The Eight Christmas Elves!

Welcome to Story Quest, a weekly podcast where we bring your stories to life!

In this episode we bring Herbie’s story, The Eight Christmas Elves – to life.

If you have a story idea, you could be like Issac and have it turned into a Story Quest. All you have to do is send us your story idea here. We know you have the best imaginations and together we can create the most brilliant stories!

That’s just what Herbie did. You can watch the story they suggested come to life below, plus they tell us all about the inspiration behind the story at the end.

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Read along to The Eight Christmas Elves

You can read along to the story while you listen. Just follow the text below. Don’t worry if you find a word tricky – you can pause the video

“I HATE SANTA!”  was heard echoed across the snow-covered mountains of Lapland! 

“wow someone’s in a bad mood
 I wonder what’s he’s done now
” chuckled Mrs Claus as she raced out of her cottage towards the factory where the elves were busy preparing the Christmas presents.  

As she opened the huge golden door of the warehouse she saw all the elves huddled by the noticeboard in the elf staffroom! 

“What’s wrong now?! You can’t go screaming you hate Santa for the whole world to hear
” 

But as she pushed her way through the huge crowd of tiny elves she saw what had been pinned to the noticeboard right in the centre.  

On a scrap piece of wrapping paper in the biggest red letters read the words,  

“Reindeer are on strike! Christmas is CANCELLED!” 

This can’t be good, Mrs Claus thought
  

It’s less than a week till Christmas, it’s not the time for anything to go wrong
 

Below the notice was pinned a longer piece of wrapping paper, this time with a list of demands scrawled in crayon, hardly even readable! 

One of the elves started trying to read out the demands  

“Number 1
We demand
 equal pay to our elf
 colleagues!” 

The crowd burst into laughter! “Colleagues
 we don’t like those delivery boys” They all chuckled. 

“Number 2, We refuse to be replaced
 by robots or drones that carry presents to children!” 

“pff they’re just wining” came a cry from the back of the huddle! 

“Number 3, We demand regular breaks
 with lots of
 carrots while delivering!” 

“And we’d like more biscuits but you don’t see us complaining” he shouted again. 

“Number 4, We demand new harnesses with shiny bells and
 gold GOLD lining
 HAH” Even the elf himself couldn’t stop himself laughing
 

“they got a new harness last year
” another elf shouted. 

By this point the whole group were getting very rowdy. 

“And finally number 5, We demand Santa to start doing exercise EXERCISE! and lose weight so we can carry his sleigh more easily!” 

Mrs Claus gasped! “How dare they be so rude” she whispered under her breath.  

But no one heard over the laughter filling the warehouse!  

Mrs Claus knew she had to do something. She slowly backed away from the group, towards the door, hoping to sneak out without anyone noticing
  

As she turned to grab the shiny brass door knob she felt a tug on the hem of her dress.  

“Mrs Claus?” said the tiny elf. 

She looked down, it was Rodney, one of the newest elves to join the factory. He was in charge of cleaning out the reindeer’s stable.  

“Mrs Claus
 I have a plan to save Christmas!” 

“Oh do you now? “Mrs Claus replied sarcastically
 She was very doubtful that Rodney out of ALL of the elves, would have a solution
 

“Come with me Mrs Claus
 you’ll see” 

Mrs Claus followed Rodney as he ushered her through room after room to the door leading out the very back of the warehouse. He creaked open the door and there stood 7 other tiny elves all kitted out in harnesses, silver bells and antlers, standing in pairs right in front of Santa’s sleigh
 

“What on earth is going on?” laughed Mrs Claus! “Are you telling me you think 8 tiny elves think can pull Santa’s sleigh all the way across the world? You’re all bonkers!” 

“Well, there are 8 of us, just like the eight reindeer
 why couldn’t we?”  

Mrs Claus could hear the reindeer in the stables giggling
 

“See Rodney even the reindeer think you’ve kidding yourselves” Mrs Claus laughed 

“That’s right!” Shouted one of the reindeer! “Do they think it’s easy carrying the whole world’s presents, a massive sleigh AND Santa for hours straight! I’d like to see them try hahahaha”  

“Actually
” Mrs Claus had an idea 

I think this could teach you all a thing or two
 

“You might be able to do it, but we got to train you up first” Mrs Claus said with a twinkle in her eye. 

The elves looked so excited!  

Mrs Claus took each elf one by one to learn how to do the reindeer’s job.  

First up, Dancer and Donner had to show the two elves right by Santa’s sleigh how to attach the sac of presents to the sleigh. 

“It’s just a simple knot” They chucked
 

 
fiddle, fiddle, fiddle, ta daaaa 

Dasher and Donner had created the perfect sturdy knot 

But when the elves had a go
. They could not make it tighten and all the presents started tumbling out of the sleigh! 

“See” said Mrs Claus
 “Its not as easy as it looks” 

Up next were Blitzen and Comet, who were in charge of navigation.  

“We are in charge of keeping us on the right route! Making sure we don’t miss a single delivery AND all in one night!” Comet said sternly. 

“So if we asked you to find the quickest route from here to Australia, would you be able to take us?” Blitzen said cheekily 

The two elves looked at each other in panic then back at Blitzen shaking their heads. 

“Thought as much” Blitzen chucked to Comet 

Mrs Claus walked over to Prancer and Dancer with that twinkle in her eye. 

“So what are you two in charge of?” 

“We’re the ones who keep us moving! We’re called Dancer and Prancer after all! We have to make sure we’re all moving in time together so it’s a smooth journey!” 

“Well why don’t you try teaching these two elves your moves?” Mrs Claus asked 

“OK then, copy us you two
 5 6 7 8
” And just like that the two reindeer jumped, twisted leap and spun totally and utterly at the same time! It was incredible 

The poor elves were totally baffled! They tried to keep up but their arms were flailing, their legs were kicking and they kept bumping into each other. The reindeer thought this was hilarious! 

“Well that’s proved that then
” Mrs Claus chuckled. 

“Finally, Vixen and Cupid, what are your roles in the team?”  

 
She knew how important these two reindeer were! They were in charge of the magic dust that let them all fly! 
 

“Us?” Vixen said, “We’re at the very front of the sleigh and we have to get us off the ground!” 

“We have to look after the magic dust that means we can actually fly!” Cupid chimed in. 

This was the final test. The two little elves were given the magic dust and with a confused look on their faces they sprinkled it over themselves. 

And
  

Nothing happened 

They looked at each other, confused.  

“How did we do it wrong? Surely its as simple as that, its magic!” 

Then all of a sudden the elves let out a massive AAACCCHHHOOOO! 

And they few up into the air, across the stables, landing head first into the Christmas tree! 

“HAHAHAHA I should have warned you” Said Cupid. 

Mrs Claus took a seat in the sleigh with a huge grin on her face!  

 
“Look at you all! I hope it’s clear now that the reindeer have just as difficult a job as the elves! They just make it look easy” 

“Thanks Mrs C.” Dasher called out 

“And to make sure Christmas isn’t cancelled I will have a chat with Santa and make sure your demands are met.” “Carrots, new harness, no robots and equal pay, yes?” 

“ummm and Santa
” Dancer coughed. 

“Ah not easy that one, but I’ve been meaning to get him off those mince pies for years, I’ll give it a go” 

They all laughed. 

And sure enough, on Christmas day the 8 reindeer were seen flying across the night sky doing a fantastic job delivering all the presents to the boys and girls.  

And the eight elves?  

Well they were cleaning out the stinky stables with Rodney all
 night
 long! 

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