Little Johnny had just moved with his Mom and Dad to this wonderful house that bordered a great forested woodland. Before, Johnny’s family lived in the heart of the city. He had a lot of friends there, mostly school buddies, but it was noisy and there really wasn’t much room to play in the open. And there was the traffic too. A girl down the street had been hit by a car and although she wasn’t hurt enough to spend the night in the hospital, Johnny’s parents sought the refuge of the suburbs and “more natural and “safer” surroundings” as Johnny’s father had said.
Johnny had his own room and there was an additional “bonus” room, they called it, which Johnny used to keep all his many toys.
Johnny liked all the new stuff at their new home but mainly what he liked was the woods.
Johnny was brave for his eleven years, and even though he thought that the woods was the greatest part about his new home he did have to admit that it was pretty dark even in daytime and looked a tiny bit…well…scary.
After scouting the edge of the woods and seeing nothing unusual about the place Johnnie, one bright spring afternoon pushed through the brambles at the edge of the woods closest to his house and after twenty or so feet broke through to a clearing.The bluebirds were busy flying about and he saw three squirrels digging in the ground under a tree. He guessed they were looking for nuts or seeds or whatever squirrels eat and then suddenly Johnny froze! Not moving, not breathing, not blinking…there, not 15 feet ahead of him was a…can you believe…a baby elephant!
Johnny had seen pictures of baby elephants before and oh yeah, even live ones at the circus and the zoo, but here was a real one…five yards away!
The elephant didn’t seem to notice him or if it did, didn’t seem to care that he was there. “I wonder where its mother is. That baby seems too small to be out in the open all by itself.”
Just then the elephant turned its head backward and raised its trunk and blew a loud trumpeting. After but a few seconds, two tiny duplicates of the small elephant ran out from under a bush and huddled under the belly of the original elephant.
What? These “elephants?” seemed to be tiny little toys rather than actual living animals. Johnny rubbed his eyes, looked away and then back again, but they were still just as miniature as ever.
Johnny was sure he was not dreaming but maybe he was being fooled by someone or something. Then as he was looking around the unfamiliar woods, he spotted a six inch tall giraffe. WHAT?
What was happening? Johnny thought about running back to his house but was too intrigued to stop staring at these tiny perfect miniatures of real animals. Then something crawled across his foot. As he looked down he saw the biggest worm that he had ever seen or could even imagine! It was a foot long and thick too. It wasn’t a snake…it had that brown band around it and it dove into a hole in the ground and disappeared.
What was going on?” Johnny wondered. Just then a rhinoceros about 10 inches high sniffed at Johnny’s shoes, where the enormous worm had just crawled and then lumbered over to the worm hole and started digging into the ground with his horn.
All of a sudden there was this extremely loud buzzing that seemed to be getting closer and closer and then, whoosh…the hugest bumble bee that Johnny could have ever imagined, flew by his ear missing his earlobe by less than an inch!
Johnny then noticed the Baby, well, Mother elephant, gather up her two “babies” and hurry them off into the brush, as humongous three feet tall black ants marched through in a straight line, not looking left or right, and headed for the largest tree in the woods.
Johnny couldn’t believe his own eyes, and even ears, at what he was seeing and hearing. If he had been sleeping this would definitely qualify for a nightmare.
The odd thing, well other than all of these wrong sized animals, was that none of them seemed to even notice that he was there!
Johnny felt a little less scared when he realized that, but then thought “What if these creatures decide to notice me?”
So Johnny slowly edged toward the brambles where he had originally entered the woods. He got through safely without even a scratch and happily walked through his back garden and into the house.
“Time to wash up for dinner Johnny, your Dad will be home any minute.”
“OK Mom.” Johnny went to wash his hands and heard his Dad come in the door.
At dinner Johnny’s Dad told about a big sale that he had made and he then asked Johnny’s Mom how she liked living in their new home. She said that she was so happy living there that she didn’t even mind the house cleaning. Then his father asked Johnny…”How was your first day at our new home?”
“Oh…it was OK….would you please pass the salt Dad!”

I have to go to the dentist today
And Boy, I just can’t wait
There are toys and games in the waiting room
It’s gonna be just great

They’ll be lots of other children there
Waiting for their turn
But I might just be the only one
Happy to return

I wasn’t smiling late last week
I had my back tooth drilled
And it didn’t feel much better
When I had to have it filled

But I’m looking forward to today
I’m as happy as can be
‘Cause today I’m not the patient
It’s my sister Melanie!

“Now Tommy, put your hands over your ears “ Tom’s Grandfather didn’t place his hands over his own ears, but Tommy, being the dutiful namesake grandson that he was, complied.
At precisely eight PM, it seemed as though Grampa Carson’s entire house clanged, gonged, dinged, chirped, and rang out with numerous other sounds.
After the cacophony from too many clocks, or as Grampa referred to many of them as timepieces, Tommy released his ears.
“Wow, Grandpa!”
“Yes, wonderful wasn’t it?”
Tommy Carson the Third, seldom visited his Granddad since his family moved to Wisconsin six years before when he was one.
“Well, they are pretty loud when they…ah, go off, aren’t they?” Tommy asked.
“I’m used to them and would miss it if I silenced them. I do have silent ones, four in fact. My sundials! Ha! But I admit one of my sundials has been running a bit slowly lately!”

Grandpa Tom looked at his grandson out of the corner of his eye to see if Tommy realized that sundials can’t run slowly.
“Oh, it isn’t slow Grandpa, it’s just because it’s nighttime!”
Grandpa Tom hugged his “boy’s boy” as he sometimes referred to him and asked if Tommy wanted to see his “clock shop.”
“I’d love to. Could we eat potato chips and drink a coke while we do that?”
“Ha…sure we can. I’ve got pretzels too!
“Like chips better, but bring ‘em anyhow!”
There was a shed out in back of Granpa Carson’s house and it had a sundial right in front and a large black and white clock hanging on the side wall which, by the way, was showing the wrong time, one hour earlier.
“That clock is wrong Grandpa!”
“Well, it actually isn’t. It always shows the time at YOUR house!”

When his Grandpa opened the double doors there were so many parts of clocks on benches and large springs hanging on the walls and small, medium and large numbers, both Digital and Roman were everywhere.
“Do you build clocks too Grandpa?”
“Well, no, but I fix them.”
“Could you teach me how to fix clocks?”
“It takes a lot of time and you would have to really love clocks to put all of the time into it! Pardon the pun!”
Then Grandpa Carson explained to Tommy exactly what a “pun” was.
“I’m working on a Cuckoo clock right now. The little bird is a bit shy and I think also oversleeps too!”
“Is that a PUN Grandpa?”
“No, that was a poor joke.”
“How long does it take you each day to wind all of your clocks Grandpa?”
“It takes about an hour by the time I finally wind up!”
“THAT was a pun, RIGHT?”
“Yep!”
“Who winds all of your clocks when you go on vacation?”
“Nobody. That’s why I don’t go away much.”
“When I grow up and you go away, I’ll come and wind ALL of your clocks and keep them right on time, even the sundials!”

“Gee…gnats are a gnuisance” Phil said.
Then suddenly Phil heard a very very small high pitched voice say “Gnot all Gnats are Gnot Gnice Buddy!”
Phil looked around and couldn’t see where that itsy bitsy voice came from.
“Hey…Buddy…over here…gnot over there!” A tiny Gnat was yelling at Phil.
“Oh…yes….I think I see you.”
“Well…Gnats get a bad reputation…undeserved in my humble opinion.”
“Well….what do Gnats like you do?” asked Phil.
“Ah…we can pollinate orchids.”
“We don’t have any orchids…what else?”
“Ah…we can eat very tiny pests from plants.”
“They must be REALLY tiny all right.”
“Well…yeah….but we’re here anyway so live with it…besides I think that you are being a very big pest. You humans are always swatting at us poor gnats and that’s gnot gnice.”
Then Phil asked “Why do you spell your name with a “G” anyhow?”
“‘Cause we were gnamed by the same gnut that gnamed the Gnu

Kate and Shirley
Were feminine and girly
And it seemed they always agreed
Well, except for their hair
They didn’t agree there
They had different opinions indeed!

Shirley’s was curly
And Kate’s was straight
‘Though they both were pretty brunettes
Each had hair like their Mother’s
But they wanted each other’s
As opposite as it ever gets

So Kate got up early
To make her hair curly
It took hours to make it so
Each night Shirley’s up late
Making her hair straight
The process was very slow

Then it all changed
Things got rearranged
When they started dating boys
It all started with Kate’s
Redheaded boyfriend Nate
Then Shirley began making noise

Now Kate gets up later
‘Cause Nate likes her hair straighter
And she’s not at all tired anymore
And Shirley goes to bed early
Her blond boyfriend likes curly
And she’s getting more rest than before

Now the two girls agree
It’s is better to be
Whoever you naturally are
But then Shirley said
“I’d like my hair red
I would be happier by far”

Kate quite agreed
“And I think that I need
To stop being a boring brunette
I don’t want to deceive
But I must achieve
The blondest hair that I can get!”

Both their parents said “Girls
We don’t care, straight or curls
When you dyed it we weren’t even appalled
But we’re begging you
Whatever you do
Please never date anyone bald!”

He didn’t mind being cold…frozen even, but Sammy the Sad Snowball wanted to be more than just temporary winter sports ammunition.
“Maybe I could be part of a great snow sculpture or even part of a snowman , or snow-woman, although I’ve never seen one of those.”
“Those were kind hands that shaped me into what I am today, and by the way, I do feel lucky that I wasn’t thrown at someone and maybe hurt them as I hit!”
“But I just have the feeling that I could be something more important, more helpful, part of something big and wonderful.”
Sammy was just sitting there, along the side of the park pathway when a warm knitted gloved hand lifted him up and caressed him, rounding him even more than he had been.
He was then carried over to the newly dedicated Memorial statue of a soldier and a cannon that was covered in snow.
“What a great statue ” thought Sammy. “Someone made that with their hands just as I was made. Of course bronze isn’t snow but the method is kinda similar.”
Then Sammy was gently placed down on the top of the base of the statue where he had a good view of the soldier and the cannon and of all of Main Street and the people.
Then an older couple came up to look at where Sammy was. They brushed off lots of snow from the soldier and the cannon and then stepped back to view the newly revealed sculpture.
The woman said to the man “Isn’t it a nice tribute to the soldiers?”
Then the man replied…”My yes…and so creative too. I think the best part is how someone used a single real snowball to represent the cannonball. It makes the whole tribute just perfect!”

‘Twas the day after Christmas
And all through the store
Great lines of people
stretched out of the door

They carried those presents
Unwrapped and unwanted
That they received yesterday
They were tired but undaunted

“I want to get something
In exchange for my gift
It’s been a tiring Christmas
And I need a lift!”

“That’s not why I’m here
Oh no, no…. not me
I just love my present
But I already have three!”

“I’m bringing mine back
That I got from my Honey
It’s kinda nice
But I’d rather have money!”

“I really like my gift
In fact, I think it’s great
But it was given to me
By someone I hate!”

“I can’t wait in line
Very long in this store
I’ve got other presents
That came from five more”

“I’ve got no time for this
And it’s a heck of a trek
We had family over
And the house is a wreck!”

“I know what you mean
I’m the same way too
I’m so glad it’s over
There’s too much to do”

“Well I’m very happy
To be in this store
Because counting today
There’s 364 more…

Days until Christmas
The most it can be
And the more days there are
The happier are we!”

And there were those too,
Who were saddened a bit
They only were there
‘Cause their gifts didn’t fit!

So Santa was finished
And Christmas was done
But the post Christmas cleanup
Is surely not fun

But it is a tradition
Every year at this time
And we have to give gifts
Almost spend our last dime

But it’s good for business
So it never ends
That’s why were all here
With most of our friends

Then one tiny hand
Reached out…tugged a skirt
“God hear’s you talking
And I know it must hurt

It’s his baby’s birthday
Jesus his son
That’s why we have Christmas
‘Cause he loved everyone

For our gift He gave Jesus
To us one and all…
Our gift’s in the manger
And not in the mall!”

“Eve Dear, have you seen this year’s Christmas list? I can’t seem to locate it.”
Santa was looking in all the usual places.
“Why no Snookums, I haven’t seen it since last December”…replied Mrs. Claus.
“Well that was last year’s “GOOD” list and things may have drastically changed since then.” Santa said, while accidentally overturning the ribbon bin.
“Perhaps one of the elves has it to get a count of how many of a certain gift to make.” Mrs. Claus suggested.
“No…Elphonso would have told me…but I’ll check with him anyway.”
Santa buzzed the workshop on his special phone that was a gift from the C.E.O. of A.T.and T. who never did forget that Santa had brought him the Southern Pacific train set one Christmas when that C.E.O.’s parents were unemployed.
“Yes Boss…Elphonso here!” ansered the senior elf.
Santa asked about the list but got no positive answer from the busy workshop.
“Oh my!” exclaimed Santa. “Without that list even very misbehaving children will be getting top shelf gifts and that would set a very bad precedent!”
“Maybe the children who KNEW that they were not really as good as they could have been during the year will appreciate the kindness and forgiveness if you treat them as “Good List” kids.” Mrs. Claus slyly suggested.
“Hmmm….well…it may come to that if I can’t locate my list.”
Santa resumed digging through the back of the closet under the red and white trimmed suits stored there.
It was WAY too late to compile a new list and it wouldn’t be fair to use last year’s list, so Santa just sat in his big easy chair and resigned himself that Mrs. Claus’ suggestion of gifting EVERY kid would be his decision for at least this Christmas.
And kids…that was YESTERDAY!
So…all of you kids out there that were not exactly on your best behavior this year, (and you all know who you are) will get a gift from the Jolly Old Elf this Christmas.
So my suggestion to you is to enjoy the benefits of a “Good List” kid and do your very best to earn your own way onto the list next year.
Because we all know that Santa isn’t going to lose next year’s list don’t we!