How The Marines Saved Xmas!

How The Marines Saved Xmas

Do you remember how cold it was last winter? Well, it was a little too cold. It caused a really big problem. Timmy, my little brother, noticed it first. "There's not going to be a Xmas!" he shrieked.

I just rolled my eyes. "Timmy, you twit, of course there's going to be a Xmas."

"No there isn't." insisted Timmy.

"Timmy, there's a Xmas every year." I explained in my best big brother voice, "You go to the stores and tell Santa Claus what to deliver and the stores pay him to make deliveries."

"But what if they don't?" asked Timmy.

"They do it every year," I insisted, "everybody plans on Xmas and it's on all the calendars so ...."

"It's not there." said Timmy with a scared little voice, "It's not on the calendar where it's supposed to be."

He was starting to bug me again. Sometimes I wish I didn't have a little brother. "Timmy, it's on the calendar, like Easter, only it stays in one place. Maybe you're thinking of Easter. Easter is hard to find sometimes. It jumps around on the calendar. Sometimes it's in one month, sometimes in a different month."

"It isn't there!" said Timmy near tears, "I checked the calendar and its not there."

"Oh good grief," I sighed, "I'll show you. Where's the calendar?"

I don't usually have a calendar hanging around. If I need to know what date it is, I just ask somebody. Somebody always knows the date. I went looking for mom. "Mom" I yelled, "where's a calendar?"

Nobody answered. Which was unusual because I almost always get answered by somebody. I was trying to decide whether to pay attention to nobody when Timmy grabbed my hand.

"Don't pay any attention to him," said Timmy, "I've got one in my room."

So we went to Timmy's room to look at the calendar. It was on the floor, with January showing and somebody's picture above it. I knew it was somebody because I had asked my dad who it was and he had said "Somebody." I guess because somebody can always tell you what the date is they put her picture on the calendar. My dad said she had all the dates she wanted. But I needed to look at December, so I flipped up the pages.

"December!" I announced when I came to it, "Now, the twenty-fifth is Xmas." I pointed my finger at the big twenty-five on the page.

"It doesn't say it's Xmas," said Timmy.

He was right. "Well, maybe this calendar doesn't show all the holidays." I replied.

"It shows Easter," said Timmy, "and Halloween. It should show Xmas."

"Hmmm." I said.

"There's no Xmas this year." said Timmy sadly.

"We'll have to ask mom." I replied.

"Maaaaahhhhhhhmmmmmmm", I yelled. I could hear her say she was busy down the hall. "Maaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm", I yelled. It worked.

Mom came into the room and asked, "What do you want?"

"Timmy says there's no Xmas this year," I said, "and I can't find it on the calendar."

"Who's Timmy?" asked mom.

"Timmy's my younger brother." I exclaimed.

"You don't have a younger brother." said mom looking at me over the top of her glasses.

"Well, you wouldn't get me a younger brother," I explained, "so I made one up."

"Oh." said mom, rolling her eyes.

"And he was right!" I yelled.

"Who was right?" asked mom.

"Timmy was right!" I exclaimed.

"He was right about what?" asked mom.

"There's no Xmas on the calendar." I practically screamed.

She rolled her eyes. "You must be thinking of Easter," she said, "Its always moving around so you can't find it."

"No, mom, it’s Xmas," I insisted, "and it's gone!"

I showed her the December page of the calendar with my finger pointing at the big twenty-five all by itself with no little writing next to it that said Xmas.

"Hmmmmm." she said, "Maybe this calendar doesn't show all the holidays."

"I already thought of that," I pointed out, "but it shows Easter and Halloween, or at least Timmy says it does."

"Timmy?" Mom looked at me again over the top of her glasses.

"Look for yourself!" I replied. And she did. She turned to Halloween. On the calendar page marked "October", right next to the big thirty-one, it said "Halloween". She turned to "July" and right next to the four it said "Independence Day."

"Nobody told me there was no Xmas this year." Mom said.

"HE DID?" I jumped up yelling. "Nobody already told you there was no Xmas?"

"Well, nobody said there wasn't going to be a Xmas." Mom replied.

"Did he tell you why not?"

"I don't remember," replied mom.

"Well, let's ask him," I said and I ran across the hall to dive onto the floor next to my bed. I pulled away the ruffles so I could see underneath.

"What are you doing?" asked mom, looking in from the hallway.

"I was going to ask nobody, but he isn't there." I replied.

"Why are you looking under your bed?" mom asked.

"Last night when I was afraid a monster was under my bed, you told me that nobody was under my bed," I replied, "but there's nothing there now but some dustballs."

"Hmmmmm, I thought for sure he was there." said mom, "We'll have to ask somebody."

"Yeah! Somebody knows all about dates!" I exclaimed. "Whenever I need to know what day it is I just ask somebody. I'll bet she knows about this."

"No wait, we'll call your father and ask him." she said.

My mom picked up the telephone, called dad, and told him that Xmas was not on the calendar. I only heard half the conversation:

"No, I'm not thinking of Easter," said mom into the phone, "I said Xmas and I meant Xmas."

"I know Easter moves all over the calendar," said mom into the phone, "but Xmas is supposed to be in December on the same day every year."

"Well, look at your calendar then," said mom into the phone.

"See, it doesn't say Xmas," said mom into the phone, "no, we thought of that, look at Halloween and Independence Day."

There was a long pause.

"I don't care how much money we will save," said mom into the phone, "there's supposed to be a Xmas every year. Nobody told me there was not going to be a Xmas this year, but I thought he was mistaken. You'd think it would be in the newspaper or on television or something. This is terrible, maybe you should get out of the phone and help us."

So my dad climbed out of the phone and put his work stuff away. "What made you start thinking about Xmas now?" dad asked me.

"It was Timmy." I said, "He found out about it and told me."

"Timmy?" asked dad looking over the top of his glasses.

"Timmy's my younger brother." I exclaimed.

"You don't have a younger brother." said dad.

"Well, you wouldn't get me a younger brother," I explained, "so I made one up."

"Oh." said dad, rolling his eyes as he looked at Mom.

"Timmy found out it was missing and told me and I told mom." I continued.

"Timmy found out what was missing." asked dad.

"Xmas!" I shouted. "Xmas is missing from the calendar. There's not going to be a Xmas this year!"

"Not so fast," replied dad. "There must be some explanation. Did you check to see if maybe they combined it with Chanukah and called it Xanukah or Chanukmas?"

My mother glared at my father. Dad jumped back "Oh, I guess you're right, they wouldn't do that." He shook his head looking puzzled. "Well, we'll call the government and complain!"

Dad grabbed the phonebook off of the table and flipped through some pages. Mom looked over his shoulder and asked "Well, who should we call?"

"I don't know." replied dad. "Some poobah in charge of holidays I suppose." Dad ran his finger down a column of phone numbers in the book. "Aha, here it is!" he announced. "Poobah in charge of holidays." He grabbed the phone and started dialing.

Dad stood with the phone to his ear for a few moments and then looked puzzled again. He looked at his phone, then listened again, then hung up. "It said if you are calling about New Year's day press the letter A; if you are calling about Martin Luther King's birthday press B; if you are calling about, and then it went through all the holidays in the year until finally it said if you are calling about Xmas press the letter Z."

"So why did you hang up?" I asked. "Press the letter Z!"

"There," said dad slowly, "is no letter Z on the phone."

We all looked at each other for a minute without talking. I took a closer look at the phone. There was no letter Z.

"That's government for you." said dad. "Nobody can get help when you really need it."

"He can?" I exclaimed. Dad looked at me funny. I shouted at Timmy, "Quick, Timmy, mom said nobody was under my bed last night so maybe we can find him there tonight." Timmy nodded and we went running for my bedroom. "Dad said he'll help us."

It was a little early to go to bed, but if we went to bed early maybe we could wake up early enough to be sure nobody was under my bed. Timmy decided to sleep in his room so I went to sleep by myself.

Sure enough, it wasn't even light outside when I woke up in the morning. "Who's under my bed?" I called out. Nobody answered. "Oh good." I replied. "Dad said you can get help from the government when you really need it. We really need it because if we don't get help there won't be any Xmas."

Nobody told me how to find the government building downtown. When you get there, he said, just ask somebody for the office of the Poobah in charge of holidays. He said to take the calendar with somebody's picture on it so I would recognize her. I went to wake up Timmy and we left without even eating breakfast.

The government building was just like nobody had said. I saw somebody in the lobby and she took me up to meet the Poobah in charge of holidays. Timmy and I walked into his office while somebody said she had to go somewhere else. The Poobah motioned to us to sit in these big chairs in front of his desk.

The desk was as big as my bed at home and it had a telephone on it with a computer at one end. At the other end there was a potted palm plant on the corner of the desk. Timmy and I could barely see over the top of the big desk.

"What happened to Xmas?" I asked firmly. "We looked and it’s not on the calendar this year."

The Poobah leaned forward on his desk to speak to us. "Yes, well, we had to cancel it this year."

"You can't cancel Xmas!" I exclaimed. "It's my favorite holiday."

"Well, we did not want to cancel it either, but it's because of the holly shortage." said the Poobah, spinning a pencil in his hands. "Xmas is such a big holiday you need lots of holly to celebrate it, but the cold snap last winter killed most of the holly, and there just wasn’t enough for Xmas. You can't have a holiday without holly."

"You can't?" I asked.

"No, there's a minimum requirement of holly for each person. If we don't have enough holly, we have to cancel the holidays." said the Poobah, "We've usually got enough holly but some years we can run short. Some years we have to plug in another whole growing day in February and call it a leap year. It all depends on the cold snap. We usually have more than enough holly for the smaller holidays, but the bigger ones are hard to tell."

"You mean this happens all the time?" I questioned.

"Oh, well, usually we don't have as bad a cold snap as last year," he said, "and so we only have to wait until we can grow enough holly to cover all of the holidays. We usually manage, although sometimes we might have to postpone Easter a little bit. That's why it moves around on the calendar, you know."

"I wondered about that," I replied.

"But," he sighed, "last year was a real doozy. We knew we would not have enough holly after that cold snap. So we decided that since Xmas was the biggest holiday, if we cancelled Xmas we would have enough holly for all of the other holidays. It was the easiest way to take care of the problem."

"But you can't cancel Xmas," Timmy yelled, "that's when I get all my toys!"

"Hmmmmmm." said the Poobah, "Now that you mention it, we forgot about that. We adults don't get many toys for Xmas you know."

"But if there's no Xmas," I pleaded, "I won't get any new toys this year."

"Well, uh, hmmmm," said the Poobah with concern on his face, "maybe I can get you some toys. That will take care of that."

"But what about Timmy," I cried out, "and all the other kids?"

"Who's Timmy?" asked the Poobah, pausing.

"And what about Santa Claus?" I continued, "What is he going to do?"

"Actually, we told him he could take a vacation this year," said the Poobah, "he kind of liked the idea. He's taking the elves to the beach."

"He can't take a vacation!" I screamed, standing up on my chair, "He has to deliver the toys!"

"Well, actually, because of the vacation," muttered the Poobah, "we told the elves not to make any toys this year."

"YOU WHAT?" I shrieked, jumping up onto the Poobah's desk.

"Now, now, settle down," said the Poobah, "maybe we can work something out."

He furrowed his brow and thought for a minute.

"How about some candy?" he said suddenly, "We always have candy left over from Halloween. We could give you candy instead of toys for Xmas."

"Candy?" I protested, "I want toys for Xmas, not candy."

"Hmmmmm," said the Poobah, frowning.

It was Timmy who came up with the solution.

"Maybe if we used plastic holly." said Timmy.

"Don't be stupid, Timmy," I said rolling my eyes.

"What was that?" asked the Poobah.

"It was Timmy," I replied, "he said we could use plastic holly."

"Timmy?" asked the Poobah looking back and forth around the room.

"He's my younger brother," I explained.

"Must be a little guy," said the Poobah looking under the table, "I can't see him here anywhere."

"Well," I started to explain.

"He may be on to something though," said the Poobah with a start.

"I don't really have...." I continued.

"THAT'S IT!" exclaimed the Poobah, "Plastic Holly!"

"What's it?" I asked.

"If we used plastic holly for some things here and there, you know, up high where people can't really tell," said the Poobah, "we might be able to save just enough holly for Xmas."

"Plastic holly?" I asked.

"Of course," said the Poobah smacking himself on the forehead with his palm, "why didn't I think of that? Plastic holly will work!"

Dirt and palm leaves went flying all over the office when he hit himself in the forehead with the palm. I had to brush off all the dirt that fell out of the pot on me. There was dirt all over my face, in my hair, and on my shirt. Timmy was brushing it out of his hair.

"That's it!" said the Poobah, "We can have Xmas after all. It will be a close call, but fortunately you found out about this early enough. We can start a holly saving program and start using plastic holly immediately. By Xmas we will have saved enough holly for a regular holiday. It will take work, but we can handle it."

He was all excited and picked up the telephone to make a call.

"What about the toys?" I asked, "You told Santa Claus to take a vacation."

"Well, we'll just cancel his vacation." yelled the Poobah.

"Yeah, but," I started to point out.

"But, what," asked the Poobah.

"But you told the elves not to make any toys this year." I muttered, kicking his stapler onto the floor.

"Well," said the Poobah, "I'll cancel that order too! We'll put the elves back to work immediately."

"There won't be enough time," I muttered, "it takes the elves a whole year to make those toys and you told them not to make any this year. Even if you cancel their vacation and put the elves back to work, they won't have enough time to make enough toys."

The Poobah looked a little shocked. He put his hands behind his back and started walking back and forth.

"Well," said the Poobah turning to me suddenly, "don't you have enough toys already? We can rescue Xmas, but ...."

"I want NEW toys," I interrupted, jumping up and down. "I'm a year older now. I need new toys."

"Well," said the Poobah, scowling again, "that does make it difficult ... WAIT!"

"Weight? I never thought of it that way," I answered, "about forty or fifty pounds of toys I guess."

"Not W-E-I-G-H-T. Wait, W-A-I-T." said the Poobah. "Oh, now you made me lose my train of thought, where was I?"

"You were pacing back and forth around over there," I pointed.

The Poohbah started pacing back and forth again.

"Why don't you send in the Marines!" Timmy suggested.

"The Marines?" I asked.

"Sure," Timmy said. "Dad always says whenever there's a government crisis they should just send in the Marines."

Timmy was right, dad did say that a lot, almost every night when he watched the television news.

The Poobah had stopped pacing and stood wide eyed with his finger pointing at the ceiling. "The Marines!" he exclaimed. "Of course, yes, they could do it. We’ll call it Toys For Kids, or something. The Marines can collect unused toys for Santa to deliver!"

I looked at the Poobah, then back at Timmy, then at the Poobah again. "The Marines?"

The Poobah picked up his phone. "Of course! The Marines. We'll have them scour the country for extra toys lying around and collect them all for Xmas. The elves can work double shifts on new toys but the Marines can get there first by collecting toys all around the country for Santa Claus to deliver." The Poobah suddenly talked into the phone: "Get me the President."

Well, I was so happy about that, I jumped off of his desk. Timmy and I slapped high fives. Thanks to Timmy, the Marines were going to save Xmas. Maybe having a little brother isn't so bad after all. He had a big smile on his face. "Oh boy, I hope the Marines find a baseball mitt for me!"

"Well, Timmy," I replied. "It depends a lot on what they find around the country. They'll be rounding up everything they can. Maybe a baseball mitt will be lying around somewhere." I knew it would be tough this year. We might not be able to get all the toys we wanted, but if everybody helps the Marines, maybe we will get lucky.

Timmy and I walked out of the Poobah's office and headed for home. The Poobah was still on the phone telling the President to call out the Marines. You will probably hear about it some time around Xmas. The Marines will be collecting toys in your town. Maybe they will do it every year from now on so Santa Claus can take the elves to the beach for a vacation every year. But nobody will know it was Timmy and I who really saved Xmas. You can ask him yourself.

The End

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