to think some hungry child is enjoying it. It will make me feel happier when I have so many nice things to eat tomorrow.”

“Very well, if you say so,” said Santa.

So, bearing the last strawberry yoghurt from the fridge, Santa said goodbye, leaving gifts beneath the tree and disappearing rather awkwardly back up the tiny chimney. Emily went to bed and slept soundly, cradling the thought that no one would go hungry tomorrow, not Santa nor any child in the whole world.

The next morning the only trace that anything unusual had occurred during the night was a thick blanket of soot on the carpet and enormous black prints on the sofa leading to the refrigerator, from which the last yoghurt was mysteriously missing.

“EMMiLLYYY!” Mummy yelled. “Have you been eating yoghurt in the night?”

“No Mummy,” Emily called back, hurrying down the stairs. “It’s for the children in Africa.”

In the kitchen, Mummy smiled to herself. That was the problem with having clever children, she thought. They did tell such wonderfully imaginative stories.

THE END