The Pug who Saved Christmas
It was a rainy cold day just a week before Christmas. The pugs were inside warming themselves by the wood stove after running around outside in the rain. Pugnella was in her workshop hammering on something, and there was a wonderful smell of a mincemeat pie cooking that permeated the house.
Pugnacious was sitting in his easy chair, smoking his pipe. He had just finished looking through the Holiday edition of the Ellsworth American. He rustled and rumpled the papers as he folded it back and put all the sections together, and was just reaching for the Weekly Packet when Pugnuts said, “Tell us a story, Papa!”
Pugnacious always had lots of stories to tell, and the pug puppies were bored. Somehow the smell of wool mittens (there were 12 of them for the three pups) warming by the wood stove always acted as a soporific. The puppies were drowsy and all curled up together at their father’s feet.
“That sounds like a good idea, Pugnuts,” said Nash, “And I’ve got the perfect story for a day like today.” He leaned closer to the pugs. “Have you ever heard the story about the Pug who saved Christmas?”
Pugwiggly, Pugwaddly, and Pugnuts looked back with wide eyed wonderment, because they had just learned about Christmas and Santa Claus, and it seemed strange that Christmas would need saving, since Santa Claus had such magical powers!
“No,” they chorused, “What happened?”
“Well,” said Pugnacious, “As you know, Santa has magical powers that help him deliver presents to all the boys and girls in the world in a single night. Have you wondered how he does it - how Santa flies to all the houses in a single night?”
“He does it,” continued Pugnacious, “because when he flies the reindeer time slows down for him, so Santa has time to get to all the houses. In fact it slows down so much that Christmas night lasts for two years as far as Santa is concerned!”
The pugs looked very puzzled.
Nash looked at them and scratched his head. “I suppose I’m not very good at explaining things either, but when you go to school you’ll learn all about this. A great professor named Stephen Hawking has some theories on how this works, because Santa is moving faster than the speed of light, and that does funny things to how time passes. But all we know is that Santa manages to deliver all his presents every year in a single night.”
“And because that night seems to last for years, Santa gets very, very hungry! That’s why we always leave him cookies and a little glass of milk to enjoy when he comes to visit and why he eats some from every plate in every house he visits!”
“Getting to the first house takes months as far as Santa is concerned as he travels from the North Pole. That means a long time for Santa before his first plate of cookies. What do you suppose Santa eats to keep his strength up as he journeys to that first house?”
The pugs looked solemnly back at their father.
“I don’t know” said Pugwaddly, looking worried. “you mean he has no food for months?”
“No,” said their father. “I didn’t say he had no food for months, and remember, this all happens in a single night - it’s just Santa who thinks it takes months.”
“Then he must be hundreds and hundreds of years old,” said Pugwiggly, who was the best at doing math.
“Thousands and thousands of years old,” their father said. “That’s why his beard and hair are snow white.”
Pugnacious continued, “Well what he eats is a special kind of gingerbread. A single piece is so nutritious it keeps Santa fed for a whole week, so he takes it with him to feed him on the first part of his journey until he gets to the first house with the first plate of cookies and milk.”
This is the story of how one time he almost didn’t get his gingerbread in time for Christmas:
One Christmas eve Santa was busy loading his sleigh with toys. Santa and the elves had been loading toys all night. The sleigh was riding low on its runners from the weight, but otherwise it seemed like a routine Christmas Eve.
Santa was dressed in his green velvet working suit and looked very fit and hearty as he checked the harnesses for the reindeer. None of the reindeer were hitched up to the sleigh yet, because they had two hours before leaving. It wasn’t hard to know where they were, though, because there was a lot of jingling of sleigh bells coming from the barn and the exercise paddock beyond. Every now and then the sky would light up as one of the reindeer would snort flying dust out of his nostrils, and more flashes as they kicked more flying dust up with their hooves. The Aurora Borealis that makes the flying dust was especially bright this year and made the flying dust powerful!
Santa loved this part of his journey as he anticipated making all the boys and girls happy with their presents. There was the long journey ahead of course, and while it seemed to take years for Santa, it would all be done in a single night. Santa liked not having to rush. “Old Einstein was almost right,” the elf chuckled, “Time does slow down when you’re moving fast, - it’s just that it stays just the same for the folks back home. But I like it better when it’s just called magic.”
“Ho, Ho, Ho,” Santa said softly to himself thinking of the fun he has each year, and how confusing it must be to people trying to figure out how he does it.
Meanwhile, back in Santa’s big house, Mrs. Claus was making Santa’s special gingerbread. This was one of the most important jobs at the North Pole, and Mrs. Claus didn’t trust it to anyone else. She’d perfected this recipe over the centuries. Flour, of course, and eggs, and ginger and reindeer milk. No baking soda for this gingerbread, though. Mrs. Claus used only the lightest, brightest flying dust collected from the giant mirror basket on the top of the house for leavening. And for energy, she used a special windmill to collect cosmic rays from the exact center of magnetic north. This was very difficult as the position of magnetic North changed every year, so she had to send the elves out to locate where to put the windmill to collect and process the cosmic rays. They got caught up on the sails of the windmill, and were collected in a special glass barrel as cosmic candy where they waited to be mixed into the gingerbread every year. The light from the barrel was every color of the rainbow and was so brilliant that Mrs. Claus kept it in a special cupboard until it was ready to be mixed into the gingerbread.
On this particular night Mrs. Claus was having some trouble with her gingerbread. First the flour was too coarse and she had to sift it again, then the eggs were too small and she had to send the elves out to get more eggs. They were all out of Ostrich and Christmas Goose eggs, but she was lucky that someone had brought her Penguin eggs all the way from the South Pole. In fact, in the past when she’d used Penguin eggs, Santa had really enjoyed her gingerbread, so she was glad she could use them again.
She was whipping the batter with her special whisk and humming Oh Tannenbaum happily under her breath as she checked the clock and saw that she was just going to make her deadline without a minute to spare. As she whirled around the kitchen her apron strings fluttered like streamers caught in a hurricane.
A very handsome pug dog named Spunk was sitting out of the way next to the fireplace. Spunk was Mrs. Claus’ kitchen dog and was responsible for keeping the mice away from the food while she cooked. Spunk was a handsome jet black dog with beautiful brown eyes - the only white was on the tip of his curly tail. Spunk always sat next to the fireplace because it offered the best view of the entire kitchen. He had been Mrs. Claus’s kitchen dog for so long that he knew all of the recipes by heart and could probably have cooked everything as well as Mrs. Claus except perhaps for her special gingerbread recipe.
Mrs. Claus had a very special oven in the stone fireplace that Santa Claus had built centuries before. The oven had a big iron door adorned with a Christmas Tree design that had some very old magic in it - as the oven heated, the ornaments on the Christmas tree would change from dull grey iron to bright colors - blue for warm, green for medium, red for hot, and bright red for very hot. There were even some colors for in-between temperatures. It was very clever blacksmithing to create such a magical oven door, and it was also fun to look at.
Right now Spunk was eyeing the oven and all was on schedule. The green indicated that the oven was almost ready. Mrs. Claus was bustling around the kitchen and was at a critical point - adding the flying dust and cosmic candy to the batter. As she tipped the flying dust into the cosmic candy her hand slipped. The mixing jar fell on the floor, spilling some of the precious dust onto the tiles. She looked up to check the clock - it was late but she still had just enough time to finish! The batter glowed and glittered with power as she turned it into the giant gingerbread pan.
Spunk jumped out of the way as Mrs. Claus opened up the oven door and put the pan in. She was muttering to herself that she was sure that the missing cosmic candy and flying dust wouldn’t affect the gingerbread, but she had a worried expression on her face as she turned around to clean up the mess the jar had made when it fell on the floor.
“Spunk,” said Mrs. Claus, “You need to stay away from this - it is pure cosmic candy and flying dust and would be very dangerous for you to touch.”
Spunk waited for her to turn around to adjust the heat on the oven down for baking, but Mrs. Claus was sweeping up the glass and flying dust into the dustbin. She gave one glance to the oven and saw that the tree’s ornaments just turned red, ready for baking She set her favorite timer for 30 minutes and turned to leave. Spunk barked and ran over to her to tell her that the oven needed to be turned down, but she closed the door before he got to her.
Spunk was alone in the kitchen and the gingerbread was going to burn! If the gingerbread burned then Santa wouldn’t have anything to eat until he got to the first house with cookies and milk, and he’d be hungry for months! Maybe even too weak to slide down the chimney! Mrs. Claus had already used up all of her year’s collection of cosmic candy and flying dust so she couldn’t make another batch even if there was enough time. This was a terrible crisis!
Spunk ran round and round the kitchen - he glanced at the oven - the ornaments blinked red and were starting to glow brighter. If they turned to purple all the gingerbread would be ruined. If they turned white, the whole kitchen would explode! Spunk had heard the elf repairing the oven say that when the oven got to white it was hotter than the sun in July!
The controls for the oven were way up high on the fireplace chimney, far to high a reach for Spunk.
The ornaments were starting to glow bright red and move to orange!
Spunk raced over to the worktable and a tiny flash of light caught his eye. It was the cosmic candy and flying dust that Mrs. Claus had spilled. Suddenly Spunk knew what he had to do. He ran over to the spot and licked the tile. Mrs Claus had said it was dangerous, but it was the only way to save the gingerbread and to save Christmas. Even though it was only a few specks, Spunk hoped it would be enough to somehow help.
Suddenly Spunk sat back on the floor and shot across the floor, trailing sparks and rainbows as he slid! He hit the wall next to the fireplace and stars shot across his vision. Suddenly he was flying! He looked at the clock on the wall - the pendulum was stopped - the fire on the logs was at a standstill, and even the dust motes in the air were motionless! He was in the Santa Claus time flow! Now he had all the time in the world, and he could fly!
Spunk wasn’t sure how long his new powers would last, so he flew up to the oven and turned down the controls to their proper settings. The colors on the indicators went back from almost orange to a brownish red, just right for cooking gingerbread. The gingerbread was saved and Santa would have enough food to last until the first plate of cookies! Christmas was saved!
Spunk looked around the kitchen as he floated back to the floor, wondering how long the effect of the flying dust would last. The clock was hardly moving. It was only a little flying dust and cosmic candy, but Spunk was a lot smaller than Santa Claus. The door was closed and all of Spunk’s food was in the pantry, and there was nothing to eat in the kitchen - this was only where the baking was done and Mrs. Claus was all out of ingredients. Spunk settled down feeling hungry.
“Flying sure takes a lot of energy”, Spunk thought.
Spunk settled down for a nap, hoping that when he woke time would be sped up again. When he woke, the clock’s hand only had moved two seconds.
“I sure am hungry,” Spunk said to himself as he looked around the kitchen for something to eat. He looked in the trash can and found the broken bits of glass and some more of the flying dust. “I’m not going to eat any more of that!” he thought
He looked under the table, but the elves were very meticulous and had cleaned the floor to a sparkle. There was nothing to eat!
He looked in the cupboards and found nothing.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, and slowly floated up to the highest cupboards in the kitchen, opening one after another.
Nothing to eat, not even a crumb.
Spunk told himself that he just would need to be patient and either the cosmic candy would wear off or the 30 minutes would pass. Either way eventually Mrs. Claus would come back and all would be well.
“I have to be patient,” said Spunk to himself as the hours went into days.
After the first week, Spunk noticed that he was getting thinner - he was hungry, but since he’d always been a little chubby, he didn’t mind losing a little weight.
After the second week, Spunk was hungry and thirsty, but he noticed that the clock hands had started to move more normally.
The third week passed and Spunk was so weak that he had a hard time getting up to check the clock to see if it had moved. Now it was showing twenty minutes had passed. Only ten minutes to go in normal time before the gingerbread was cooked and Mrs. Claus came back to the kitchen!
When the kitchen clock finally showed 30 minutes had passed, Spunk didn’t know it because he was too weak to get up from his basket by the fireplace. From his perspective, 2 months had passed since he’d eaten the flying dust and cosmic candy and saved the gingerbread. He was skin and bones and his mouth was parched.
Mrs. Claus rushed into the kitchen. “Oh my goodness, I forgot to turn down the temperature!” she exclaimed as she rushed across the kitchen to the oven. She expected to see Santa’s gingerbread ruined, which she knew would mean that Christmas would have to be cancelled. “Oh dear, what a FUBAR Christmas,” she thought in a panic as she ran over to the oven, apron strings flying.
Much to her great surprise, everything was fine - the gingerbread was perfect, the multicolored steam rising with sparkles and stars as she removed the pan from the oven. She scratched her head with one of her knitting needles as she tried to figure out how the gingerbread was saved.
As she set the pan on the table she heard a faint cough by the fireplace. Over in the basket there was a tiny black form, not much bigger than a Christmas cupcake.
“Spunk, is that you?” called Mrs. Claus in wonderment. “What happened?”
Spunk weakly wagged his tail and stuck his tongue out. He tried to get up but was too weak.
“I can’t imagine what has happened to you! When I left the kitchen 20 minutes ago you were happy, healthy and chubby. Now you’re thin as a wraith!”
Mrs. Claus called into the elf’s workshop - “Send Sparky to the kitchen! Something’s wrong with Spunk and we need his help! Hurry!”
Sparky came running.
“What is it Mrs. Claus?”
“Look at Spunk - 20 minutes ago he was fine, but I just came into the kitchen and he’s thin as whiff of smoke! Can you find out what’s wrong?
Sparky leaned down to look at Spunk. He sniffed Spunk and felt his hind toe. Then he jingled his elf had bell to see if Spunk could hear it.
Sparky straightened up and said, “He’s suffering from cosmic candy fever. Have you fed him any?”
Mrs. Claus said “No, and all the kitchen help knows that they’re to stay away from it! Unless…”
Mrs. Claus looked at the spot where she’d spilled the jar of cosmic candy.
Then she looked at the oven.
She looked at Spunk.
Suddenly she knew.
Spunk! You saved the day! I don’t know how you did it, but I know you must have changed the oven controls. Did you fly?
Spunk weakly wagged his tail.
Mrs. Claus wiped a tear from her eye. “Sparky, you must do everything you can to make Spunk well again! He saved Santa’s gingerbread!”
At this point Pugnacious stopped and looked at his pups, all wide-eyed at his feet.
“Did Spunk live?” squeaked Pugnuts.
“Oh yes, Sparky saved him and soon Spunk was up and running all over the place,” said Pugnacious. In fact, once he was better, Mrs. Claus made him her first assistant in the kitchen.
Now you know why Santa has gingerbread to get started on Christmas Eve, but you also know why he needs your cookies and milk as he goes from house to house. Carrying toys and lugging them down the chimney is hard work!
The puppies squealed with delight and ran into the kitchen to decide what kind of cookies they would make for Santa. Pugnacious grunted with satisfaction that the puppies were entertained for a while, re-lit his pipe and settled back in his chair to enjoy the latest Weekly Packet newspaper from Blue Hill.
The log settled in the fire, sparks flew, and a few snowflakes started to drift against the window of the cozy little Pug’s house as they settled in to wait for a visit from Santa.
Merry Christmas from your friends at Pugnuts Ice Cream Shop!
Pugnacious was sitting in his easy chair, smoking his pipe. He had just finished looking through the Holiday edition of the Ellsworth American. He rustled and rumpled the papers as he folded it back and put all the sections together, and was just reaching for the Weekly Packet when Pugnuts said, “Tell us a story, Papa!”
Pugnacious always had lots of stories to tell, and the pug puppies were bored. Somehow the smell of wool mittens (there were 12 of them for the three pups) warming by the wood stove always acted as a soporific. The puppies were drowsy and all curled up together at their father’s feet.
“That sounds like a good idea, Pugnuts,” said Nash, “And I’ve got the perfect story for a day like today.” He leaned closer to the pugs. “Have you ever heard the story about the Pug who saved Christmas?”
Pugwiggly, Pugwaddly, and Pugnuts looked back with wide eyed wonderment, because they had just learned about Christmas and Santa Claus, and it seemed strange that Christmas would need saving, since Santa Claus had such magical powers!
“No,” they chorused, “What happened?”
“Well,” said Pugnacious, “As you know, Santa has magical powers that help him deliver presents to all the boys and girls in the world in a single night. Have you wondered how he does it - how Santa flies to all the houses in a single night?”
“He does it,” continued Pugnacious, “because when he flies the reindeer time slows down for him, so Santa has time to get to all the houses. In fact it slows down so much that Christmas night lasts for two years as far as Santa is concerned!”
The pugs looked very puzzled.
Nash looked at them and scratched his head. “I suppose I’m not very good at explaining things either, but when you go to school you’ll learn all about this. A great professor named Stephen Hawking has some theories on how this works, because Santa is moving faster than the speed of light, and that does funny things to how time passes. But all we know is that Santa manages to deliver all his presents every year in a single night.”
“And because that night seems to last for years, Santa gets very, very hungry! That’s why we always leave him cookies and a little glass of milk to enjoy when he comes to visit and why he eats some from every plate in every house he visits!”
“Getting to the first house takes months as far as Santa is concerned as he travels from the North Pole. That means a long time for Santa before his first plate of cookies. What do you suppose Santa eats to keep his strength up as he journeys to that first house?”
The pugs looked solemnly back at their father.
“I don’t know” said Pugwaddly, looking worried. “you mean he has no food for months?”
“No,” said their father. “I didn’t say he had no food for months, and remember, this all happens in a single night - it’s just Santa who thinks it takes months.”
“Then he must be hundreds and hundreds of years old,” said Pugwiggly, who was the best at doing math.
“Thousands and thousands of years old,” their father said. “That’s why his beard and hair are snow white.”
Pugnacious continued, “Well what he eats is a special kind of gingerbread. A single piece is so nutritious it keeps Santa fed for a whole week, so he takes it with him to feed him on the first part of his journey until he gets to the first house with the first plate of cookies and milk.”
This is the story of how one time he almost didn’t get his gingerbread in time for Christmas:
One Christmas eve Santa was busy loading his sleigh with toys. Santa and the elves had been loading toys all night. The sleigh was riding low on its runners from the weight, but otherwise it seemed like a routine Christmas Eve.
Santa was dressed in his green velvet working suit and looked very fit and hearty as he checked the harnesses for the reindeer. None of the reindeer were hitched up to the sleigh yet, because they had two hours before leaving. It wasn’t hard to know where they were, though, because there was a lot of jingling of sleigh bells coming from the barn and the exercise paddock beyond. Every now and then the sky would light up as one of the reindeer would snort flying dust out of his nostrils, and more flashes as they kicked more flying dust up with their hooves. The Aurora Borealis that makes the flying dust was especially bright this year and made the flying dust powerful!
Santa loved this part of his journey as he anticipated making all the boys and girls happy with their presents. There was the long journey ahead of course, and while it seemed to take years for Santa, it would all be done in a single night. Santa liked not having to rush. “Old Einstein was almost right,” the elf chuckled, “Time does slow down when you’re moving fast, - it’s just that it stays just the same for the folks back home. But I like it better when it’s just called magic.”
“Ho, Ho, Ho,” Santa said softly to himself thinking of the fun he has each year, and how confusing it must be to people trying to figure out how he does it.
Meanwhile, back in Santa’s big house, Mrs. Claus was making Santa’s special gingerbread. This was one of the most important jobs at the North Pole, and Mrs. Claus didn’t trust it to anyone else. She’d perfected this recipe over the centuries. Flour, of course, and eggs, and ginger and reindeer milk. No baking soda for this gingerbread, though. Mrs. Claus used only the lightest, brightest flying dust collected from the giant mirror basket on the top of the house for leavening. And for energy, she used a special windmill to collect cosmic rays from the exact center of magnetic north. This was very difficult as the position of magnetic North changed every year, so she had to send the elves out to locate where to put the windmill to collect and process the cosmic rays. They got caught up on the sails of the windmill, and were collected in a special glass barrel as cosmic candy where they waited to be mixed into the gingerbread every year. The light from the barrel was every color of the rainbow and was so brilliant that Mrs. Claus kept it in a special cupboard until it was ready to be mixed into the gingerbread.
On this particular night Mrs. Claus was having some trouble with her gingerbread. First the flour was too coarse and she had to sift it again, then the eggs were too small and she had to send the elves out to get more eggs. They were all out of Ostrich and Christmas Goose eggs, but she was lucky that someone had brought her Penguin eggs all the way from the South Pole. In fact, in the past when she’d used Penguin eggs, Santa had really enjoyed her gingerbread, so she was glad she could use them again.
She was whipping the batter with her special whisk and humming Oh Tannenbaum happily under her breath as she checked the clock and saw that she was just going to make her deadline without a minute to spare. As she whirled around the kitchen her apron strings fluttered like streamers caught in a hurricane.
A very handsome pug dog named Spunk was sitting out of the way next to the fireplace. Spunk was Mrs. Claus’ kitchen dog and was responsible for keeping the mice away from the food while she cooked. Spunk was a handsome jet black dog with beautiful brown eyes - the only white was on the tip of his curly tail. Spunk always sat next to the fireplace because it offered the best view of the entire kitchen. He had been Mrs. Claus’s kitchen dog for so long that he knew all of the recipes by heart and could probably have cooked everything as well as Mrs. Claus except perhaps for her special gingerbread recipe.
Mrs. Claus had a very special oven in the stone fireplace that Santa Claus had built centuries before. The oven had a big iron door adorned with a Christmas Tree design that had some very old magic in it - as the oven heated, the ornaments on the Christmas tree would change from dull grey iron to bright colors - blue for warm, green for medium, red for hot, and bright red for very hot. There were even some colors for in-between temperatures. It was very clever blacksmithing to create such a magical oven door, and it was also fun to look at.
Right now Spunk was eyeing the oven and all was on schedule. The green indicated that the oven was almost ready. Mrs. Claus was bustling around the kitchen and was at a critical point - adding the flying dust and cosmic candy to the batter. As she tipped the flying dust into the cosmic candy her hand slipped. The mixing jar fell on the floor, spilling some of the precious dust onto the tiles. She looked up to check the clock - it was late but she still had just enough time to finish! The batter glowed and glittered with power as she turned it into the giant gingerbread pan.
Spunk jumped out of the way as Mrs. Claus opened up the oven door and put the pan in. She was muttering to herself that she was sure that the missing cosmic candy and flying dust wouldn’t affect the gingerbread, but she had a worried expression on her face as she turned around to clean up the mess the jar had made when it fell on the floor.
“Spunk,” said Mrs. Claus, “You need to stay away from this - it is pure cosmic candy and flying dust and would be very dangerous for you to touch.”
Spunk waited for her to turn around to adjust the heat on the oven down for baking, but Mrs. Claus was sweeping up the glass and flying dust into the dustbin. She gave one glance to the oven and saw that the tree’s ornaments just turned red, ready for baking She set her favorite timer for 30 minutes and turned to leave. Spunk barked and ran over to her to tell her that the oven needed to be turned down, but she closed the door before he got to her.
Spunk was alone in the kitchen and the gingerbread was going to burn! If the gingerbread burned then Santa wouldn’t have anything to eat until he got to the first house with cookies and milk, and he’d be hungry for months! Maybe even too weak to slide down the chimney! Mrs. Claus had already used up all of her year’s collection of cosmic candy and flying dust so she couldn’t make another batch even if there was enough time. This was a terrible crisis!
Spunk ran round and round the kitchen - he glanced at the oven - the ornaments blinked red and were starting to glow brighter. If they turned to purple all the gingerbread would be ruined. If they turned white, the whole kitchen would explode! Spunk had heard the elf repairing the oven say that when the oven got to white it was hotter than the sun in July!
The controls for the oven were way up high on the fireplace chimney, far to high a reach for Spunk.
The ornaments were starting to glow bright red and move to orange!
Spunk raced over to the worktable and a tiny flash of light caught his eye. It was the cosmic candy and flying dust that Mrs. Claus had spilled. Suddenly Spunk knew what he had to do. He ran over to the spot and licked the tile. Mrs Claus had said it was dangerous, but it was the only way to save the gingerbread and to save Christmas. Even though it was only a few specks, Spunk hoped it would be enough to somehow help.
Suddenly Spunk sat back on the floor and shot across the floor, trailing sparks and rainbows as he slid! He hit the wall next to the fireplace and stars shot across his vision. Suddenly he was flying! He looked at the clock on the wall - the pendulum was stopped - the fire on the logs was at a standstill, and even the dust motes in the air were motionless! He was in the Santa Claus time flow! Now he had all the time in the world, and he could fly!
Spunk wasn’t sure how long his new powers would last, so he flew up to the oven and turned down the controls to their proper settings. The colors on the indicators went back from almost orange to a brownish red, just right for cooking gingerbread. The gingerbread was saved and Santa would have enough food to last until the first plate of cookies! Christmas was saved!
Spunk looked around the kitchen as he floated back to the floor, wondering how long the effect of the flying dust would last. The clock was hardly moving. It was only a little flying dust and cosmic candy, but Spunk was a lot smaller than Santa Claus. The door was closed and all of Spunk’s food was in the pantry, and there was nothing to eat in the kitchen - this was only where the baking was done and Mrs. Claus was all out of ingredients. Spunk settled down feeling hungry.
“Flying sure takes a lot of energy”, Spunk thought.
Spunk settled down for a nap, hoping that when he woke time would be sped up again. When he woke, the clock’s hand only had moved two seconds.
“I sure am hungry,” Spunk said to himself as he looked around the kitchen for something to eat. He looked in the trash can and found the broken bits of glass and some more of the flying dust. “I’m not going to eat any more of that!” he thought
He looked under the table, but the elves were very meticulous and had cleaned the floor to a sparkle. There was nothing to eat!
He looked in the cupboards and found nothing.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, and slowly floated up to the highest cupboards in the kitchen, opening one after another.
Nothing to eat, not even a crumb.
Spunk told himself that he just would need to be patient and either the cosmic candy would wear off or the 30 minutes would pass. Either way eventually Mrs. Claus would come back and all would be well.
“I have to be patient,” said Spunk to himself as the hours went into days.
After the first week, Spunk noticed that he was getting thinner - he was hungry, but since he’d always been a little chubby, he didn’t mind losing a little weight.
After the second week, Spunk was hungry and thirsty, but he noticed that the clock hands had started to move more normally.
The third week passed and Spunk was so weak that he had a hard time getting up to check the clock to see if it had moved. Now it was showing twenty minutes had passed. Only ten minutes to go in normal time before the gingerbread was cooked and Mrs. Claus came back to the kitchen!
When the kitchen clock finally showed 30 minutes had passed, Spunk didn’t know it because he was too weak to get up from his basket by the fireplace. From his perspective, 2 months had passed since he’d eaten the flying dust and cosmic candy and saved the gingerbread. He was skin and bones and his mouth was parched.
Mrs. Claus rushed into the kitchen. “Oh my goodness, I forgot to turn down the temperature!” she exclaimed as she rushed across the kitchen to the oven. She expected to see Santa’s gingerbread ruined, which she knew would mean that Christmas would have to be cancelled. “Oh dear, what a FUBAR Christmas,” she thought in a panic as she ran over to the oven, apron strings flying.
Much to her great surprise, everything was fine - the gingerbread was perfect, the multicolored steam rising with sparkles and stars as she removed the pan from the oven. She scratched her head with one of her knitting needles as she tried to figure out how the gingerbread was saved.
As she set the pan on the table she heard a faint cough by the fireplace. Over in the basket there was a tiny black form, not much bigger than a Christmas cupcake.
“Spunk, is that you?” called Mrs. Claus in wonderment. “What happened?”
Spunk weakly wagged his tail and stuck his tongue out. He tried to get up but was too weak.
“I can’t imagine what has happened to you! When I left the kitchen 20 minutes ago you were happy, healthy and chubby. Now you’re thin as a wraith!”
Mrs. Claus called into the elf’s workshop - “Send Sparky to the kitchen! Something’s wrong with Spunk and we need his help! Hurry!”
Sparky came running.
“What is it Mrs. Claus?”
“Look at Spunk - 20 minutes ago he was fine, but I just came into the kitchen and he’s thin as whiff of smoke! Can you find out what’s wrong?
Sparky leaned down to look at Spunk. He sniffed Spunk and felt his hind toe. Then he jingled his elf had bell to see if Spunk could hear it.
Sparky straightened up and said, “He’s suffering from cosmic candy fever. Have you fed him any?”
Mrs. Claus said “No, and all the kitchen help knows that they’re to stay away from it! Unless…”
Mrs. Claus looked at the spot where she’d spilled the jar of cosmic candy.
Then she looked at the oven.
She looked at Spunk.
Suddenly she knew.
Spunk! You saved the day! I don’t know how you did it, but I know you must have changed the oven controls. Did you fly?
Spunk weakly wagged his tail.
Mrs. Claus wiped a tear from her eye. “Sparky, you must do everything you can to make Spunk well again! He saved Santa’s gingerbread!”
At this point Pugnacious stopped and looked at his pups, all wide-eyed at his feet.
“Did Spunk live?” squeaked Pugnuts.
“Oh yes, Sparky saved him and soon Spunk was up and running all over the place,” said Pugnacious. In fact, once he was better, Mrs. Claus made him her first assistant in the kitchen.
Now you know why Santa has gingerbread to get started on Christmas Eve, but you also know why he needs your cookies and milk as he goes from house to house. Carrying toys and lugging them down the chimney is hard work!
The puppies squealed with delight and ran into the kitchen to decide what kind of cookies they would make for Santa. Pugnacious grunted with satisfaction that the puppies were entertained for a while, re-lit his pipe and settled back in his chair to enjoy the latest Weekly Packet newspaper from Blue Hill.
The log settled in the fire, sparks flew, and a few snowflakes started to drift against the window of the cozy little Pug’s house as they settled in to wait for a visit from Santa.
Merry Christmas from your friends at Pugnuts Ice Cream Shop!