Jen's Christmas Nightmare

I wasn't as relaxed as my loving husband appeared to be, but then he had served and lived through a world war. I may have been through a battle, but only 'remembered' via the words written in my own hand, either St Nick or The Magic of Christmas had totally removed my adventure from my memories and I had only vague dream-like snatches of what had happened, so I couldn't help having misgivings about what lay before us.

But I was with my husband, I was strong and resolved and this was an attempt by us to be the saviours of my family, even if my family didn't even exist yet. At least we were together, whatever happened.

We grasped the Santa Claus figurine together, my hands over my husband's and on a countdown of "3-2-1" we thought of our Hollyhock Hill home and that strange familiar room with the green carpet in 2045 as we closed our eyes.

My journal account said I didn't feel anything the first time and by now I was a veteran of teleporting, even though I couldn't remember them and still didn't have the power to generate teleports myself. We must have arrived silently as the room we entered with the green carpet was eerily quiet. I released my grip on Junior's hand and looked around the room until my eyes locked on Shane's laser scarred face that was aged and pinched over the harsh years of imprisonment.

He was stood there with a knife in his hands sneaking up on James who was dozing in what I now assumed was his usual spot on the settee.

"You!" Both Shane and I exclaimed at the same time.

Our eyes were focused on each other as I slipped the paint gun that James had gifted to me in the bright yellow (and still slightly wet painted) Secret Santa parcel, while Shane reached out with his other hand to grab James before stabbing him. Only in my peripheral vision could I see Junior trying to get past me, but I feared we would both be too late to,save James' life.

Then, and I could see this in slow motion, two spikes, with red wires attached to them hit Shane in the chest. Instantly he shivered as between three and four milliamperes of electrical charge incapacitated his muscles and he fell to the ground and out of sight behind the settee. At the other end of the electrical cables James was sitting up with the laser gun in his hand.

"Hi, Mums, hi Pops. I wasn't actually expecting to see either of you, but I was definitely expecting him, so I borrowed one of their abandoned tasers and left you Sati's gun as a present instead. I thought you'd need something to remind you that we kids should learn how to shoot. As you were so vague about things, not just you as the time traveller, but as my Mum over the years, knowing that something was brewing but not quite remembering what or when and therefore covering all the bases by having all your children ... shall we say prepared for this eventuality. I decided that as all the other Saturnalists had gone back to where they came from and this fellow was left behind, that he would carry the can for them all."

"That's Shane," I said, "he was Stephanie's boyfriend, which is how he got into the North Pole and planted his first portal, then brought others through with him, or the larger portal needed for the monsters may have already been folded up inside, he said he travelled light, he probably didn't have room for much more than would fit in an elf's duffle bag. Cannot understand how Junior didn't realise he wasn't nice though."

"He's not human, honey," Junior said, "I couldn't find the naughty because he was able to disguise his true thoughts from me."

"Poor Stephanie, I expect she'll be heartbroken."

"Not Aunt Steph supernova," piped in James, "she's a—"

"No spoilers!" both Junior and I exclaimed at once.

"Sorry, folks, just fridge out, relax," James waved his hands up and down. "Look, as soon as I got home last night, about two seconds after the Saturnalists were routed—"

"Wait," Junior asked, "how did you get to our time?"

"Ah, I had followed Mums using Sats' figurine and thinking about the Main Square two minutes to midnight on Saturday 21 November 2020. I almost missed the action, but could see the situation go tear-drop when Mums was grabbed, so I found a good position and started firing. As you could see, Sats' fav col is bright yellow, she's always joking that she's a ray of sunshine in our lives and of course she really is—"

"Spoilers!" both Junior and I exclaimed at once, then shaking our heads. Kids!

"Oops." James said, "OK folks, I've got this, you can get back home using Sati's snowman, it's on the coffee table there. I'll ring 999 as soon as you go and this bod'll get another 20 for breach of parole, breaking and entering and attempted murder. I'll ask St Nick if he can wipe his memory after the short trial so he won't remember us in another 20 years."

"How did he break in?"

"Quite clever, really. I saw him arrive and recorded him on the security screen, he had cut open a mitten and then used it to get through the door."

"According to the journal I gave him a mitten to help staunch the blood from his leg wound."

"I suppose he still had it on him when he was arrested and it was returned to him with his possessions when he was released on parole, today, three hours ago." Junior suggested.

"As I was gobbing, I searched for him on Google," James said, "I only heard you call him Shane, so I search for Shane and your home town and he popped up in the news about six months into 2021, on trial for terrorism charges, convicted as Shane Deakin, 20, and sentenced to 25 years at Her Majesty's Pleasure with no parole until then. I tracked him back in the news to the initial arrest. Aunt Stephanie was never mentioned, but years later, a bunch of family were drunk one Christmas doing shots and 'truth or dare'. Aunt Stephanie owned up about her first boyfriend being a terrorist gaoled for 25 years and that he had actually stayed at the NP cottages with her for one weekend. I found another reference to him again and he was listed as being released today, so my taser was all charged up and I was ready for him. I'll do a quick edit of the security footage showing him cutting the mitt and entering without permy, his sneaking through the house and getting out his big knife and trying to catch me unawares, then my tasering him. And I'll make sure you are both edited out of the picture."

"Wow," Junior said. "I'm not usually surprised by anything, but I'll really proud of you, er son, really proud of you."

"Can we hug? Or is that too much of a spoiler for either of you?"

"No, son, we can hug," Junior grinned and we had a three way hug. We waited for Shane to be disconnected from the taser and securely tied up and James called 999 before we left using Sati's snowman and returning to our Sunday morning in 2020.

I wrapped up my journal entries and passed it onto Whylenmast for him to do his thing with it. I personally never ever, and I mean enernity ever, want to see it again.

So if you're reading it now, ask me any questions you like but don't tell me what I've written, I've had enough spoilers to last a lifetime.

CHAPTER 17 ALL'S WELL

It was in the warm summer early morning in late August when the local news radio report came on with headlines that reminded us a little of what I had forgotten even as a vague dream.

I was stood in the Hollyhock Hill House kitchen preparing breakfast when the news came through of Shane Deakin, a student at our local university, had been convicted the previous day of plotting a terrorist attack, with damning evidence and information contained within his laptop computer, and that he had accumulated a number of weapons from viscous blades up to electronic devices which were intended to be used in these planned attacks, all in connection with Christmas shopping and festive celebrations.

Junior also heard the broadcast and rushed into the kitchen to ensure I was all right. I admitted that I felt faint and as he helped me towards the sitting room when I diverted and made it to the downstairs bathroom and thus avoided ruining our cream carpet.

"Are you?" Junior asked.

"I think I might me, I'm a week late, so I've got an appointment with the doctor at 10.30."

EPILOGUE: FOOTNOTE TO "MRS JENNIFER NIXON'S FIRST CHRISTMAS JOURNAL"

Bishop Nikolas of Myra, Saint.

Ever since I arrived in this magic land of Christmas on the morning of 6 December in the Year of Our Lord 343, with my Lady wife once more fully restored to life and all my children and their families delivered to this strange and frozen place around me, I knew I was in the midst of a miracle.

I didn't have to believe in God to be awed by the power I had been granted to carry on my caring ministry beyond the peaceful grave for which I thought I was destined and the place in paradise I'd hoped for.

I was granted the inner peace I craved, of that I was in no doubt, I had a strength beyond any physical feeling I had ever had, and felt no pain nor the pangs of aged I had long accepted as my due penance for living so long. The restoration of my darling late wife was beyond even my wildest dreams, but to be able to communicate with the world through children who believed in this delightful magic was incredible.

Even more uplifting, if that was at all possible, were the inhabitants of this wonderful paradise, the elves, those wonderfully cheerful and industrious folk who had already built the Main House in anticipation of our arrival and by brute force, they proudly puffed out their little chests and boasted that they had forced their former lords and masters to flee this winter paradise. The warmed us with their undiluted love, warm fires and a hot drink that defied description and any comparison with the goats milk with which we were hitherto accustomed.

If I feared for my family in the midst of such fierce resistors of enforcement, belying their diminutive size, they were continuously proven unfounded and undermined by their eagerness to please, to enthusiastically embrace my ideas of providing some bounty and relief for children all around the world, no matter what breed or creed.

The elves readily agreed to help and provided the toy workshops, the wrapping and signing departments, the identification and allocation of gifts. Distribution was the only difficulty. The elves had the flying reindeer, the wonderfully designed and decorated sleighs perfect for this winter wonderland but they declared only the 'Old People' had the ability to cross the barrier division between our worlds.

Well, I declared, my dear wife and I are indeed 'old people', why don't we take off in the sleigh and give it a go?

I think their kind little hearts were heaven bent to please and feared the disappointment this silly old person was about to feel, but I thought of our old home of Myra in the Roman Province of Lycia and lo and behold we were soon flying over the long beach of Patara, where I was born on 15 March about 63 years earlier.

Once we flew back to the warm interior of the Main House and the dark creamy hot drink that was the elves' particular invention, I declared that we would make gifts for all the deserving children of the world and hand them out on Christ's birthday as determined by edict. That day has changed several times over the past almost seventeen hundred years, but notwithstanding that, we have always delivered and my family have promised always to do while eternity exists and the Magic of Christmas persists.

I did not want to be the king of this place even though the elves urged it at the outset. I wanted us to be ordinary parents, even after becoming a Saint, I preferred to be known simply as the Father, not only father to my children, but a surrogate father to all children of all races and religions. I allowed my children to return and live in the world of their origin and learn to be one with people, an equal of them rather than privileged, even though we felt honoured to do what we had been chosen to do at the appropriate times of the year when we returned to celebrate our lord and share our bounty with the children of the world.

Soon I felt the tradition had been established enough and I asked my eldest son, another named Nicholas after me to take over my duties. He was single and he protested that he was unable to court and find a wife as, ever since we moved to this land of cold hard ice and warm soft hearts, he discovered that he knew the faults of every interested female beforehand. My wife and I looked for a suitable wife for lonely Nicholas and prayed for guidance in our arrangements and we found her, a sweet innocent babe, who Nicholas was able to watch as she grew into a beautiful woman who forever owned his heart.

I decreed that in future all the eldest sons of future Santas who wanted a wife to marry, always to girls from outside the family, that they were to be chosen by my wife and I, her insights and assessments being more than equal to mine own.

I must say, the two of us have always felt guided in our choices and, although there have been a couple of instances that haven't worked out for reasons beyond our control, including the personal choices of the young women themselves. There must always be free will on the part of the bride, or groom should the first born of any Santa be a girl.

Through my Chief Elf Librarian I have always asked the young bride to write a journal of their first Christmas as the Brides of Young Santas. Some were dictated to elf scribes in the early days but they all did one and I have them all bound in my own private library. They soon forget they ever wrote it, which is intended. Most of them are quite candid and actually rather boring but this most recent one clearly contains the most adventure and risk of the loss of Christmas than any other before it.

I find my choice of wife for my grandson many times removed was inspired and my wife and I are very much endeared to the latest potential Mother Christmas.

How much did I know beforehand so that I could provide the means of ensuring a happy result? Well, I knew little of what was going to happen, to be honest, but my hands and mind were guided I believe and I went with the flow with faith without question. I was as delighted as anyone that Jennifer in particular and Junior in fully supporting his bride, did much to save Christmas by their own efforts.

It may be a century before this wonderful couple fulfil their destiny as the Father and Mother of Christmas but I am confident that the future of Christmas is in a steady couple of pairs of hands.

The End