My Favorite Christmas Story

In a few years ago at the nursing home where I worked lived a man named Burt, it was on this night as I helped him with his nighttime care that he told me a Christmas story. This was the first time I had ever heard such a Christmas tale that brought so much laughter.

You see Burt was a man who was eighty-seven years old, and this is not a story that most grandfatherly men would share. This was a very all inspiring Christmas story to not only capture the Christmas spirit so eloquently with humor tossed in there now and then.

Burt began his story as he shuffled into the bathroom to wash out for the night, with his oxygen tube following behind him. I also followed him carrying his towel, washcloths, and basin.

Burt said long ago in a faraway place lived a young man named Nick who loved to work with his hands. This young man made tables and chairs that he would sell in his village for cash to buy paint, nails, files, and other things he needed that he could not make, kill, or grow him self. He was a very self-sufficient man who kept to himself most of the time.

People in the village often wondered why Nick had such a huge home, when all anyone ever saw was just him and his wife. They had no children that anyone had seen. Nick and his wife had lived there so long, and no visitors ever came nor went that the villagers could recall. Nick had no use for the friendly people in his village, he was not rude to them or anything he just preferred his own company and the company of his lovely wife who had no name.

Nick's huge home sat on the side of a mountain and there were trees all around the house but some villagers said that part of the house went right into that mountain. The villagers were a simple lot, good sturdy people who worked hard for their daily bread. They would gather in the middle of town and dance to music after dark, as unseen little bodies would watch them. Those unseen little bodies went back and told Nick and his wife of the crazy villagers and the rumors they had heard.

The villagers had children and lots of them who were fast asleep on beds of straw as their parents gossiped and danced on a nightly basis. Those children would grow up as their parents thought Nick, and he knew he wanted better for all the little children of the village. For as long as he could remember those simple villagers kept having children who grew up to be just like their parents, he had seen much in his years.

Nick and his wife sat talking about the children one night and Nick had an idea. He reasoned that since the winters were so harsh all the children in town needed to have warm shoes that fit them. Nick's wife had heard the little bodies talking about how the children had no warm winter coats, because their parents did not have enough money. She told Nick that perhaps the children needed the coats more.

When Nick and his wife talked to the little bodies several of the little bodies wanted not only to make the village children shoes and warm winter coats, they wanted to make sure each of the children in the village had a special toy that was their very own. Together Nick, his wife and all the little bodies would create a pair of shoes, a warm winter coat, and a toy for each child.

With everyone working, so hard soon there were 365 warm winter jackets of various sizes for the children, 365 pair of shoes in various colors and sizes. There were 133 trucks or cars and 232 little rag dolls with blonde hair just like Nicks wife had. The little bodies slipped into town and laid the gifts for each child beside the sleeping child.

None of the parents knew for sure where the gifts had come from, but as the rumor mill discussed this Nick's name was mentioned often. The villagers reasoned that Nick must have had something to do with this as he was or seemed to be the richest one in town because he had the biggest house.

The villagers were all happy because their children were happy and there was less merry making in the middle of town at night, so Nick and his wife and the little bodies could sleep better each night.

The next year the little bodies wanted to make presents for the children of the village because they had outgrown everything. There were new little villagers everyday as well, who could keep count with so many happy parents. For once, the parents had quit their merry making, they were home at night, and this caused more little villagers.

The little bodies would continue talking Nick into making presents for these villagers, for years to come. As the village grew bigger, it became a town, then a city and followed by a state. Each year the villagers got more of a population increase and it was hard for Nick and his company to keep up. Nick said that he would only be making gifts for the good children, and not all of them any longer.

This made sense to the little bodies whom as formed their own union by now and called them selves the equal little friends or Elves for short. The elves were getting tired of delivering the endless supply of shoes, warm coats, and toys for the children.

Now they would just make two lists for Nick, a good list and a bad list, and if a child's name were on the bad list, well they would not receive anything. This worked great for many years, Nick who had grown old by this time with a fat belly and massive amounts of white hair on his head and face.

He was so fat from his wife's cooking that he had trouble walking. He enlisted the help of a reindeer, but the rein deer could not lift the jolly fat man, so more reindeer offered to help. You see those reindeer really do know how to fly and they were the only ones that could lift Nick's massive body.