A Newfangled Christmas

by Betsy Haynes

  Finally, Edgar, their four-hundred seventeen year old leader, stepped forward. He took a deep breath and said, “Santa, the Elves and I have talked this over and have only one thing to say.”

  “Okay, Edgar. Have your say,” I said, not knowing what would come next.

  Edgar blinked a couple of times and looked around for reassurance. The other Elves all nodded.

  “All right, then,” Edgar said. “Santa, we’re going on strike!”

  And they did.

  Chapter 8

  WHATCHAMADOODLES AND DOODAWHITCHIES

  With that, the Elves turned toward the door. They walked out of the workshop in single file. They didn’t look at Nerdy. They didn’t look at me. They just looked straight ahead.

  I stared after them, but I couldn’t believe my eyes. My Elves--all seven-hundred twenty-two of them--were refusing to make toys. And Christmas was only two months away.

  I looked around the empty workshop at all the half-made toys. There were bicycles without wheels. There were dolls without hair or dresses. There were puzzles without boxes. And no one had even started making electronic toys!

  What was I going to do? How could I save Christmas?

  The techie was pulling the diagrams and graphs and charts off the walls and packing them in his briefcase. Next he gathered up all the electronic toys and stuffed them in, too. I suppose he was thinking his services wouldn’t be needed now.

  I thought about all the e-mail messages waiting in my computer. And all the snail-mail letters that I’d be getting soon. I couldn’t disappoint all those boys and girls, no matter what I had to do!

  “Nerdy! Don’t pack everything up!” I shouted. “We have work to do!”

  I flew into action. I put The Missus in charge of reading the e-mails and entering all the wishes in my ledger. Then I started learning all about making electronic toys.

  Nerdy couldn’t have been happier. He launched into a whirlwind lecture on circuit boards and terminals. On diodes and electronic chips. On whatchamadoodles and doodawhitchies. My head was spinning. My eyes were crossing at all that information.

  “Hold your reindeer!” I shouted. “Don’t you know you’re talking to an old-fashion kind of guy?”

  Nerdy looked sheepish. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I just got carried away.”

  This time he started more slowly. First, he pulled an aardvark out of his briefcase. “This isn’t just any aardvark,” he explained patiently. “It’s a ROBOT aardvark.” Then he took it apart, starting with the long nose, to show me how it had been put together. Next he demonstrated how the electronics were wired. Then he assembled it again, tossed a handful of plastic ants on the workshop floor and clapped his hands.

  The aardvark took a few halting steps forward. Then it swept its long nose back and forth on the floor, sucking up the ants.

  “That’s all there is to it!” the techie shouted triumphantly.

  I gave him a weak smile.

  “Think you can do it?” asked Nerdy.

  “Sure,” I murmured. I hoped he couldn’t see how hard I was trembling. The truth was, I didn’t have a clue how to make a dad blasted robot aardvark. Maybe he would show me how to make something else.

  Then I remembered the very first e-mail I had gotten. The one from Micah Mason, who wanted an Electronic Spy Night Scope so he could spy on his sister in the dark.

  I shook my head sadly. An Electronic Spy Night Scope would probably be harder to make than an aardvark! Maybe there was something else I could start with that would be easier.

  When I admitted my situation to the techie, he nodded excitedly and chirped, “Not a problem.”

  He reached into his briefcase again and pulled out a cuddly brown teddy bear. I did a double take. It didn’t look like it was electronic. In fact it looked just like the ones the Elves make every Christmas.

  “Meet Hug-A-Bear,” said Nerdy, thrusting the bear into my hands. “He’s a one function robot. All he does is hug.”

  As if on cue, Hug-A-Bear spread out his arms and wrapped them around my neck. Then he gave me a gentle hug. I couldn’t help but smile. My heart was smiling, too, because I knew that I could learn to make a lot of these bears. And a lot was just exactly what I would need.

  The techie patiently explained how to make the bear. I said good-night to Nerdy and set to work. My big old clumsy hands got comfortable making soft teddy bears right away. I hummed a little tune as I wired the robot mechanism for each chubby bear and stuffed it inside. Then I would sew the final seam and put the bear up to my neck to test his hug.

  I was feeling pretty proud when I hung up my apron at the end of the day. I counted the bears I’d made. Six Hug-A-Bears were sitting in a row.

  Then my gaze shot to the calendar. Tomorrow was November 1st. That meant there were only fifty-four days left until Christmas Eve. Fifty-four days times six Hug-A-Bears was--I counted

  on my fingers--three-hundred twenty-four.

  Three-hundred twenty-four toys for millions of girls and boys! Maybe I hadn’t saved Christmas after all!

  Chapter 9

  BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

  I couldn’t sleep a wink all night. I tossed and turned. I stared at the ceiling. I pounded on my pillow. But nothing helped. Christmas was coming faster than an avalanche, and I wouldn’t be ready.

  What would I do on Christmas Eve with no where to go? What would I tell the reindeer? Worst of all, what would I tell the children?

  When the sun finally came up I dragged myself into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee. The Missus was sitting at the table, frowning into space as if I wasn’t even there. Suddenly she looked at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “You have to talk to the Elves right now,” she snapped. “You’ll have to go straight to their village,” she went on before I could say a word. “Explain to them that what today’s kids want most of all are electronic toys,” she went on before I could say a word. “Tell them to shape up! Get with the program!”

  I shook my head sadly. “I don’t think it will work. You should have seen how upset they were yesterday when that techie tried to tell them how to make newfangled toys.”

  “Then beg them to come back to the workshop,” she said. “Get down on your hands and knees, if you have to. Do what ever it takes.”

  I couldn’t argue with The Missus. I knew she was right. I hustled out the door as fast as I could. Didn’t even finish my coffee.

  I raced past the workshop and into the woods where the Elves village was. No one was in the streets when I got there. All the houses were quiet. Smoke curling from the chimneys was the only sign of life.

  Stepping up to the first house, I knocked on the door. This was where Edgar lived with his three-hundred seventy-five year old wife Sue. The Missus and I had been friends with Edgar and Sue for as long as I could remember.

  No one came to the door.

  I knocked again. Louder. Still no one answered. I sighed and went to the next house. No one answered my knock there, either. The more I trudged through the snow, knocking on doors that didn’t open, the more discouraged I got.

  Why were the Elves being so stubborn? I must have asked myself that question a hundred times. After a while I was too discouraged to knock on any more doors. I headed back to the workshop and all those Hug-A-Bears waiting to be made.

  I unlocked the door and went inside. The six Hug-A-Bears I’d made yesterday were exactly where I’d left them. I put on my apron and got right to work. First I laid the pattern on the soft, wooly fabric and cut out the shape of a bear. Then I stitched on the face and put most of the stuffing inside. The next thing was the really important part. Attaching the electronics that made the little bear hug.

  All of a sudden I had the feeling that someone was watching me. Had The Missus come down from the house? I looked around the workshop. There was no one there.

  I sewed the last s
eam. The bear was finished. I put him up to my neck and felt his gentle hug. I chuckled to think of how happy he would make some child and then I hugged him back.

  I worked as fast as I could. I made four Hug-A-Bears before lunchtime. Every so often I’d have that feeling again. The one where it seemed that someone was watching me.

  When The Missus brought my lunch down from the house, I asked her.

  “Have you been checking up on me this morning?” I wondered silently if she thought I was falling down on the job.

  She looked startled. “Me? Spying on you?” she asked. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I shrugged and took a bite of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then she proceeded to tell me about all the e-mail messages she had read that morning and all the wishes she had entered in my ledger.

  By the end of the day I had made eight electronic bears. That was two more than yesterday. But now there were only fifty-three days left until Christmas Eve. Eight times fifty-three was--I counted on my fingers again--four-hundred twenty-four bears.

  That was a hundred more bears than yesterday. But there was no way that it would ever be enough!

  Chapter 10

  THIEVES IN THE WORKSHOP

  I got up an hour early the next morning and skedaddled down to the workshop to get an early start. The sun was just climbing into the sky. I worked as hard as I could until almost midnight. This time I made sixteen bears.

  The next day I made twenty. I was so tired by the end of the day that I could barely crawl back up the hill to the house. But I didn’t care. Christmas was getting closer and closer.

  Day after day I worked almost around the clock. I still had the feeling that someone was watching me, but I didn’t have time to wonder who it was.

  One morning when I came down the hill from the house things seemed different. The first thing I noticed were footprints in the snow. Dozens of them. All around the front door to the workshop. There were so many that it looked like there had been a dance on that very spot.

  I looked in every direction. Nobody was near the reindeer’s barn. Or out by their take-off and landing strip. The woods were quiet, too. I glanced at The Slippery Slope, where the Elves test ride sleds and toboggans. Nobody there, either.

  “Don’t have time to stand out here all morning just gawking,” I muttered in the frosty air. I went inside the workshop and got busy making bears.

  When I got the first one finished, I took it over to put it on the stack of bears I’d already made. Even though I’d lost count of how many I had put together, I was proud of everyone of them. I was beginning to feel like a first class techie myself.

  But when I got to the spot where the bears should have been, they were all gone! Missing! Not one single Hug-A-Bear was there!

  “A thief hit the workshop!” I gasped. Panic was setting in. “Who would do such a terrible thing?” My scalp started to tingle. It felt like spiders were dancing in my hair. My legs got wobbly.

  I peered around the shadowy workshop. With the Elves away, I hadn’t turned on all the lights. Could the thief be lurking in a dark corner? I wondered.

  I tiptoed around the workshop. I peered into dusky corners. I looked under the skate board assembly-line. Behind Barbie’s Dream House and behind her Grand Hotel. Over the rows of bikes waiting for their wheels. I looked everywhere, but I didn’t find the thief.

  Finally I sat down beside a sewing machine and sobbed. Who would do a thing like this? Who could possibly ruin Christmas for all the boys and girls? I didn’t have a clue.

  Or did I?

  I remembered the footprints around the workshop door. Dozens of them. Did they

  belong to the thieves who stole all the Hug-A-Bears?

  Slowly I got to my feet. I’d follow those footprints and catch the thieves, by golly. I’d get those low down, dad blasted criminals if it was the last thing I ever did. They were not going to spoil Christmas. Not if I had anything to say about it.

  I threw open the door and started to step outside. But instead, I stopped stone cold in my tracks.

  There stood the Elves--all seven-hundred twenty-two of them--with huge grins on their faces. But that’s not all.

  They were holding seven-hundred twenty-two Hug-A-Bears in their arms.

  Chapter 11

  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

  “Santa, we’re so sorry we went on strike,” Edgar began. “But you see, in all the years that we’ve been making toys, no one ever told us we couldn’t make toys that children wanted. It really hurt out feelings...at first.” He paused.

  I could see tears in his eyes. But I kept quiet. I knew he had more to say.

  ”Please forgive us,” he went on. “We want to come back to work!”

  The Elves were crowding closer. Each one held up a bear.

  “We’ve been watching you make these cuddly bears that give hugs all by themselves, and we think they’re cool,” added Elvis, one of the younger Elves.

  “We decided making electronic toys didn’t look as hard as we had thought,” said Rufus.

  “Or as scary,” said Climo.

  “So last night each one of us borrowed a bear and took it home,” chimed in Charlie Chin, the only Elf who had no hair.

  By now all the Elves were trying to talk above each other. I held up my hand for silence.

  “Edgar, will you please tell me what’s going on?” I asked when they had gotten quiet. “Why did you...er...borrow the bears?”

  “To take them apart and see if we could put them back together so that they worked again. And we could!” Edgar said excitedly.

  Then every single one of those Elves put the Hug-A-Bear he was holding up to his neck. And right before my eyes every single one of those bears gave a big old hug.

  “And now we know we can make any kind of toys,” said Clayton. His face was beaming. “Even newfangled ones like these.”

  “Please ask the techie to come back and teach us how to make more toys,” said Elmo. “Ask him to come today. We’ve got to get started right away to get all of them made in time for Christmas.”

  “I want to make robot crocodiles,” shouted someone in the back of the crowd.

  “Heather Hoolas!” yelled another Elf.

  The Missus had heard all the commotion and had come out to see what was going on. We stood there hand in hand, listening to the Elves call out the names of the electronic toys they each wanted to learn to make.

  The Missus stood on her tippy-toes and planted a kiss on my cheek. Then she snuggled close. “You did it, Santa. You saved Christmas,” she said softly.

  My heart was swelling with joy. So what if I’d had to learn to use a computer? I thought. It hadn’t been so hard. And who cares that I’d had to become a techie to make electronic toys? It had all been worth it. Every dad blasted bit of it.

  Because girls and boys everywhere would have a merry Christmas this year, after all!