Christmas Awaiting

Does Santa Claus exist? Where are his origins? How does he manufacture presents? Who delivers letters to him? When does he begin to prepare for celebrations? Who sews a suit for him? What does his home look like? Who looks after his deer? How does he man- age to do everything on time?

This is a collection of Christmas fairy tales for children, which presents the vivacious adventures of Christmas Town’s elves. Santa Claus and thirteen different elves are the main actors in these stories. The book describes their duties, tasks, disappointments, and amuse- ments. Awaiting Christmas, elves spend every day tidying up, working out, giving perfor- mances, singing carols, and decorating the town. Tales correspond to an Advent calendar and render assistance in consistently following the days of December and strengthening the belief in Christmas miracles. Stories emphasize the importance of friendship, mutual understanding, support, and individuality. Each elf is unique and special in his or her own way.

Far, far away, across boundless north polar plains where temperatures outside drop to minus forty degrees Celsius and frolicking winds never stop tossing up whirls of snow, where trains don’t run and planes don’t fly and cars won’t find roads, there stands a large Christmas Town.It contains thousands of small houses that look as though they are made of gingerbread dough, with curly lean-tos, ice chimneys, wide red button-studded doors, and crooked ever-snowbound fences. All of the houses are arranged in as few a number of rows as possible around one huge central house which has frosted windows that are covered by the thickest shutters. Every one of the small houses is surrounded by a pathway that is diligently cleared by a caretaker who is seemingly eager to catch every snowflake that falls onto his pavements. Everyone who lives in the nearby houses loves and looks up to each other. They also carry out some tasks that are more significant than those of their everyday duties. Throughout the year Christmas Town never falls silent. Instead, it continues to emit sounds of hammering, buzzing, humming, and bustling. You can always hear someone laughing or singing. The locals look pretty similar to one another. All of them wear green fur waistcoats with silk ties, chunky-soled shoes with silver snowflake spurs, thick striped socks, and warm, knitted striped scarves, which often come in a wide variety of colors because in order to make clothes for the locals the knitting house here uses a range of different threads and wool that remains in stock after the main orders have been placed. However, the most important and expressive clothing detail is a wide red hat which is adorned with white fur and a huge pompom. As the town dwellers are always in a hurry to carry out their main tasks, their hats often slip down to the tips of their noses, covering their eyes and making them look like small, hard-working, highly responsible ants on the hop along the narrow streets. This is why the dwellers of Christmas Town are solemnly called elves.

Throughout the whole month of December, Christmas Town teems with superheroes who also have to deal with bad days. Trying to overcome hardship and lend a hand to friends, they build a miraculous Christmas story, which finds its way into this book day after day.