How Santa Became
By J.R. Hughes
Hundreds of years ago Santa Claus was a young man between the ages of 100 and 200. Santa back then was quite different from the Santa we know now, so how did Santa become who he is today?
Baby Santa was born in a cold and windswept place, the very first thing he felt was a snowflake on his forehead. When Santa's mother, a human, and his father, an elf, saw their baby they thought he was the most perfect and beautiful baby ever, so they named him Santa. Everyone wanted to take pictures with Santa; grandparents, aunt's, uncle's, cousins, neighbors, shop keepers, everyone. And he was such a happy baby that some people nicknamed him Jolly.
While it wasn't completely unheard of for a human and elf to get married, it was still strange. Fortunately, Santa's father was considered a tall elf, and Santa could grow as tall as an ordinary man and live forever.
Santa was a fast and hungry baby, from the time he could crawl if you lost him all you had to do was follow the cookie trail. Santa's mother made cookies for her son every day, and when those were gone he would go to the neighbors’ house and eat their cookies. He would go from house to house eating everyone's cookies, and of course, drinking milk, as all babies do.
Little Santa was quite a rambunctious child and liked to pull pranks. Some pranks were good, and some were bad, but his very favorite was the sock prank. At night, once his parents fell asleep he would sneak into their drawers and steal their socks. In the morning when his parents got dressed a nasty surprise waited for them in their stockings. One time a spider, another time soap. Ice cubes, blocks, cheese, silverware, jacks, crumpled paper, and various insects all made their way into Mr. and Mrs. Claus’s socks. But one day Santa thought it would be nice to do a fun prank so he slipped an orange slice into his dad’s socks so that Father Claus could have a snack as he got dressed. Although this stocking surprise was better than previous ones Mr. Claus was tired of Santa having no discipline so he dragged his son to work with him. Mr. Claus worked with lots of other elves in a factory making all sorts of things from dishes to lawn ornaments. Santa was taking a tour through his father's factory when he got distracted by a room full of toys. He played with as many toys as he could get his hands on, but a lot of them were unfinished; nobody had worked in that room for a long time. Santa tried to make the toys himself, but he didn't know what he was doing. Then he saw a group of elves walk past and he called them in. Although Santa had a young face, he was taller than these elves and told them that if the toys weren't completed by the end of the week they would be getting paid on coal on the 25th. The elves believed him and went to work right away.
As Santa got older he became very popular, everyone loved him. They would invite him over for dinner, birthdays, and family parties. Santa was happy to join in the fun and always tried to bring the best gifts. But eventually, it came time for Santa to fly the coop. He decided he wanted to try somewhere far away and hoped on the Reindeer train line to see where it would take him. Santa figured since he was starting a new life in a new place he should try a new name. He had always liked the name Kris, so he chose that to be his first name, but he needed a new last name. He couldn't be Kris Claus. As Santa, or Kris, sat on the train trying to come up with a new last name a food trolley came by. Kris bought the most decadent-looking thing on the trolley and took a bite of it.
"That's delicious!" He exclaimed. "What's it called?"
"A kringle." The sweet old lady pushing the cart said. As she walked away Kris had figured out his new last name. Kris got off the train in a bustling snowy city. He stopped the first person he saw and asked if there was anywhere he could stay.
"There are poles all around the town. Go to the northmost pole, the north pole. You'll find something up there." Said the man. So Kris Kringle started walking to the north pole. People stopped and stared at Kris, but he just smiled and waved. As he made his way to the north pole he passed a shop and looked in the window. He saw a woman in the window with lots of children around her feet, she had just finished reading them a story. He saw fresh baked cookies sitting on her counter and licked his lips. He was going to make his way inside when the young woman stood up and walked outside. Kris couldn't explain it, but he was enchanted by this woman. She wore a red dress and had silver hair. Her eyes looked like she had seen many things, and there was plenty of her to hold on to. Immediately Kris could see the two of them growing old and fat together. Wearing their reading glasses and caps, eating cookies by the fire. He was going to approach the woman, but she went into the stables behind her shop. Kris followed her in and watched as she tended to her horses.
Kris wanted to introduce himself but was too nervous.
"Ho-ho-ho," he stuttered.
"Excuse me?" Said the woman as she turned to face Kris.
"How are you?" Kris finally asked. The woman introduced herself as Noel and Kris learned she was a half-elf too. She was about 500 years older than Kris and wondered if a relationship would be improper, but Kris told her he had waited this many centuries to find her, he wouldn't let a couple of dozen decades get in the way. The two talked for a few hours until the sun started to set, and Kris realized he had no place to stay. He promised that as soon as he got a roof over his head he would come back and ask Noel on a date.
Kris ran to the North pole and knocked on the door of the biggest house he saw. A man opened the doors and Kris asked if there was anywhere he could stay. The man let Kris inside and told him there was an extra bedroom he could rent. Kris was ecstatic and handed over some rent money, before racing back to find Noel.
Things were going wonderfully in Kris' new town of San Nicholas. Kris became good friends with all of his roommates, and they would hang out whenever he wasn't with Noel. Kris took Noel on lots of dates and they had new experiences together. They even tried to explore an old legendary house, but when they couldn't get in through any doors or windows Kris climbed up on the roof and began to try sliding down the chimney. Noel tried to stop him, afraid that he might get stuck, but Kris was just skinny enough to slide through and land in the fireplace, and although he put on a brave face for Noel the experience had frightened him and he began fattening up so that he would never be tempted to try it again.
Kris' roommates liked him a lot, but every night when he got home he would keep them up for hours talking about how much he loved Noel and how wonderful she was. They finally got sick of it and figured the only way to avoid hearing Kris' long sagas about his girlfriend was to be asleep before he got home. Luckily for them, Kris hadn't bought a car yet, so whenever he took Noel on a date they had to take the train, and the reindeer train lines wouldn't bring Kris back to the house at the North Pole until after midnight. So as midnight approached all of his roommates hurried into bed so that they could be asleep before Santa got home and would be spared hearing about every detail of his night with Noel.
A few weeks later Kris bought the only means of transportation he could afford, a sleigh. He pulled up outside of Noel's shop to take her on a date, but when he walked inside Noel was so stressed she was almost in tears.
Kris asked her what was wrong, and Noel told him that tomorrow she was having a party for all the kids who came to her class, and she was trying to make enough cookies in time, but that a lot of kids had been being very naughty lately and she was very stressed and didn't know what to do. Of course, Kris offered to help her and he started to make a batch of cookies while Noel sat down and made a list of all of her students. Kris told her to write the nice ones first and put the naughty kids' names at the end.
After the cookies were put in the oven and Noel had been able to relax she and Kris started talking. They had a lovely conversation and didn't think about any of their worries until the smell of smoke made its way over to Noel. She asked Kris what was burning and at the same time, they looked at each other and shouted.
"The cookies!"
The two ran over to the oven and pulled the cookies out. They were burnt beyond recognition. They were harder and blacker than coal. This worried Noel because now she had to make another batch for her class to replace the ones that Kris had burnt. But Kris had another idea. He told Noel that he should give the cookies he burnt to the naughty kids and give the good cookies that Noel made to the nice kids. That will teach the naughty kids that if they want the better cookie then they need to behave and earn it for the next party.
Noel didn't love that idea, but she was exhausted and wanted to go on her date with Kris. So she decided to let the cookies wait, and they climbed into the sleigh and Santa took him all over the town. They went from house to house speeding through the snow, neither Kris nor Noel could believe how fast the sleigh went. If they closed their eyes it felt like they were flying from place to place in hardly any time. By the time the date was over, there was no time for Noel to make any more cookies so she decided to do what Kris suggested and gave the naughty kids the coal cookies.
Noel’s father, Mr. Christmas, liked Kris, but he was protective of his daughter so he set a rule that he thought it would be impossible for them to find a loophole for. Father Christmas told Noel and Kris that they could only kiss if there was a plant with green leaves and white berries hanging above them. Kris didn’t like this rule, because he thought it would be impossible for him to kiss Noel, but he respected her father and obeyed his orders. Fortunately, Noel had once found a place that was perfect for the two of them to go. On their next date, Noel took Kris to a place where green-leaved white-berried plants grew in abundance called Mistletoe cove, and Noel and Santa kissed all night while still obeying the rules.
Kris hadn’t planned on staying in San Nicholas for very long, but he loved it so much that he decided to make it his permanent home and he went back to being called by his real name, Santa Claus. Santa’s sleigh needed work, and he started building a workshop where he could fix it. Kids from Noel’s class would love to go to Santa's workshop because they liked to spend time with the boisterous elf, and he would give them things that he had made in his workshop, but after he proposed to Noel he knew that they would need somewhere to live, so Santa expanded his workshop and made it into a home for him and Mrs. Claus. The two lived there for hundreds of years and spread joy and happiness and love to everyone they met. After a few hundred years San Nicholas had grown so large it felt like the whole world lived there. Santa and Mrs. Claus would get on their sleigh and dash through town; sometimes riding all night as they visited all of the houses leaving welcome gifts for their new neighbors. Eventually, people stopped coming to San Nicholas and started moving out, but Santa and Noel were so happy there that they decided to stay, so even though they were all alone off in the cold North Pole the two did exactly as Santa had imagined they would when he first met Noel. They grew old and fat together wearing their matching caps and glasses and Santa grew out his long white beard. Santa heard the stories that people told of him and wanted to make people’s Christmas dreams come true so he started doing the things people told him Santa said he did. The stories of Santa grew and were passed from father to child to grandchild and though the story was changed and twisted people never forgot the two who made life in San Nicolas so wonderful and thousands of years later Santa still is.
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