A Christmas mission to Lapland
Scott and Megan Roberts (aged 6 and 4) set out on a Christmas mission to Lapland
One night last November, when we arrived home from school, Mummy and Daddy told us they had heard strange sounds behind our garage.
We put on our wellies and ran excitedly to the back of the garden where Daddy parks his car. Balancing on top of the builders’ rubble and our old bikes was a pile of sparkly boxes. Each one contained a jumper with a picture on it. Megan and Daddy had a snowman, Scott had a Santa Claus and Mummy had a sparkly penguin.
In ours we also had a rolled up sheet of thick paper, tied with a red bow. Written in swirly hand writing, like we’d seen in old books, it said: Dear Megan and Scott, I hear from my robins that you have been very good this year.
I’d like you to come and meet me at the North Pole.
Your mummy and daddy can come too. It’s very cold, so I have asked my elves to send you some new jumpers to keep you warm. See you soon! Lots of Love, Santa x
For a moment we didn’t quite understand. Then Mummy and Daddy explained. We had been written to by the real Santa Claus, and he’d posted us the boxes and the letter from his home at the North Pole. We’ve both seen all the helpers who look like Santa that appear around town at Christmas. But this was the real Santa, inviting us to visit him in his real home at the real North Pole.
And he’d sent us new jumpers to keep us warm. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were. Thank goodness we’d been good! A few weeks later Mummy and Daddy drove us to the airport. Santa had sent a special plane to collect us and some other lucky children.
When we arrived at the airport at the North Pole we had to collect our suitcases, but before they arrived we spotted two elves with pointy ears who had been hiding under the place where the bags go round.
They were very naughty elves, because they kept tapping people on the back and then running away. It made us laugh a lot.
All around the airport it was snowy. There was a man dressed in funny clothes that Mummy said everyone would have worn here years ago. He had a pet reindeer. We gave it a carrot. It looked a bit like Sven from Frozen. In fact, everything looked frozen.
Our hotel was made from wood. The room was really big and had a TV. There was a kitchen where Mummy could cook our tea. That night we went for a ride on special machines that could go through the snow. They were like the ones from Scott’s Star
Wars LEGO. Daddy drove one, and we snuggled under a blanket in another with Mummy. We went through the car park and out into the forest.
Eventually we arrived at a place where there was a bonfire and a man who gave us hot chocolate with marshmallows in it. The grown-ups said we had come to see the Northern Lights, but someone had switched them off. The next day we went to a secret place in the forest. There were loads of fun things to do, like sledging, rides on a sleigh pulled by real reindeer, and a show starring the elves.
But then we got into a special sledge and went down a path through the trees where there was a little wooden house. Inside the house, sitting beside a roaring fire, was the real Santa Claus. He looked the same as lots of other Santa Clauses we’d seen, but his tummy was even bigger and his beard even longer and whiter than anyone else’s.
He knew our names, and he asked us what we wanted him to bring us on Christmas night. He said we could take a picture and gave us an early present.
On the way home we heard Mummy and Daddy say that it had cost a lot, and that the food ‘left a bit to be desired’. We didn’t understand what they meant. Santa hadh di invited id us to come forf free. And anyway, on Christmas Day we got exactly what we had asked Santa for, so it was worth it.
I hope we get invited again this year, although Santa said there are a lotl off childrenhild ini the world that he wants to invite. And if any silly boys or girls at school say ‘there’s no such thing as Santa Claus’, we will know they’re fibbing, because we have met him.