The Tarnished Christmas Bell

Anabelle, a special little Christmas bell who usually hung on the peg where Santa tied the reins of the sleigh was tarnished badly. It happened one dreadful Christmas Eve when Santa had to battle storms as he made his rounds. Raspbob, the cranky old elf who took care of the sleigh bells and the reindeer harness, stuffed Anabelle and all the other tarnished bells into a dark and cold drawer, back in a forgotten corner of the stable.

Even though she kept ringing, dangling from the rafters in the back of the drawer, and kept herself in shape, she was not rediscovered and polished as she just knew she would be by the next Christmas Eve. In fact, Raspbob only opened the drawer to pull out new, shiny and untried bells. In all the excitement of Christmas Eve, Santa was so busy that even he forgot all about Anabelle, too.

The next time the drawer opened was after Santa was back. Raspbob was there to cram all the new bells, which were no longer new, bright or shiny, into the forgotten place. All the bells cried because they were tarnished, ugly and lost.

Finally it was Anabelle who had her fill of feeling sorry for herself. She got back into shape after weeks of doing nothing but crying and began to ring clear as ever. She reminded all the other bells that how they looked wasn’t important. It was how a bell sounded, what it was made of, and what it had inside that counted. They all stopped crying. She organized the drawer into a bell choir. Even if they lost and forgotten by Santa and ol’ Raspbob, they were still bells and they learned to ring and sing like the beautiful bells they really were.

That’s how Santa found Anabelle and the rest of the tarnished bells. They were having a concert when Santa pulled open the drawer. He loved the music, but when he saw the state of the bells, Santa knew who was to blame. He got Raspbob to collect a stack of rags and the of polish.
While Santa and the other elves worked on the sleigh, Raspbob polished one tarnished bell at a time as the rest of the bell choir continued to enchant and soothe souls with their music.

And even ol’ Raspbob had to admit, those bells weren’t ugly – they were beautiful. He knew his work of polishing was important, but moreover he learned just as the bells had that real beauty comes not from the outside, but from somewhere else – somewhere deep inside.