The Story of the Christmas Angel

Most of us have already put up and decorated our Christmas trees. We've strung the lights, draped the tinsel, and hung the ornaments. Everyone has a different philosophy of how to decorate their tree, but there's one thing that is pretty much an either-or choice: the ornament that goes on top of the tree is almost always either a star ...

or an angel ...

This is the story of how the angel came to sit on top of the Christmas tree ...

It was a particularly busy and difficult time at the North Pole, many years ago. The latest shipment of toy components from China was late, putting on-time production of finished toys at risk. The Elves Union (North Pole Chapter #592) was on strike for better benefits (including health care and dental) and higher pay. A delivery of hay to the reindeer barn was spoiled, and the reindeer were flying around with severe diarrhea, seriously besmirching the pure white snow around Santa's enclave. Rudolph had a bad cold and his nose had gone dark, so Santa was trying (so far, unsuccessfully) to figure out how to program his optimum route with his new Garmin GPS unit. It was the wrong time of the month for Mrs Santa, and she was in a bad mood, grousing at Santa to do something about the pooping reindeer and the striking elves chanting outside the window.

Through it all, Santa tried to keep up with things and maintain his holiday good cheer. But as he sat at his desk late one night working on his inventory sheets, the nib on his pen broke, spreading a huge blot of ink across the neat columns of figures he'd spent all day trying to bring into order. Suddenly, all the pressures and difficulties caught up to Santa ... he picked up the ledger and threw it out the window at the picketing elves, snapped his pen in half, and hurled the pieces into the fireplace, and dropped back down at his desk with his head in his hands.

Just at that moment, the door to the office flew open and in walked a beautiful little angel, carrying a gaily-decorated tree twinkling with lights and glittering with beautiful ornaments. The angel stood before Santa's desk, looked at him with eyes bright and shining with love, and asked gently,

"Hey, Santa ... what should I do with this tree?"

Have a good day. Be here tomorrow for the Christmas Edition of Cartoon Saturday.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo