It was a cold and stormy Christmas Eve night at the Crunchwilly’s house on Santa Claus Lane in Guam as Cinder, the official Chimney Pushing assistant to Santa was measuring the VERY tall and Very TIGHT space that Santa would have to traverse to deliver presents to the Chrunchwilly kids Lionel and Babbette.
“TOO TALL TOO TIGHT TOO NIGHT!” complained Cinder after his assessment.
“He’ll NEVER make it down this one! NO NO NO…and …ah….NO!”
Well Santa was growing impatient since he had 1 Billion, Six hundred seventy nine million, Four hundred eighty seven thousand ,three hundred thirteen houses to visit by sunrise .
Oh…we forgot to mention that there was a roaring fire in the Crunchwilly fireplace which added to the challenge of the present present delivery.
As Santa was begging Cinder to…”Please Hurry with a solution” Cinder yelled…… “BUTTER!”
“We’ll slather you up with butter Santa and you’ll just slip your corpulent self right down that chimney like it was 40 years ago.”
Santa ignored the reference to his younger slimmer self (years of cookies and milk) but absolutely refused to resemble “Mrs. Butterworth” on this most auspicious eve. But Cinder persisted and slobbered 37.8 pounds of Land O’ Lakes all over Santa.
Meanwhile Santa was wrapping the Crunchwilly kids presents with aluminum foil to keep them from burning up on the journey down the chimney.
“On the count of three SANTA….One Two THREE!” Cinder pushed and Santa started to slowly slip his way down the tight smoky and rather hot chimney ( but then an unexpected event occurred which truthfully should have been expected ) the butter started to melt, then sizzle, then burn and drip causing the fire below to roar even higher and HOTTER.
“Yipes! Exclaimed Santa as he landed on the hearth with a billow of ashes and yes, ‘Cinders” spraying out and almost catching the Crunchwilly Christmas tree on fire.
“MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!” yelled a rather yellow but ebullient Santa.
But suddenly a huge explosion erupted up the chimney ejecting Cinder along with an amazing array of fireworks into the Guam night sky.
The Guam natives, in response to the display, thought that it just might be the Fourth Of July instead of Christmas Eve.
But about a quarter of a mile away Santa located Cinder lying in the fronds of a palm tree.
Cinder hadn’t hurt anything but his pride but from that moment on Santa always referred to Cinder as “SPARKY”.