A Holiday Story

Once upon time there was an elf that was totally different from all the other elves. He couldn’t make toys properly and he got picked at by all the other elves, until eventually Santa noticed how he was different. Santa decided either he made a decent toy, or he would be kicked out of the workshop to sleep with the reindeer. Sadly, the elf failed, so one night while he was watching the reindeer practice, one of them took a wrong turn and hurt their reindeer shoe.

That night the elf was getting ready for bed but couldn’t because the reindeer was crying and yelling all night in pain, so the elf stayed up all night with one piece of metal. He knew that he needed to help this reindeer, so he sat there all night trying to make a perfect reindeer shoe just for that reindeer. As the night went by, he hurt his hands, bending and breaking metal to make it perfect.

It was the next morning when Santa came out to the pasture to check in on the reindeer. When all the sudden, the reindeer and Santa noticed that the reindeer was perfectly fine. They noticed he had a new reindeer shoe. Santa had thought, well maybe the reindeer shoe had grown back after the time being, but then he looked at the elf and noticed that his hands were sore and bruised. He looked around and noticed that there were a bunch of reindeer shoes shaped pieces of metal from where the elf has been practicing, restarting just to get it right. Santa then realized, maybe I was wrong about the little elf, and that he can do just as much as all the rest of the elves. Santa runs over to the lonely elf, picks him up, and carries him out to drop off presents.

When Christmas comes around, Santa still felt bad about what happened, so when they came around to the first house, he lets the elf go. Of course, the elf messes up, but Santa thought it was fine because it was the little elf’s first day. The next he was a little better, he just knocked some stuff over, but of course Santa thought the same thing – it’s fine since it’s only his second day on the job. But the next house, Santa noticed that the little elf was improving at the job, so Santa went in with him. Santa even shared a cookie with the little elf. On the way back they are laughing and having fun after a long night of delivering presents. Then all the sudden, the sleigh breaks down so Santa asks the little elf if he thinks he can fix it. The elf excited yells, “Of course Santa!” It took the elf about an hour and thirty minutes, but he got the job done. They made it home safe and lived happily ever after.

Picture of Connor Owens

Connor Owens

Picture of Connor Owens

Connor Owens

In the know

Related Stories

The Beginnings of a New County | Cabinet of Curiosities | Palmetto Bella

The Beginnings of a New County | Cabinet of Curiosities

2021 is a special year for the residents of Aiken County — not only is it a new year of hope after a year of chaos, but it’s also the 150th anniversary of Aiken County’s founding. In January of 1871, state legislator Charles D. Hayne (Barnwell District) proposed an act to create a new county with Aiken as its seat. On March 10, 1871, the act was formally enacted by the South Carolina state legislature. While Hayne was not the first person to promote the idea of a new county, he was the one to get the bill through the state legislature successfully. Names for the new county included the

Read More »
To Keep Christmas Well | Palmetto Bella

To Keep Christmas Well

“…and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well …” It is among the closing lines from Charles Dickens’ classic story, “A Christmas Carol.” It may be one of the best remembered and most cherished sentences in the book. “To keep Christmas well,” I suspect, implies different things to each of us. But in the language of the day when this book was written, it meant to observe, or to honor, or to celebrate something. To actively remember. Perhaps in this year of rather lopsided “celebrations” — with their often double-edged experiences and wobbly sense of imbalance — I have found myself searching for

Read More »
Story of Hanukkah | Palmetto Bella

Story of Hanukkah

Hanukkah is the Jewish Festival of Lights, celebrated to commemorate the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after Judah Maccabee’s victory over the occupying Greek army in 165 BC. In the land of Judah, ruling Syrian King Antiochus ordered the Jewish population to reject all their religious beliefs and practices and worship Greek gods. For fear of the occupying Greek military that enforced King Antiochus’ decree, some Jews obeyed that command, but the majority chose to rebel against it. Thus were sown the seeds of what would ultimately become the celebration of Hanukkah. Fights broke out in a village near Jerusalem when Greek soldiers demanded that the Jewish villagers

Read More »
Rocking Around the (Metal? Holly?) Christmas Tree | Cabinet of Curiosities | Palmetto Bella

Rocking Around the (Metal? Holly?) Christmas Tree | Cabinet of Curiosities

Have you ever watched A Charlie Brown Christmas television special and wondered about the metal Christmas tree lot that Charlie Brown visits? Did you know that cutting down a holly tree almost became illegal in our area? Let’s explore this curious affinity for metal Christmas trees and an early effort to save the holly tree in the latest episode of the Cabinet of Curiosities! The History of Christmas Trees When imagining our ancestors and how they may have spent Christmases a few hundred years in the past, many of us picture a happy family around a large, decorated tree, with a blazing fire in the hearth and children playing at

Read More »