The Christmas Chronicles

by Tim Slover

  While Dasher and his siblings munched on hay—and it was foreign and spicy but very good—Klaus walked in a bright courtyard with the man who had hailed him. Kelzang Gyatso was his name. And if any had been there to observe, they would have smiled to see two such different men walking together, one large and clad in crimson with great boots on his feet, the other slight, barefoot, and wearing a yellow robe—and yet, somehow they went together. Kelzang told Klaus about Four Noble Truths and an Eightfold Path, and it all seemed very beautiful, if strange, to Klaus. At last Kelzang said, “Well, Klaus, you have seen the world now and seen it whole. What do you think of it?”

  “Some children must be poor,” Klaus said, “even hungry.”

  “That is true,” Kelzang replied.

  “I do not like the thought,” Klaus said.

  “You are one who is called to relieve the dukkha—the sorrow of the world—through your Christmas labors,” Kelzang said. “You are a fire, Klaus, and if any will draw near you with their hearts, they will be kindled by you, and they will feed the hungry children.”

  That gladdened Klaus, but there was one more nagging problem.

  “It may seem trivial compared to all we have discussed, but …”

  “Go on, please,” Kelzang said.

  “How am I to get toys inside of homes,” Klaus blurted out, “now that I see that many have no chimneys?”

  “Ah, I see,” said Kelzang. “Come with me please.” Looking up from his munching, Dasher saw Klaus and the man in the saffron robe disappear into a building with a golden door. When they came out, half an hour later, he heard Kelzang say to Klaus, “I think you will find it to be useful.”

  “Well?” Dasher asked Klaus as they prepared to fly away. “What did he show you?”

  “Wait and see!” Klaus said. There was a distinct twinkle in his eye.

  In a moment they were once more flying high over great, wide plains, and then across a narrow sea to another land. “Sagarimasu, kudasai!” Klaus called out as they approached a city of graceful upturned tile roofs, and Dasher obliged by flying lower. “I have one more gift to give this Christmas Eve!” he said. In a moment they were beside a particular house Klaus had chosen.

  “But there is no chimney,” Dasher said.

  “Precisely,” said Klaus as he rummaged around to find the last toy in his sack, a set of paints and brushes. He stood before the house’s very solid, very locked door and shut his eyes. Privately Dasher wondered if perhaps his old friend was light-headed from all the high-altitude flying. “This door is an illusion,” Klaus murmured. “It is maya, a veil through which I may pass.” And then Klaus walked through the closed door as if it were not there.

  The reindeer shot sixty feet into the air in surprise. But almost before they had returned to earth, Klaus was outside the house again, rubbing his hands in glee. “Well, well,” he said. “It works! Just as Kelzang said it would! I don’t understand a bit of it, but it works! I never have to worry about chimneys again!”

  And so, the Maya Principle was born. It is this: No closed door, no wall no matter its thickness, may keep Klaus out on Christmas Eve. He has always credited this phenomenon to the teaching of Kelzang Gyatso. But as Dasher muttered while Klaus cheerfully climbed back into the sleigh and they all shot once more into the sky, “Comes from being a Saint, I suppose.”

  The little boy who received the paint set, by the way, was called Tokitaro, and it launched him on a great and distinguished art career.

  And now Klaus and the Eight were speeding east over an immense azure ocean, bigger than anything they had yet encountered. The sun was behind them when they finally spotted a chain of islands like jewels sparkling in the sea. The language that entered their heads now was all soft breezes and the gentle roll of waves on white sand. Without any warning at all Vixen suddenly plunged down out of the air, dragging all the other reindeer and the sleigh with her.

  “Akahele!” Klaus shouted in alarm, but it was no good. The vision of soft grass under swaying trees had abruptly entered Vixen’s head again, and she felt certain its fulfillment was below. Sure enough, when they landed on one of the islands—it had a volcano right in the middle of it—they found bright, tender grass under trees unlike anything they had ever seen before, with bare trunks and leaves like banners radiating in a circle from the top.

  Acting on a hunch, Klaus called out, “Time start!” Immediately the strange trees began to sway in a gentle breeze, the stream over which they hung began to flow, and nearby, azure waves broke on a sandy beach. “So that works,” Klaus said to Dasher. He had just made the penultimate discovery of that most memorable Christmas Eve. Chronoleptic Oscillation (as the physicists of the True North call it) allows Klaus to stop and start Time precisely as he moves across the globe so that his deliveries all take place on Christmas Eve, wherever in the world he may be.

  But what the reindeer—especially Vixen—really cared about at the moment was the grass. All agreed after the first bite that it was the tenderest, freshest any of them had ever eaten. Encouraged by this, Klaus tried a sweet, pulpy orange fruit he picked from a tree nearby and found it delicious. He followed it with a large, hard nut, which, when cracked on a runner of the sleigh, revealed snow white meat and a refreshing drink. Then he took off as many of his clothes as he thought proper—and I do not know, because he has not said, how many that was—and splashed into the sea. The reindeer followed his lead, and they all had a glorious time swimming in the surf after their long labors and a longer flight. And if you have never seen a reindeer bodysurf, I must tell you that you have missed an astonishing sight. “What a shame Anna has missed this!” Klaus declared as he and the Eight rinsed the salt water off in the stream and dried themselves in the tropical sun. “But I shall bring her here on a holiday next Christmas Eve while Time is still stopped.” And that is exactly what he did—and has done most every Christmas Eve since.

  Then they flew away into the east until they came once again to countries where it was still night, and then on to where it was just beginning to be dawn. The language in Klaus’s head was now his own, and he knew he was back where he had started. So if anyone asks you, Esteemed Reader, who was the first to circumnavigate the globe, you now have the answer.

  The Straight Road shone in front of Klaus and the Eight, a beacon in the Black Forest. All were eager to race up it at once and away home, but something caught Klaus’s eye: the final discovery of the night. A piece of paper folded twice was lodged in the left-hand holly bush standing at the entrance. Klaus stooped to pluck it from the branches. He read it once, and then he read it through carefully again. “Oh my,” he said. He tucked it into his pocket as the sleigh sped up the Road.

  “Time start!” he shouted as Castle Noël came into sight. Everything burst into life. By the time they glided to a stop in the courtyard, the sun was up. A door opened and Anna ran out to greet Klaus. “Welcome home!” she said. And then she stepped back and looked suspiciously at her husband in the dawn light. “How did you manage to get a suntan on Christmas Eve?” she asked.

  “Never mind that,” Klaus said. “Look at this!” And he gave her the folded note. When she read it, her eyes grew wide. “Oh my,” she said.

  “I know,” Klaus said. “This changes everything.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Be of Good Cheer

  Explanations about the mysterious suntan Klaus had acquired would have to wait. That is what Anna thought as she eyed her Saintly husband’s healthy glow, though she did wonder what he had been up to and if he had been having fun without her. And Klaus thought, Wait till she hears about Time stopping! And about all those languages and how big the world is, and no more need to worry about chimneys!

  But what they both thought was, First things first. What shall we do about this letter left at the foot of the Straight Road?

  The letter was from a child. This is what it said: “Dear Santa, Next Christmas Eve will you please bring me a kite so I can fly it in the summer? I would like
it best if it had a picture of a dragon on it, because that is my favorite animal in the world. Very sincerely yours, Sophie. PS: I love you, Santa, and so does my little brother Arnulf, who would like a puppy.”

  Now, the alarming thing about this letter was not that it was addressed to someone called “Santa.” All at Castle Noël knew that this name for Klaus was becoming increasingly popular, since it was—or was near—the word for “Saint.” Nor was it alarming that the letter asked for a toy Klaus did not know how to make. For many Christmases now Elves had been making toys based on ideas of their own or Anna’s. That is very much the case now, of course, though all toys must still be personally approved by Klaus.

  No, the truly troubling thing about the letter was simply that Sophie had asked for a specific gift—which had never happened before. Oh, Klaus had sometimes made a toy specially for a child—remember little Lena’s rattle? But no one had ever written to ask for a particular one. You can see the implications of this, I’m sure, as clearly as Anna and Klaus could. What if everyone began asking for specific gifts? Would they be able to honor these requests? Children might ask for anything. Arnulf had asked for a puppy, which neither Klaus nor even the most skilled of the Elves could make. And was little Arnulf ready for a puppy? This last question led them to an even larger one: What if children asked for toys that were not right for them? What should they do then?

  Dasher and his siblings declared themselves too tired to pursue these thorny issues at the moment and trotted off to their stables for a long winter’s nap, but Klaus and Anna stayed up well into the night sipping mint hot chocolate by the enormous fire in the Great Hall of Castle Noël and trying to decide what was best to do. About the subject of dangerous playthings Anna grew quite excited. She instantly began planning a range of toys that would re-create in full working detail, but in children’s sizes, the armor and weapons of the Roman Ninth Legion. “Think what fun my children would have with their own real swords and shields!” Anna exulted, her eyes glowing. “And we could make a line of working catapults! And scale models of Teutonic Heroines on Horseback! I could stitch their outfits myself!” And then Klaus wondered aloud if parents would object to toys that might lead to loss of blood, and Anna declared indignantly that that was all part of a happy childhood. But in the end she reluctantly conceded that decisions about toy safety would probably have to be left up to parents. “Mind you,” she grumbled, “I’m sure the children would see it my way.” And she returned to her enormous project of stitching all the battles of the Crusades onto Christmas stockings for the Elves.

  They talked through the night. And by morning, though they were tremendously sleepy and full of cocoa, they had hammered out the main ideas of what became the famed Christmas List Protocols, and retired to their sleigh bed contented with their work. As Klaus drifted off to sleep, into his mind came the words of Saint Abigail, spoken so many years before: “One day, from all over the world, will come to Klaus the petitions of children.” So, he thought, smiling, this was what she had meant.

  The three original Protocols, decided that night, were as follows:

  1. Children may make written requests to “Santa” Klaus about their Christmas gifts. These will arrive at Castle Noël by Magic.

  2. There is no guarantee that an item requested will be delivered. But we will do our best.

  3. It is unlikely [We see the hand of Anna in that word, “unlikely”] that a toy will be delivered if it is deemed unsafe or unsuitable by a child’s parent or guardian.

  These original Protocols were posted at the foot of the Straight Road with the conviction that Sophie and Arnulf would spread the word. Given the volume of requests that poured into Castle Noël the next year and the steady increase for many years thereafter, we may safely assume that is exactly what happened.

  I am sorry to have to report, however, that these three simple and commonsense Protocols have had to be much amended over the years, due to changing conditions and misunderstandings in the world. So long as the Straight Road remained tethered to the earth, these additions to the original Protocols were posted periodically at its foot. But when that tie was broken, they had to be communicated, imperfectly I am afraid, through dreams and bursts of inspiration to sensitive souls on earth, generally on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, this means of transmission has inevitably led to distortions of the Protocols. However, on the plus side, it has also resulted in many a jolly, if inaccurate, story or song about how to behave when “Santa Claus is coming to town,” the correct attitude to adopt in the unlikely event of seeing “Mommy kissing Santa Claus,” etc. Around Castle Noël, these always get a good laugh.

  However, to set the record straight, all the List Protocols are reproduced in Appendix H of this Green Book, precisely as they appear in the striking tapestries woven by Anna that hang in the Gifts Pavilion by Advent Lake in the True North. Here, for a sample, I set down just three of the more recent amendments:

  237. Gift requests must be made in writing. Castle Noël is a house of order and keeps records. Accordingly, a child speaking his or her requests to someone in a commercial emporium dressed up in a costume vaguely imitative of the traveling suit originally made by Anna for Klaus will NOT constitute a valid Christmas list. Please write it down.

  238. Each child may make his or her list of requests as long as he or she pleases. Santa will be happy to consider the first three items. After that his attention tends to flag.

  239. It has come to our attention that for very valid reasons some parent or guardian at some time may wish to give a child a Christmas gift and say it is from Santa. Hence, we have drawn up the Great Pact, which states: Any gift given in love in Santa’s name will be deemed to be given by Santa. Further, Santa will pass by without delivering to any house participating in the Great Pact. Finally, any person who gives a surrogate Santa gift will automatically be considered signatory to the Great Pact, in perpetuity. Please apply in person if you wish to have this action reversed. [A holograph facsimile of the Great Pact, signed by Klaus and Anna and hoofmarked by each of the Eight Flyers, can also be found in Appendix H.]

  Once the original Protocols were devised, Klaus and Anna and all the Elves began to think of their toy making in a new way. And in this Anna was the leader. For it was her ingenious innovations that brought the True North into what we historians consider the Modern Epoch*—although it began simply as Anna indulging her taste for adventure.

  As soon as Anna heard about Chronolepsy, she laid her plans. And the very next Christmas Eve, for the first time in a long time, she was back beside Klaus in his sleigh—but not for very long. For as soon as Klaus called out “Time Stop!” and they all plunged through the dancing lights of the Aurora Borealis, Anna leapt from the sleigh directly onto the back of Donner—who had agreed to be her accomplice—and unhitched him from his traces. “See you when you get back, husband!” she yelled over her shoulder to Klaus as she and the reindeer raced back up the Straight Road. Klaus gazed fondly at her swiftly retreating back. “After all, Dasher,” he said, “why should I have all the fun?” Secretly, Dasher wished he were going with his old racing companion instead of Donner, but he knew he could not be spared from leading the team.

  And so, while Klaus made his deliveries that year, Anna and Donner made an intrepid expedition into the mighty range of mountains far to the west of Castle Noël. There what had begun as merely a trek for sheer fun turned into something more important even than that. For in those mountains—which Anna named the Yuletide Massif—they discovered enormous veins of pure gold.

  And that discovery led to a still greater one: Anna found her True North vocation. Oh, she would continue the dangerous and hair-raising adventures she had begun that Christmas. How could she not? She was Anna. (These, incidentally, will be fully recounted in her own memoir, which Anna hopes to complete one day when her labors permit; I may say here, just to give a taste of them, that the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest was neither Tenzing Norgay nor Edmund Hilla
ry.) But as she took up the task of converting a gold mine into the practical and charitable activities which now comprise the Castle Noël economy, she uncovered in herself a talent for what to this day she modestly refers to as “helping out where I can,” but which Klaus beamingly calls “running the whole show.” She invited many Elevated Spirits with a wide variety of unique skills to the True North. Arnulf’s request for a puppy prompted the establishment of the Saint Farouk Kennel and Cattery, staffed by Elves skilled in animal husbandry. Sophie’s request brought a cadre of engineers who could fashion ingenious kites—and later miniature locomotives, space shuttles, and the like.

  Christmas Eve after Christmas Eve, Anna took full advantage of Chronolepsy to establish the institutions that today play such a vital role in the True North—all while Klaus was away. It delighted him to return from a Christmas Eve flight one year to discover that Anna had founded and staffed the Saint Nicholas Munificence Bank, and another year the Flying Eight Weather and Travel Bureau, and another the Institute of Toy Prognostication with its crack, handpicked research team.

  And then Klaus and Anna and as many reindeer as wished to go would fly off to their tropical retreat together for their well-earned vacation and to catch up on all they had done while they were apart.