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📖 Pip and the Lost Letter: a Father Christmas bedtime story
5 min read
At the very top of the world, where the snow squeaks under your boots and the stars hang so low you could almost tickle them, there is a workshop with a red front door. And in that workshop lives the smallest elf of all. His name is Pip.
Pip has pointy ears, a striped scarf that is far too long, and a hat with a bell on the end that goes jingle every time he nods. Which is a lot, because Pip agrees with nearly everything.
Every morning in December, Pip has one very important job. He carries the letters.
Children all over the country write to Father Christmas. They write in pencil and in felt tip, in big wobbly capitals and in neat joined-up writing. Some letters have drawings. Some have stickers. One, last year, had a slightly squashed biscuit taped to the back.
Pip collects every single letter from the post room and carries them, in a big woven basket, all the way to Father Christmas's armchair by the fire. Father Christmas reads every one. Every single one. That is the rule.
A gust of wind
On the twelfth of December, the wind was in a cheeky mood.
Pip stepped out of the post room with his basket piled high. He had just reached the bottom of the steps when WHOOOSH! A gust came racing round the corner of the workshop, lifted the top letter straight off the pile and whirled it up, up, up into the grey sky.
"Oh no," said Pip. "Oh no, no, no!"
He put the basket down very carefully, tucked his scarf in so he would not trip over it, and ran.
The search begins
The letter fluttered over the gingerbread bakery. Pip ran past the bakery.
It swooped over the toy-painting shed. Pip ran past the shed, waving at the painters, who waved back with their brushes and splashed a little green paint on the snow.
Then the wind dropped, the letter wobbled, and it disappeared behind the big hill where the reindeer like to roll.
Pip puffed up the hill. He looked left. He looked right. He looked under a snowdrift, which was a mistake, because snow went down the back of his neck.
"Have you seen a letter?" he asked a snowy owl, who was sitting on a fence post.
The owl blinked slowly. "Whooo is it for?"
"Father Christmas," said Pip. "And he reads every one. It's the rule."
The owl turned her head all the way round, which Pip always found very impressive, and then pointed one wing towards the stables.
The stables
The reindeer stables were warm and smelled of hay and carrots. The reindeer were having their mid-morning nap, all except the youngest, a small reindeer called Bramble, who was far too excited about Christmas to sleep.
"Bramble," whispered Pip, "have you seen a letter?"
Bramble looked very innocent. Bramble looked at the ceiling. Bramble looked at her hooves.
Then from the hay beside her came a tiny squeak.
Pip knelt down. There, in a cosy hollow in the straw, was a little brown mouse. And tucked around the mouse, like a duvet, was the letter.
"It flew in through the window," said Bramble. "And Mouse was cold. So we thought, just for a minute..."
Pip smiled. He was very good at understanding about being cold.
"Mouse," he said kindly, "may I borrow your blanket? It's for Father Christmas, and he reads every one. But I'll bring you something even cosier."
The mouse thought about it, nodded, and climbed out. Pip took off the end of his very long scarf, the end that always dragged on the floor anyway, and made a little nest. The mouse curled up in it at once and fell asleep.
The letter
Pip ran all the way back, picked up his basket, and arrived at the armchair by the fire completely out of breath.
"Sorry I'm late," he panted. "One of the letters went on an adventure."
Father Christmas chuckled, a deep, rumbly chuckle like a kettle starting to boil. He took the crumpled letter, smoothed it out on his knee and put on his little round glasses.
It was from a girl called Amira, who was six.
Dear Father Christmas, it said. How are you? Are the reindeer warm enough? I hope you are not too tired on Christmas Eve. Here is a picture of you having a rest. Love from Amira.
And underneath was a drawing of Father Christmas, fast asleep in a hammock, with all the reindeer tucked up in a row beside him.
Father Christmas was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed so much his tummy wobbled.
"Pip," he said, "do you know, nobody has ever asked if the reindeer are warm enough. Fetch me a pin."
So Pip fetched a pin, and Amira's drawing went up on the wall above the fireplace, right in the middle, where everyone could see it.
Every letter
That night, when the workshop was quiet, Pip went to check on the mouse. She was still asleep in the scarf nest, snoring very softly.
Bramble was awake, of course.
"Pip," she whispered, "was it a good letter?"
"It was a wonderful letter," said Pip. "They all are. That's why he reads every one."
And with a little jingle from the bell on his hat, Pip tiptoed back through the snow to bed.
The end.
Talking about the story
- Why do you think Father Christmas reads every single letter?
- Amira asked how Father Christmas was. What would you ask him?
- Can you draw a picture of the reindeer keeping warm?