Tales From Moominvalley

by Tove Jansson

  Moominmamma opened her secret drawer and took out her book of paintings, the one and only coloured book in all the valley.

  Moomintro’s present was so lavish and private that he showed it to no one. Not even afterwards, in the spring, did he tell anyone what he had given away.

  Then they all sat down in the snow again and waited for the frightening guest.

  Time passed, and nothing happened.

  Only the small woody who had upset the cup of tea appeared from behind the woodshed. It had brought all its relations and the friends of these relations. Everyone was as small and grey and miserable and frozen.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ the woody whispered shyly.

  ‘You’re the first to say some such thing,’ Moominpappa said. ‘Aren’t you at all afraid of what’s going to happen when Christmas comes?’

  ‘This is it,’ the woody mumbled and sat down in the snow with its relations. ‘May we look? You’ve got such a wonderful fir tree.’

  ‘And all the food,’ one of the relations said dreamingly.

  ‘And real presents,’ said another.

  ‘I’ve dreamed all my life of seeing this at close quarters,’ the woody said with a sigh.

  There was a pause. The candles burned steadily in the quiet night. The woody and its relations were sitting quite still. One could feel their admiration and longing, stronger and stronger, and finally Moominmamma edged a little closer to Moominpappa and whispered: ‘Don’t you think so too?’

  ‘Why, yes, but if…,’ Moominpappa objected.

  ‘No matter,’ Moomintroll said. ‘If Christmas gets angry we can close the doors and perhaps we’ll be safe inside.’

  Then he turned to the woody and said: ‘You can have it all.’

  The woody didn’t believe its ears at first. It stepped cautiously nearer to the fir tree, followed by all the relations and friends with devoutly quivering whiskers.

  They had never had a Christmas of their own before.

  ‘I think we’d better be off now,’ Moominpappa said anxiously.

  They padded back to the verandah, locked the door and hid under the table.

  Nothing happened.

  After a while they looked anxiously out of the window.

  All the small creatures were sitting around the fir tree, eating and drinking and opening parcels and having more fun than ever. Finally they climbed the fir and made fast the burning candles on the branches.

  ‘Only there ought to be a star at the top,’ the woody’s uncle said.

  ‘Do you think so?’ the woody replied, looking thoughtfully at Moominmamma’s red silk rose. ‘What difference does it make once the idea’s right?’

  ‘The rose should have been a star,’ Moominmamma whispered to the others. ‘But how on earth?’

  They looked at the sky, black and distant but unbelievably full of stars, a thousand times more than in summer. And the biggest one was hanging exactly above the top of their fir tree.

  ‘I’m sleepy,’ Moominmamma said. ‘I’m really too tired to wonder about the meaning of all this. But it seems to have come off all right.’

  ‘At least I’m not afraid of Christmas any more,’ Moomintroll said. ‘I believe the hemulen and his aunt and Gaffsie must have misunderstood the whole thing.’

  They laid the hemulen’s yellow mittens on the verandah rail where he’d be sure to catch sight of them, and then they went back to the drawing-room to sleep some more, waiting for the spring.