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"Can you believe it’s Christmas Eve,
Mac?" Ian giggled. He was so excited. "We don’t even need a Christmas tree
because we’re surrounded by them. I wonder if Santa Claus will leave us a
present?"
"Ian, go to sleep. Last year he left
us one. Why wouldn’t he this year? Have you been naughty?" Mac mocked.
"No! I’ve been very nice this year.
Well, actually, I think I was a bit naughty this year. You were too.
Remember when we went to Maggie Noble’s house and took the blackberry pie
from her window ledge? Do you think Santa will think that was naughty? Oh,
no! What if Santa doesn’t leave us a present?" Ian cried.
"It wasn’t that naughty, Ian. Uh oh.
I just thought of something else we did naughty," Mac said. "Remember when
we went into town and broke into the bakery shop? We locked the cat in the
car and took all the raisin scones, tarts and biscuits."
"That was naughty! Oh dear, I don’t
think Santa’s going to leave us a thing. We were naughty. We knocked all
Mrs. Rutherford’s washing off her line, we tipped over all the rubbish
bins, we tricked Jessie Carnie into thinking she ran over us. Remember
that, Mac? You lay in the street and she thought she’d run you over. That
was very naughty of us," Ian said.
Mac started to laugh. "It was
naughty, but it was sure funny. Hee hee hee."
"Santa won’t think it’s funny. Did
we do anything nice this year?" Ian wondered, "or was everything we did
naughty?"
"We did a lot of nice things too. We
babysat little Molly. That was nice. We took care of all the baby animals
when the wind blew all the trees down. That was nice too," Mac said.
"You’re right. I suppose we’d better
get to sleep so Santa can come. Yawn!" Ian smiled, feeling better about
the whole thing.
The two raccoons fell asleep in
their tree. They didn’t hear Santa’s sleigh bells jingle as he landed in
the woods at the bottom of their tree. They didn’t hear the reindeer snort
as they nibbled on the grasses and they didn’t hear a word when Santa
called his reindeer by name, "On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer, on Vixen,
on Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen!"
When the sun rose over the heather
covered hills in the morning, Ian and Mac jumped up. "Mac! It’s Christmas
morning. Do you think Santa came?"
Mac jumped up. He was quite excited
too. "I’m sure he did."
They climbed down to the bottom of
the tree. "There are no presents," Ian sighed, seeing nothing.
"Well, maybe he left them under a
pine tree for us. Our tree is an oak tree. It’s not a Christmas tree!" Mac
said.
They wandered around looking under
all the pine trees growing in the woods. They couldn’t find one present.
"Mac? We must have been really naughty. Santa didn’t leave us one thing."
Ian sat on a tree stump and pouted.
Just then, Mac saw something
sticking out from a hole in their tree trunk. "What’s that?" Mac said,
running to the tree. "It looks like a present!"
Ian ran to Mac. They both saw the
shiny red paper. "Take it out, Mac. It’s a present."
Mac pulled the present out. It had a
tag on it that said, "TO MAC".
"It’s for you, Mac. Is there another
for me in there?" Ian asked.
Mac stuck his paw in the hole and
pulled out a present wrapped in shiny gold paper. "It’s for you. It says
‘TO IAN’."
Ian started to giggle and jump
about. The raccoons sat down on the grass and opened their presents. "WOW!
Santa left me a wonderful present. I have a bag of hazelnuts, a jar of
raspberry jam, three jars of currants and chocolate bar. Wait, there’s a
note in here too." Ian opened the letter and read it. "Dear Ian. Merry
Christmas. This year you did a lot of naughty things. I almost didn’t
leave you any presents, but you did a lot of nice things too. Next year I
expect you to do more nice things than naughty. Ho! Ho! Ho!"
"You were lucky, Ian," Mac sighed.
"Look what he left me. I’ve got a new scarf. It’s very nice, isn’t it? I
think I suit blue, don’t you?" He wrapped the scarf around his neck. "He
also left me some lemon drops, cashews and a fishing pole. Och, I got a
note too. Let me read it. ‘Dear Mac, you were rather naughty too. It
wasn’t just Ian. Behave yourself next year and I’ll bring you some
matching mittens. Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!’."
"We’d better behave ourselves next
year. Now, let’s enjoy our presents. Would you like to share my raspberry
jam?" Ian asked.
The two raccoons spent the whole day
looking at their Christmas gifts. They were very thankful that Santa had
brought them anything at all and promised each other that they would try
to be a little less naughty next year. |
