Santa, Elves, and Reindeer Contest

Dave Blowers had never been to this particular wood before. He knew it was there, but had always avoided coming here. He had heard tales of it being haunted and of people disappearing in this area, so he had stayed clear.... until now.
He was desperate for a Christmas tree and he did not want to let his wife and daughter down. As usual he had left things to the last minute and now, on the eve before Christmas, he could not find one anywhere else. He could have bought a cheap, tacky, plastic tree, like so many other families had in their living rooms, but his wife had always insisted on being traditional and having a real one.
It was usually left to his wife to get the tree, but she had been house bound from a bad fall at work and she had to admit that she wouldn’t be able to go out and do all the things she so loved doing this time of year. Everyday she had asked him to make sure that he had the tree sorted for Christmas and everyday he had faithfully promised that things were all under control.
Driving up the small dirt track to the wood, he was forced to put on his high beam as it was pitch black and very hard to see. The occasional rabbit jumped out from the surrounding bushes and stood hypnotised by the headlights, until he beeped the horn, forcing them to retreat to the bushes once more. One or two had been unlucky and he had felt the small bump as he had run over them.
The headlights seemed to be dimming, but it was probably the fact of the area becoming increasingly darker the further he drove into the forest. He heard the bushes scraping the side of the car and he hated to think what damage this would be doing to his paintwork.
All of a sudden the road ended and the trees stood before him, large and frighteningly in the glare of his headlights. He shivered as he got out of the car, the air surrounding him felt freezing cold. He hoped there were some smaller trees further in as these were much to big. Dave opened up the boot of the car and reached for the axe that had been freshly sharpened this morning. As he closed the boot, he was sure he heard rustling in the surrounding bushes and trees. He stood up straight, straining his ears, frantically looking around for any sign of life.
The air was so still, there was no breeze at all, so it could not have been that. Dave lifted the axe and rested it on his shoulder and set off quickly into the wood, wanting to get this over and done with.
His torch lighting the way he entered the dark and eerie wood.


Tracy was playing up again. It was getting late and Dave was supposed to be home with the tree, hours ago. She was staying up late hoping that she could decorate the tree before bedtime. Sandra shook he head and looked at her watch again. Five past nine....where are you, she mumbled under her breath angrily. Sandra struggled off the chair with the help of her crutches. It had been a nightmare, breaking her leg, and being in a cast over Christmas. She had felt left out and increasingly frustrated that she could not help with the festivities. Tracy had kept asking her, every few minutes, when Daddy would be home and when they could decorate the tree.
“Santa won’t come if there is no tree”, she had told Sandra, angrily with her hands on her hips.
Sandra had told her he did not mind about the tree, just the fact of whether she was good or bad. Sandra could not understand where Dave was, he had left two hours ago, and she was now starting to get worried.


Dave had no idea how far into the wood he had walked, but he had come across the most attractive little tree. He knew that Sandra and Tracy would love it.
Shining the torch at his watch, he could not believe what the time was. He had to work fast. He took at few swings at the tree with the axe and as it fell to the ground the trees and bushes surrounding him suddenly began to rustle wildly.


Sandra had finally got Tracy to sleep. She had screamed, kicked, cried and then began pleading with her mother to let her stay up until her father came home. But Sandra had been forceful and finally, tired and under extreme protest, Tracy had fallen asleep.
Sandra was extremely worried as she hobbled to the kitchen. If something had delayed him, she thought, Dave would have let her know by now, but she had heard nothing.
She knew something strange was going on from when she had asked him where he was collecting the tree from. He avoided her questions, pretending not to hear. He had raced out the house, shouting to her he would be back soon. She had watched as he had taken the axe from the garage and put it into the boot of the car before driving off. That was now four hours ago.

Sandra woke with a start, thinking she had heard the front door slam. She eased herself up to a sitting position on the sofa where she had fallen asleep earlier. She glanced at the video clock and it read midnight. She sat still for a while, half asleep, half awake. The house was silent with an eerie air to it.
She called out Dave’s name, thinking he had returned whilst she was asleep and he had not wanted to wake her. No reply came.
She eased herself up from the sofa, with the aid of the crutches and she made her way to the hallway, looking around her. All the lights were off and not a sound was to be heard. She walked back into the lounge and switched on the main light and to her astonishment, there in the corner of the room, stood the prettiest tree she had ever seen. It was all decorated and she knew now that Dave had indeed come home, decorated the tree and gone to bed.
As she closed the curtains, she noticed that the driveway was empty, where had he put the car?, she thought. She made her way\y to bed and found this empty, no sign of her husband.



After the police had gone, she was left wondering if they would actually go looking for her husband and his car or would they think he had simply done the tree and then done a runner, leaving them both. Dave would never do that.
“Where the bloody hell are you?” she shouted angrily.


The Christmas tree stood alone in the dark. The woman of the house had now gone to bed. It had watched as the police had come and gone, now silence enveloped the house once more. The tree knew that in three hours time the house would be full of an excited child, Tracey, as she came into the lounge with laughter, ripping all her parcels open, seeing what Santa had left her. Excitement known only to the young.
How the tree would have loved to have picked her up, swung her around in the air like it had done so many times in the past. If the tree had eyes, he would cry for his lost family, that he would never be able to hold or live with again, as a man anyway.
He had heard all the rumours of what happened in that forest, but he had gone anyway. When he had cut down the tree, all the other trees had closed in on him, scratching and tearing at his clothes. The last he had remembered, before he had woke up here, was the trees taking the one he had cut down and putting it back on it’s stump. It moulded together perfectly.
At least he would get to see one last Christmas before his needles began to fall out and he was removed, put in a skip somewhere and crushed.
He suddenly looked on as a light snapped on and tiny feet ran into the room, laughing happily.