Dick Waters Wins Flash Fiction Challenge

“Sit down my children and gather around. I need to tell you a story of Christmas’ past. Some say it is just a legend, but you can judge for yourself. There is special magic that happens just on Christmas Eve.

Many years ago, Christmas morning joy had been threatened. When Santa assembled the reindeer that Christmas Eve, all the reindeer including Rudolph, had the dreaded ‘Reindeer Flu.’ The story that’s been passed down is that a moose named Mo the monster pulled the sleigh that year all by himself. When Santa’s sleigh returned early Christmas morning, the reindeer changed his name to Maurice because he was nice.

There have been other close calls to no presents on Christmas morning. This one is about Maureen the Christmas Moose. They say that Maureen was Maurice’s joyous offspring. She inherited the magic of being able to fly…but only on Christmas Eve, and followed Santa every year. They say it was to eat some left behind Christmas cookies.

Well this one year there was a mighty storm. Santa’s grand bag containing all those presents ripped, and children’s presents were falling out.

Did you ever not get Christmas presents?”

“No,” responded the children.

“That’s right! Legend has it that Maureen saw what was happening and quickly dove down and hooked a large burlap sack with her large antlers, and collected all those falling presents. Do you know what Santa did for Maureen?”

“No what?”

“He went on a diet that night.”