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Funny Christmas story: Father Christmas learns to skate
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Behind the workshop at the North Pole there is a little lake. All summer it ripples and splashes. But in winter, it freezes into a big, smooth, shiny mirror.
One morning, the elves came running into the kitchen.
"Father Christmas! The lake is frozen! Come skating with us!"
Father Christmas put down his cup of tea. "Skating?" he said. "Well... I've never actually been skating."
The elves stared at him. "Never?"
"Never," said Father Christmas. "There's always so much to do. But today," he said, and his eyes twinkled, "today I shall learn."
The skates
Pip the elf found a pair of skates in the shed. Big black ones, with long silver blades. They had been waiting there for years.
Father Christmas sat on a bench and laced them up. Tight, tighter, tightest. Then he stood up.
His ankles wobbled. His knees wobbled. His tummy wobbled.
"Easy," he said. "Nothing to it."
He stepped onto the ice.
Whoosh! His feet went one way. The rest of him went the other way. And...
BUMP.
Father Christmas sat on the ice, on his bottom, with his legs in the air.
"Ho," he said. "That was quicker than I expected."
Again
The elves helped him up. Father Christmas took a step. And another one. And...
BUMP.
He tried holding his arms out like wings. BUMP.
He tried bending his knees. BUMP.
He tried going very, very slowly. That was the slowest BUMP of all.
The elves giggled. Father Christmas laughed too, so hard that his beard shook. "My bottom is going to be as cold as a snowman's," he said.
Pip has an idea
"Father Christmas," said Pip, "when I learned to skate, I pushed a chair in front of me. Shall we try that?"
Pip fetched a wooden chair from the kitchen. Father Christmas held on to the back of it with both hands.
Push, glide. Push, glide.
The chair slid over the ice. And Father Christmas slid along behind it. Wobbly, but upright.
"I'm doing it!" he called. "Look, everyone! I'm skating!"
Round the lake he went, with the chair. Once. Twice. Three times.
Without the chair
"Now let go," said Pip. "Just for a moment."
Father Christmas took a deep breath. He let go of the chair. He pushed with one foot. He glided...
And he glided...
And he did not fall over!
He glided all the way to the other side of the lake, his arms out wide and his scarf flying behind him.
The elves cheered. The reindeer, watching from the bank, stamped their hooves. Even a snowy owl in a tree went "Hoo-hooo!"
Then Father Christmas tried to stop.
BUMP.
"Stopping," he said from the ice, "is a lesson for tomorrow."
Hot chocolate
That afternoon, they all sat by the fire with hot chocolate. Father Christmas had a cushion on his chair, just in case.
"Do you know what I learned today?" he said.
"How to skate?" said Pip.
"That too," said Father Christmas. "But mostly that falling over is part of learning. And it's a lot more fun when you can laugh about it."
Things to talk about
- How many times did Father Christmas fall over? Can you count them?
- What helped him to skate in the end?
- What is something you learned by trying again and again?
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