I have been advised that I should report on whether Ludlow the yellow rubber ducky ever made it out from under the little blonde girl’s bed where he had been left a couple of weeks ago. She had placed him there for punishment as he had somehow become green again even though he knows that rubber duckies are yellow and should get used to it. Unfortunately, Ludlow does not get “used to it”. Besides, Lucy the other rubber ducky in the house purrs that he is “soooo handsome when he is green”.
Now as you may recall, he was green mainly due to the help of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Santa, as everyone is aware, knows everything. Thus, when Rudolph got back from visiting Ludlow, Santa was not in a happy mood. He said to Rudolph, “You know rubber duckies are supposed to be yellow and need to get used to it. Why did you help him turn green again?” Rudolph was a little flustered, but he noted that Ludlow wanted so bad to be green that he just couldn’t refuse to help him.
Santa has a kind heart so he recognized Rudolph’s caring action and forgot the matter. However, he did tell Rudolph not to help Ludlow next year. Then Santa started to reminisce about events centuries ago when he started his Christmas delivery program. He and the elves had just finished building their workshop in an invisible location at the North Pole. They had considered the South Pole, but decided that the North Pole made a better flight pattern. Besides the Incas were not great about Christmas at that time in world history.
They were chugging along making gifts when one of the elves asked Santa how he was going to deliver the presents. Inasmuch as UPS, Fed-Ex etc. were not around then, he had to think about it. After some thought he decided that he would bring up a bunch of gazelles from Africa, give them a shot of magic and then have him fly his sled so he could deliver the presents. Santa loved to watch You-tube (Santa had ways even back then) videos of gazelles bounding along. He thought that they were the most graceful animals around.
Now as with many things history can change in the blink of an eye. This time it was the eye of a very attractive maiden. Back in those days, Santa was not portly. Rather, he was slim and had a six pack (maybe even seven pack) stomach.
The evening that he had decided to use gazelles he was scheduled to attend a singles party in Lapland. When he arrived, he immediately caught the dancing eyes of a maiden who was sitting demurely waiting for someone to ask her to dance. (Actually, it had to be the dancing eyes as maidens in Lapland are pretty bundled up).
They danced and then sat and talked. The maiden (whose name was Greta) asked Santa where he was from and what he did for a living. He told her (and she found it intriguing). However, when he mentioned the gazelles, she immediately told him that he ought to use reindeer. She loved reindeer, and said that they were very strong and could carry his gifts with ease. Now, Santa still preferred gazelles but he loved Greta’s dancing eyes. He decided then and there he wanted Greta to become Mrs. Claus.
Obviously, then gazelles were out and reindeer were in! It is probably just as well as no one has ever seen a gazelle with a red nose that glows. Santa would probably have gotten lost without Rudolph’s nose. He might have even delivered gifts to the Incas who most likely would have thrown them all into their sacred pools which would have confused the heck out of archaeologists today. History gets it right sometimes.
Oh yeah, Ludlow! The little blonde girl had put Ludlow under her bed and told him to stay there until after Christmas because he had been naughty and somehow turned himself green again. Well the little blonde girl loved Ludlow so after an hour she picked him up and asked her Dad to put him on the top of the Christmas tree. That was done and Ludlow was very happy.
Naturally, Ludlow knew that after Christmas, he would be cleaned and made yellow again. Therefore he started to think about next Christmas.
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com