Prologue

The year is 1902 and the Santa Clause of the time had just passed away, he had made his last delivery of the night and for the first time ever the sleigh returned with only the suit and no man wearing it. Bernard rushed to the sleigh.

"Oh no…what happened? Where is Santa? Please tell me he's just left without the suit." He said to the reindeer. They all looked back at him and hung their heads. "He's not – "

"Daddy!" a teenage-looking girl yelled happily running down the stairs to the sleigh. "Dad? Bernard where's my dad?"

"Um…I – I don't know."

"You don't know? Is that his suit?"

"Yes."

"There's a suit but no Santa?" she asked and then walked to the lead reindeer. "Dasher, where is he?"

Dasher told her he was gone.

"Gone? Gone how?"… "What do you mean he disappeared?"… "Dasher, this isn't funny, where is he?"

"Ella – "

"No, he can't be gone."

"Ella if he disappeared he's gone, there's nothing we can do about it."

"I refuse to believe that my father is gone Bernard. Get E.L.F.S. out here, now, find him."

"Ella – "

"Find him!" she screamed at him in tears.

"What's going on?" a woman asked walking down the stairs in her night robe. "Ella, honey, what's wrong? Bernard?"

"We uh…we have a problem."

"What kind of problem? Wait, where's Michael?"

"That's the problem, we don't know."

"Why are you stalling?" Ella asked Bernard.

"Ella, please, calm down."

"Calm down? My father could be out there somewhere!"

"He's not! He's gone!"

She looked at him shocked, she couldn't believe he was saying this. She ran up the stairs crying past her mother. Bernard closed his eyes upset with himself for yelling at her like that.

"Bernard?"

"Mrs. Clause?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Dasher said it himself, he disappeared."

She nodded gasping as she started to cry. Then she went back upstairs.

"Judy."

"Yes?"

"Take the suit and get it cleaned." Bernard told her and she took it from the sleigh. "Curtis."

"Yeah?"

"Unhook the reindeer, and somebody take care of the sleigh." He said and then went upstairs. He knocked on the door to Santa's room. "Mrs. Clause?"

"Come on in Bernard." She said wiping her nose and eyes with her handkerchief.

"I'm sorry."

"It's ok, what do you need?"

"This has never happened before, the sleigh has never returned without a Santa, even a new one."

"So what do you suggest we do?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe you can call a meeting with the council see if they'll know what to do."

"Does the handbook say anything about this kind of situation?"

"That would be a question for Curtis, he's the only one that follows it by the letter."

"Ok, well I guess I could call a meeting tomorrow." She said standing up. "I should go check on Ella."

"Yeah."

"Just go on as usual for now."

"Yes Ma'am." Bernard said and left. She went to see her daughter. She knocked on her door.

"Go away."

"Sweetheart it's me."

No answer so she walked in.

"Sweetheart."

"It's not true right? He cant really be gone."

"Honey, it's a miracle he's lasted this long, even Bernard said no other Santa lasted this long."

"But, what happened, I don't understand."

"No one does."

"So, now there's going to be a new Santa?"

"Yes."

"We have to leave?"

"Oh honey."

"I don't want to leave. I was born here, I belong here."

"You belong with us, and if your father isn't Santa anymore we don't belong here."

"Yes we do."

"Ella, please, get some sleep, we'll talk tomorrow."

She laid down and buried her face in the pillow crying.

In the morning Ella didn't come out, she stayed in bed all day. Meanwhile her brother and Sister, Noah and Noelle, were helping out the elves, and their mother was in an emergency meeting with the council.

"I called this emergency meeting because last night the sleigh came back without my husband, I have been informed by the reindeer that he disappeared leaving only the suit."

"Michael's gone?" Mother Nature asked surprised.

"Yes." She whispered showing how upset she was.

"Oh Crystal, I'm so sorry."

"We'll be ok. However, the suit returned with no wearer, we don't have a new Santa."

"That is a problem." Tooth Fairy said.

"And we don't know what to do."

"Well, we will have to find a new Santa, for now the elves can carry on as usual. We have some time."

"How much longer can we stay here?"

"Until we find a new Santa."

"Ok, thank you."

It took only a couple more days, they decided to just send Dasher down with the suit to someone they knew was a good man, he wasn't married and had no kids. He found the suit, put it on and Prancer took him back to the pole.

It was that night that the family left. The other reindeer took the sleigh.

"Why do we have to leave?" Ella asked Bernard as the rest of her family got ready.

"You know why."

"I don't want to leave, what if they left and I stayed?"

"Ella, you have to go, you have no reason to stay anymore.

"No I don't, just because my father is gone doesn't mean I have no reason to be here."

"Ella." Her mother called.

She looked down at the necklace she had, it looked like a frosted snowflake, it was gorgeous, and when the sunlight hit it it looked like the northern lights in the middle.

"Go Ella, go with your family."

She looked back up at him and sucked it in sniffling. She took the necklace off and placed it in his hand but didn't take her hand away. "If I leave, I'm never coming back."

"Ella, you have to go with your family, it's where you belong."

She nodded and removed her hand then walked away to the sleigh and climbed in. he looked down at the necklace in his hand and closed his hand around it then looked up at the sleigh faking a grin as they flew away waving at everybody. Later that night the sleigh returned around the time Prancer did with the new Santa.