A Christmas Fairy Tale

A Christmas Fairy Tale
Once upon a time in a land far, far away in a region where dreams come true and possibilities were endless, there was a bare and bleak community in which the people had thought that miracles truly never existed.

The community sat in eternal twilight at the very bottom of the world that was made of solid ice because of the freezing temperature. There were only a few months of the year that the citizens saw sunlight and even then, it was only for a few hours a day.

Life was difficult to say the least. The people were caught up in survival. Each day was a new battle to be fought foraging for food, just to live yet another day. Childhood didn’t last long because it took every single person to ensure survival for the group. Toil and drudgery, hardships and unhappiness.

It was on an eternal twilight night near the end of the year that a slender fairy dressed in the most marvelous flimsy outfit made of ribbons, lace and jewels had gotten caught in a howling winter wind and had to land on the frozen tundra. Shivering in the cold with a slightly bent wing, she saw the lights of the village and rapidly made her way to find shelter.

She was just as surprised as the people who lived there when finally meeting each other face to face. The fairy was slight and dainty and scantily dressed, the citizens were heavy set and bundled so much that only their eyes showed. Of course, the fairy was brought inside immediately. The ladies oohhh’d and ahhhh’d over her gorgeous clothes and figure while sitting her in front of the fireplace, rubbing salve on her wing, wrapping her snugly in blankets and giving her a hot tea to drive away the chill.

The fairy told the village folks stories of the world they lived on, speaking about miracles and dreams coming true, where the possibilities were endless. The ladies were doubtful, the men openly mocked such tales and the children listened with awe.

In the morning – and how the villagers knew it was morning, one cannot say because it was just as dark as night – the fairy felt much better. When she stood and fluttered her wings, all was fine.

She told the folks to gather round because she had a present for the village for all the help that was unselfishly given. So, the group went outside and watched the fairy.

The fairy spoke about the joy of life beginning as if it were a growing thing and with one elegant gesture she opened her hand to show a huge glowing seed in her palm. There was one “ooooh” that was spoken in unison, as if a single note of a song.

The fairy stooped down and spoke about how love nurtures life. She kissed the seed and planted it the snow. The crowd bent forward to stare at the glowing spot in the snow but backed up rapidly as a fir tree began to grow. Again a wondrous “ooooh” was spoken in unison.

The fairy flittered up and plucked the stars from the sky, and then flittered back to place the stars on the tree. The stars played their own magic and lit the landscape with twinkling light which in turn made the villagers sing a melody of “ooohs” as the light changed in color, sound and motion.

Somehow (I wasn’t paying attention so I cannot explain how this happened) in the sky there were several rainbows. The fairy flittered up again, grabbed the red strand of the closest rainbow and tugged on it. Flying back to the now enormous fir tree, the fairy wound the rainbow as a garland round and round the tree. Repeatedly selecting strands of the rainbows in the sky, the fairy continued till the fir was covered in the most remarkable array of garlands that no one had ever seen before. The garlands were of course every color of a rainbow, and somehow rainbows may create more colors than at first meet the eye because the tree had garlands of gold and silver and candy cane stripes and red and green and spotted and tangerine and – well you get the idea, colors that one would never even believe were contained in a rainbow.

Of course, the village was singing a melody of “ooooohs” by now because of the interaction of each new addition. The “ooooh” song of the villagers was accompanied by the created music of the star-lights in motion, and the crystal flakes that fell from the sky and landed with a tinkling sound on the ice that the people called home.

Somehow the people got the idea that anything can be; that magic existed and that dreams do come true. Ideas started popping out of imaginations into reality and the land of ice became a wonderland.

The “ooooohs” became a ditty that day – one which was sung often and brought gaiety to the land forevermore.

May your Holidays be filled with the magic of the season.
May your dreams become reality.
May you have a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year.

ILIA

ILIA
aka Leigh Ann Edrich
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