Callie and the Untold Tale of the Christmas That Almost Wasn’t

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a big girl named Callie who loved penguins. In fact, Callie loved penguins so much that she knew almost everything there was to know about them. She loved to watch documentaries about penguins on the nature channel and every chance she had she would go to the public library to take out books about penguins. Her goal was to one day be a penguinologist, which is a kind of field biologist that studies penguins. So one year when she heard about a penguin drawing contest that had a penguin watching trip to Antarctica as its grand prize, she KNEW she had to try. 

On her next trip to the library in addition to her usual fare of penguin books, Callie took out some books about wildlife drawing so that she could prepare herself for the contest. After weeks of study and practice the deadline was approaching and Callie finally felt ready. Since Christmas was coming she decided to depart a little bit from strict scientific accuracy, and drew an emperor penguin - the biggest species of penguin - standing next to a Christmas tree surrounded by presents that were all wrapped in beautiful black and white wrapping paper with yellow ribbons, complementing the color of the Emperor Penguin. 

Well, as luck would have it, that detail for the Christmas tree and the beautiful wrapping paper really made Callie’s drawing stand out to the judging panel and they chose her drawing as winner from among hundreds and hundreds of entries, and Callie won the penguin watching trip to Antarctica. In fact, the judges were so impressed with Callie’s drawing that it inspired them to install a real Christmas tree at the penguin watching site in Antarctica, and to surround it with presents wrapped just like the ones in Callie’s picture, with black and white wrapping paper and beautiful yellow bows. When Callie arrived in Antarctica and saw that the judges had made her drawing come to life she felt so happy and honored. Little did she know, that Christmas tree and those presents would contribute to a major Christmas season mixup and lead to the greatest adventure of her life up to that point.

You see, Callie’s trip to Antarctica just happened to be two days before Christmas. Everyone knows that on Christmas Eve Santa travels all over the world on a sleigh pulled by his elite team of highly skilled reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. What is not as widely known is that Santa also goes out two days before Christmas with another team of reindeer. These reindeer, thought not as famous - and if we’re honest, not quite as skilled - as the Christmas Eve reindeer - still play a very important role because it is with their help that Santa prepares for Christmas Eve by doing important jobs like ensuring that stockings are hung and that chimneys are clean, as well as collecting any letters to Santa that haven’t quite made it to the North Pole yet. The reindeer in this pre-Christmas team are named Blizzard, Twilight, Frostbite, Glitter, Zephyr, Jingle, Snowdrift, Starlight and Nova. 

This second team of reindeer are up against a number of challenges. One of course is the unpredictable nature of the work. Some house visits are quick and easy - just a quick peek at the chimney and confirmation of a child’s wish list and that’s it. Others are more complex. For example, if the family is out of town a judgement call needs to be made about whether presents will be delivered to the home for when they return, or to their current location. If delivery is to the current location, that location needs to be added to the pre-check list to ensure everything is ready for the big night. This can involve lots of traveling back and forth, sometimes re-treading ground that the team has already covered. 

There are also times when the team arrives and finds that the expected chimney is missing or non-operational, and then an alternative access route needs to be established. This can be as simple as finding an open window or as complex as whittling a new key - a woodshop elf travels with the crew specifically to handle these cases -  to get in via a side door. Another problem is that unlike Rudolph, Nova who leads the team, does not have a shiny nose and has to use a headlamp instead. The headlamp is a good solution but it’s not perfect. It runs out of batteries, it attracts moths, it is sometimes knocked sideways by clouds, and even in the best of cases it’s not as bright as Rudolph’s shiny red nose. Invariably, the pre-check crew arrives back home exhausted and behind schedule. Usually this is fine because Santa, being extremely magical, needs very little sleep, and the reindeer are able to return to their stable and rest while the main reindeer crew takes over sleigh duties. 

Well, the year of Callie’s Antarctica trip was a particularly difficult one for the pre-check reindeer crew. The weather was atrocious, the chimneys were in a particularly sorry state, and to make matters worse Nova’s headlamp was stolen by a cheeky green parrot somewhere in the vicinity of New Zealand. It was with great relief that the crew, flying in the dark, finally found themselves approaching a great big christmas tree surrounded by snow on what appeared to be the North Pole. 

Blizzard thought, “finally, home sweet home!”

Twilight thought, “mmmmm, time to hit the hay and a nice trough of hot cocoa.”

Frostbite thought, “time for my warm blanket and some rest.”

Glitter thought, “finally, time for an elf to give my coat a brush and tuck me into the barn.”

Zephyr thought, “finally time to get out of this cold wind.”

Jingle thought, “time to settle in and listen to some Christmas tunes.”

Sleepy snowdrift thought, “yawn . . . just in time to close me eyes and dream.”

Starlight thought, “We did it! And home again before first light.”

Santa thought, “wonderful! Plenty of time for a quick wink before I’m off with the Christmas reindeer crew. It’s going to be a good Christmas!

And Nova thought, “I knew I could do it! Rudolph Shmoodoff!”

They landed, and waited patiently as the elves approached to help them off with their harnesses. And waited. And waited. There are the elves, Nova thought, but they’re moving awfully snow.

There are the elves, thought Santa, but why are they walking so funny?

As the elves drew closer the first rays of the sunrise broke across the ice and Santa and the Reindeer gasped. These were not elves at all - they were penguins! 

At the same moment Callie, woken by the clacking of the penguins and the jingling of sleighbells, emerged from her tent to see Santa and his team of reindeer looking very bewildered indeed.

“Callie!” said Santa, checking his list. “I see that you’ve been a very kind girl this year. Can you explain what’s happening here? Where are the elves and the barn? Where is the workshop and Mrs. Clause?”

Callie, glancing at Santa and the exhausted reindeer and knowing how bad the weather had been the night before, surmised what must have happened. 

“Why Santa,” she said, “it looks like you’ve been blown off course! Your workshop, your elves and Mrs. Clause are at the North Pole. You’ve landed in Antarctica which is all the way on the other side of the globe.” Then, puzzling at the sight before her and checking her watch she said, “isn’t it a day early for you to be out? Where is Rudolph?”

Santa explained about all of the preparations needed to have a successful Christmas Eve run and introduced Callie to the axhausted advance team. 

“Callie,” he said, “perhaps you can help us. As you can see my reindeer are very tired. They need a warm place to rest and I must get back to the North Pole before Christmas Eve. These reindeer can’t possibly take me now. What can we do?”

Callie looked around. The expedition tents would be too small for the reindeer, and even once they were warmed up there was no way they would be able to fly Santa’s sleigh all the way back to the North Pole in time for Christmas. “Ok,” she thought, “let’s break the problem down and tackle one thing at a time. First these reindeer need to get warm.”

Looking around her, Callie noticed the local colony of emperor penguins and noticed that they were all huddled together in a circle. “Of course!” the thought, “penguins have adapted their behaviors to survive the harsh conditions of Antarctica. They huddle together for warmth. Since the reindeer won’t fit in a tent, we need to do the same for them.” Callie unhooked the reindeer from their harnesses and showed them how to stand all together, facing to the middle for warmth. The penguins, seeing them standing that way, joined in to form a great circle of penguins and reindeer and the reindeer soon felt warm and were able to get some much needed rest. 

“Now that’s sorted,” thought Callie, “how to get Santa to the North Pole in his sleigh?” Just then she noticed some penguins flying gracefully through the the water just past an old airplane that was on the snow awaiting repairs. Although penguins are flightless they make up for it by being incredibly fast and nimble swimmers, practically flying through the water in search of fish. And the skis the the airplane used to take off and land on snow looked am awful lot like water skis.

“Santa,” she asked, “I know it’s not your usual mode of travel, but what are your thoughts about water skiing?”

To be fair Santa looked a little worried for about half a second but then with a glint in his eye he said, “If it gets me to the roof on time, I’ll try anything once. How do you think I discovered flying around the world with a reindeer team in the first place?”

Callie explained her plan, and they went to work retrofitting Santa’s harnesses and sleigh so that the forty strongest members of the local Emperor Penguin colony could pull it safely and swiftly to the North Pole by sea. From Antarctica, Santa and the penguins travelled across the icy waters of the Southern Ocean toward the Drake passage, which separates Antarctica from South America. The penguins, renowned for their remarkable endurance and assisted by the magic of Santa’s sleigh, arrived at the southernmost point of South America and onward into the Atlantic Ocean, traveling North through the warm waters of the equator. Santa keeps the penguins nice and cool during this part of the journey with a magical snow flurry that worked to cool them down and also hide their unusual journey from prying eyes. They continued on past Saint Helena and the Azores, and as they neared the arctic circle they were joined by puffins and Arctic seabirds who guided them toward the icy waters of the arctic ocean. 

When the penguins reached solid ice and could pull the sleigh no further (penguins do not move efficiently on land) their job was taken over by a team of magical polar bears who returned Santa to his workshop just in time to prep his Christmas Eve reindeer team for an on time departure. 

Meanwhile the heroic penguins, after feasting on some local fish and taking a good rest, return to Antarctica with a smaller sleigh driven by Mrs. Clause who thanked them and tended to the now-rested reindeer team before driving them home to the North Pole. 

With the exception of Callie, kids and their grown ups across the world experienced Christmas as usual that year with one small exception - the wrapping paper on all Santa’s presents featured Emperor penguins in santa hats and were all tied with beautiful yellow bows recalling the distinctive black, white and yellow coloring of the Emperor penguin. To this day, most children the world over do not know of the crucial role that penguins played in Christmas that year, just as they also do not know of the crucial work done every year by Blizzard, Twilight, Frostbite, Glitter, Zephyr, Jingle, Snowdrift, Starlight and Nova. If you ever see a penguin Christmas ornament or a penguin on your Christmas wrapping paper, now you will now why. 

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Hey Maked Up listeners, we heard from your grown ups that some of you are really good artists! We would love to see some of your work and be able to share it with other listeners. Next time you’re bored, we invite you to draw a penguin scene from this story and share it to makedupstories@gmail.com. (Grown ups, in your email please advise us of any preferences about sharing your child’s art on our website and socials - both are completely optional.)