A/N: The television movie Santa Claus Is Coming to Town is not my property. It was, however, my favorite holiday movie as a child. Rewatching it as an adult, I ended up frustrated with the character development of Jessica the schoolteacher, so I wrote a somewhat AU version from her POV for Day 25 (Christmas movies) of the 25 Days of Fic Challenge.

September 6

My first day of teaching in Marachnyy Gorod is tomorrow. Will the children respect me?

Since getting off the plane, I've barely had time to breath. My host family is lovely, if a little restrained. It's peaceful here. No billboards. No radio. No TV. No K-Mart or Sears or Lucky supermarket. I'm glad I was warned to dress pack plain, dark clothes. My Mary Quant mini-dress would make a stir here!

So far everybody speaks enough English that I can get by, and I'm picking up the local language as fast as I can. I've made myself a little map, too, since all the streets twist like spaghetti and the buildings all look alike to me!

September 7

The children are quiet and well-behaved. They call me "Miss Jessica" and don't have to be given instructions twice. I'm going to like it here.

September 10

I teach them English and math and history, all in English, and then we read together in the local language and they teach me the words. They have remarkable folk stories about toy-making elves and winter warlocks and talking animals. I'm thinking of collecting the stories to take back to the U.S.

September 12

I'd swear a squirrel spoke to me. I must be coming down with something.

September 14

These children don't play! I tried to use jacks to teach math, and they don't have any jacks. When I suggested making markers from stones or pennies or something, they said toys were banned a couple months ago. That can't be right.

September 19

I was formally introduced to the leader. His official title is Burgomeister, which he probably made up, along with the fancy tin-pot uniforms on his police.

I asked him about the toy ban. He nodded and said that toys were a frivolous waste of energies that might better be put to serving the state. Then he told me to assign more math problems.

October 6

How was I to know it was forbidden to make a wreath out of forest leaves? The reds and yellows were so pretty, and the place needs some color.

October 14

There was a stranger in Marachnyy Gorod today. He wore red, which made him stick out like a sore thumb, with fur trim, even though it's supposed to be weeks before the early-morning snow sticks to the ground.

He'd stand out anyway, with red hair like that. I almost embarrassed myself by reaching up to touch it.

He was giving out toys. I wasn't born yesterday. When a strange man shows up in town, giving things away, he's up to something. This one even had the children sitting on his lap!

They trust and obey all adults without question, so this all scared me into interfering. "Giving out toys is illegal," I told him. He wasn't the slightest bit phazed, which confirmed that this wasn't some peddlar who wandered over the border. No, he just kept up his line and handed me a doll, the porcelain kind, with red-gold hair and sweet blue eyes.

That's criminal for me to have, but if the Burgomeister locks me up, our embassy will have something to say about it. When my host family's in bed, I'm going to see what he's hiding in these toys. I'm betting on drugs.

October 15

There's nothing in the doll.

When I put her in my suitcase so my host family wouldn't see her, she looked almost reproachful, like I was rejecting her. I wanted to take her out and hug her.

The children are a little rowdier, but they don't seem to be under the influence of anything but high spirits.

October 17

Burgomeister confiscated the toys. Afterward, the children couldn't seem to concentrate, and there was an outbreak of pigtail-pulling.

October 18

I asked Burgomeister about Kris—that's the stranger's name—and he talked in circles until it became clear that he doesn't know who Kris is, either. Rumor is that the police tried to arrest Kris and he fled.

October 19

Nobody in class could sit still.

Part of me blames Kris for this, and part of me thinks he could fix it.

October 22

Maybe it was a crazy thing to do, but I assigned the children to write letters to Kris, telling him what kind of toys they like. Delivering the letters will give me an excuse to go to the neighboring villages and ask if anyone's seen him.

The children wrote diligently for the whole language-lesson hour.

October 24

I found him!

I'd walked through three villages without hearing a word of Kris and decided to turn back because it was getting dark and my feet were so cold. I must have taken a wrong turn because there was nothing but woods and snow and then suddenly—there he was!

So I guess he found me. I gave him the letters. He's living in a chilly castle with an old hermit who claims to be the winter warlock and a penguin that sort of talks. He says he found me by making a snowball and looking in it.

If I told anyone, they'd think I was high. I'm not. He didn't offer me anything or slip me anything, I swear it. He wants to bring toys to the children to put some color and joy into their lives.

I might have kissed him when he said that. It's very gray down in Marachnyy Gorod, and the children seem to learn better when they have a bit of fun.

October 26

Kris brought more toys in the night. The children are over the moon. I let them run and play for the first hour so they'd be able to sit still.

October 27

Burgomeister's in bed with flu. Maybe he won't notice the toys for a while.

November 11

Toys confiscated again. I sat down to write to Kris, and a squirrel offered to take the letter. Maybe there's something in the water here.

November 13

The police did a house-to-house check that every door is locked.

November 15

There were toys in every child's home this morning. I'm starting to wonder if we're all hallucinating. That, or Kris is some sort of secret agent with a spy-ray that lets him walk through walls. Maybe that's why he's so friendly toward me. He's one of our agents, and he knew to expect me to be here.

November 24

A rabbit handed me a note from Kris that says to tell the children to make sure their stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

November 25

The police searched every house today. They slammed my host mother and host father against the wall with guns to their heads before going through all the drawers and closets. The children just stood there, totally silent. They knew what this was about, but they're children. They're supposed to want to play.

When the police tried to pry my trunk open, I stepped right in their way and said no. They made threats, but I told them my embassy would have something to say about that. They're not taking Priscilla—that's my doll. I'm going to have something here for the children to play with, even if the Burgo takes everything else.

When the police were gone, the children pulled down their stockings and found them full of toys.

I was shaking all over. Kris has taken this too far.

December 1

The Burgo burned all the toys in the town square and made the children watch. I have to write to Kris, and I don't know what to say. Their sad little faces. . . but it's all too dangerous.

The police didn't get Priscilla. I've hidden her as deep in my suitcase as I can.

December 3

The police ambushed Kris as he was coming down a chimney.

If these people didn't bank their fires at night, he'd be dead. He could get stuck. He could fall. Anything could go wrong. If I'd known how he was doing this, I'd have begged him to give up, don't try, this isn't worth it.

I should have done that anyway. I saw on the TV, before I came here, how places like this deal with criminals. This is going to end with him kneeling in the square with a gun to the back of his head.

December 5

I was sent here to change lives, right? That's in the brochure. Well, I'm going to change something.

December 6

The prison has fewer smells than I'd expected. I wasn't allowed to see Kris, but it turns out that his hermit friend Winter was arrested, too. So were some people Winter calls "elves."

Winter was such a crying wreck that I wanted to call for a doctor. He gave me what he calls "magic corn feed." I expected him to tell me that if I planted it, the vine would grow up into the sky and a giant would come down, but no, it just makes reindeer fly. No biggie, perfectly normal, flying reindeer. Everybody carries flying reindeer feed, right? State ID card, Chapstick, chewing gum, flying reindeer feed. Don't leave home without it.

December 10

Every hour I delayed in finding the reindeer made me terrified this was the hour that Kris would be shot, but the schoolteacher can't just sneak off in the middle of the day. I have responsibilities.

I mean, I had them. The least I could do was not panic the children. The town will have to find another teacher, as I don't think even the embassy could do much for me after I broke a terrorist out of prison on flying reindeer.

We're all up in Winter's castle, though only for the night because we're more-or-less on the run. The elves are for real and they make toys. The penguin likes to sit in laps.

Kris couldn't help starting a beard while he was in prison. It gives his face character.

December 11

I'm not sure why we're walking when the reindeer can fly. We're going north, anyway.

December 13

Kris has started introducing himself as Claus. This is supposed to keep the police from tracing us, but I think the elves are more of a giveaway than his name. He says they're his family, and he can't leave them.

I wonder what my family will think when I write to them. I wonder when I'll be able to write to them. If the Burgo tells the people who sent me that I've vanished and then they start a search for me. . . I'm going to be the one who brings the law down on us. I'm going to be the one who gets Kris and the elves and Winter and the penguin shot.

Or I'm going to vanish so thoroughly that my parents think I'm dead. I should have written to them before running off with Kris. If we could just get to a village. . . we should have walked toward Germany or somewhere. I'd swear we're walking all the way to the North Pole, and no matter what I do, someone gets hurt.

December 14

Kris asked if I still had the doll. Of course I said yes. He couldn't understand why that wasn't enough to comfort me.

I can't believe I thought he was a hardened criminal. He doesn't seem to know anything but elves and toys and trying to make people happy.

December 15

Kris was trying to make me feel better again, and this time, he kissed me.

It didn't fix anything, but I didn't want him to stop, either.

December 17

One of the elves told me to write a letter to my parents and he'd ride a flying reindeer until he found a village and could mail it.

Our being tracked is a risk I think I have to take, and it's not like the police have flying unicorns to follow our flying reindeer.

I wrote that I was fine, that I was hiking, that I was with good people and perfectly safe. I left out the part about "on the run with enemies of the state" because they'd just worry.

December 18

Kris said he was happy that I was happy, but he was sad that I wasn't sad because I didn't need a kiss.

I told him it was my turn to kiss him to make him feel better.

December 24

We were all walking through a pine woods, glittering with ice in the sunlight, when Kris turned to me and said very seriously: "I promise to love you forever."

"I'll love you forever, too," I said. He kissed me, and then the elves were all applauding and Winter was waving his hand to make the lights sparkle and the animals were dancing.

I think, according to the ways of these people, I've married Kris.

December 25

I wonder if our baby will be human or elf or what. He or she won't lack for toys, that's for sure.

A/N: And that is the last of the 25 days of fic! Holy cow. As well as a fine winter solstice festival to all!