Flash Fiction: Fr.N.Christmas' final letter to A- & M-

Dear A- and M- I truly enjoyed your letters this year, and I can assure you Michael, that goblins don't need an excuse for wickedness, except that I have wonderful Christmas nuts and chocolate and treats, and they don’t.

And I admit, I did try security elves one year, but they nicked even more chocolates than the goblins ever had, because they're so skinny, they need all the energy they can get to deal with the cold. Well, actually they didn't like it much and got sick all the time so I had to send them home, poor things, but I have enough help now there's a whole generation of bear cubs that are more than stroppy enough to deal with a few goblins, and with the help of Antonin and Antuska sniffing out al their little warrens, I'm beginning to feel quite safe. Touch ice.

Now, to business, poor old overworked Santa is pleased to give you a little something in your stockings, as well as some new fangled electronic gizmo's, I'm not sure how they work, but Ilbereth assures me you will like them. It's wonderful to see you two wonderful children are growing up so beautifully, and are not so much the lion-cubs Ilbereth warned me about any more. Anyway, the reindeer are impatient to be off, I can hear Rumsy (that's Rudolf's great, great, great granddaughter) pawing the snow, she's so eager to be off.

So Merry Christmas and Love and best wishes from


                              Fr. N. Christmas - and everybody here at the North Pole


P.S. Rumsy is delighted with the apple, she says the green ones are her favourites.

PPS The ginger beer and tiramisu was delicious. Especially together. You must have some kind of secret ingredient to make it taste so good.

PPPS Lucy is entitled to a piece of Turkey for Christmas, but it's not safe to put it in her stocking so you'll have to rescue it from the fridge.

PPPPS Mum's toblerone didn't quite fit in her stocking, but I'm sure she'll enjoy it just the same -- so NO TOUCHING! 

PPPPPS A very, very merry Christmas.

 

Amazon aff link

 

All right - I must have some decent flash's somewhere but I'm struggling to find anything in the requisite 300 word count - of course if you count all the ps's then this also goes over that limit but what the heck - I'm not exactly entering a competition - besides this is pretty close to fan fiction and wouldn't count anyway because Ilbereth is still in the picture - being an elf and extremely long lived it didn't seem fair to kill him off.

So anyway, this was a Christmas tradition in our house for many years - since my children were quite little and very sure that they should get a letter from Father Christmas as well - after all he had written so many very long and wonderful letters to Tolkein's children -  and they sure weren't about to miss out.   This was the final letter, the earlier ones were quite long, with lots of Santa Clause under siege - and spidery writing that trails across the page.  In later years, like this last one, I believe Santa and his helpers discovered computers and they haven't looked back ;)

And among other exciting news this week in NZ is Helen Lowe's winning of the David Gemmel Morningstar Award - more about the book that won, and her acceptance speech can be found here on her blog. 

And of course National Flash Fiction Day events can be found here.

Have an awesome week, and for anyone in the Northern Hemisphere remember we're winter solsticing at the moment. so it's kinda appropriate :)

A.J. Ponder

 A.J. Ponder's work is available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores