Bar-none, King Babar found his kingdom home of Celesteville to look the most beautiful during the holiday season. Elephants up and down every street seemed to adopt a more placid, cheerful demeanor as they decorated their Christmas trees and hung wreaths and electric light-up stars from poles and signs throughout the city. Fresh baked goods were set to cool on windowsills of shops, the nostalgic smell of cloves and fruit and rising dough drifting out into the air. The wind was much chillier, delivering an icy bite, but still the fireplaces in the palace made up for that, providing a warm environment to crack open a good book or share a well-told, evocative story.
Yes, Babar thought to himself as he sat on the sofa in the huge drawing room, relaxing in front of the radio, waiting for the local weather report. Christmas in Celesteville is a beautiful time indeed.
"DA-AD!" a loud voice exclaimed, jolting Babar away from the silence. Startled, he glanced over to see his young daughter, Flora, dressed in what could only be described as a sort of white unhemmed strip of cloth, feathers scattered in the fabric with glue. "Dad, Pom promised to help me with my angel costume for the Celesteville holiday concert, but he left with Troubadour to go to Victor's house instead this morning!" She was practically in tears, her arms and legs dotted with spots of glitter and white paint.
Babar sighed with a smile, reaching down to lift her up in a comforting hug. "Now Flora," he began calmly, "I'm sure your brother had a good reason for breaking his…"
"MY TUSKS!" came another loud holler. Cornelius was in the hallway, peering in shock through his spectacles at Queen Celeste, whose face and long magenta gown were black with smoke. "Why, Queen Celeste, whatever in the world has happened to you?"
Celeste rolled her eyes. "Chef Truffles," she muttered under her breath. "He was helping me with the Christmas baking, but he started rambling on about his training in Paris, and before we knew it he'd burned everything… well, to be fair it wasn't entirely his fault, but… oh, it's just sometimes I find the holidays so frustrating, do you know what I mean?"
Babar frowned in slight worry. His wife was generally mild-mannered and kind, but she seemed to get snappy and stressed out every year around Christmas, and he really couldn't blame her for it. She had to do most of the holiday shopping, she was in charge of the Christmas dinner, she organized the gift-giving every year and had to handle the task of getting Lord and Lady Rataxes to agree to stop by for a visit… in fact, by the time Christmas Eve finally rolled around most years, all she wanted to do was sleep.
"MOM!" chimed in a fourth voice, and Babar instantly recognized it. Alexander, his youngest son, was thundering down the palace steps, taking two at a time, his face practically red with anger. He was carrying a tattered stack of comic books in his arms, torn pieces of them fluttering out behind him to the floor like confetti. "Mom, Isabelle was in my toybox! Look, she got into my comic book collection and ripped it all apart!"
"Did not!" retorted Isabelle with a scowl from the seat beside the window nearby, her blue dress bright in the stream of sunlight pouring in.
"Did too!" Alexander shot back.
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Children, please!" scolded Celeste exhaustedly, wiping the smoke from her eyes as she wandered with Cornelius into the drawing room, her shoulders folded like the wings of an owl that had been disturbed from a daytime rest. "Alexander, what makes you think it was Isabelle? She was down here with your father all this time, wasn't she?"
"Well yeah," admitted Alexander sheepishly with a sideways glare at his younger sister, "but…"
"Sire, I need to speak to you about today's schedule," came yet another voice, and Babar had to suppress a groan this time around. Pompadour, his minister of protocol, was sauntering into the room with a list the length of half the floor, a list dotted with various times and activities for the day – at least twenty, and Babar hadn't even had breakfast yet! "It seems there's a conflict," he announced, "between the treaty signing with the Gorilla King at eleven o' clock and the trade meeting set for today, and there are a few documents that need your signature, and…"
"You're buying me a new set of comics!" Alexander told Isabelle, waving the torn pages in her face. "These were limited editions, you know! I don't dig around in your stuff and ruin it, do I?"
"Now, now," chimed in Cornelius, "Pompadour, I'm sure we'll have time for everything today, we might just need to rearrange a few things…"
"DA-AD!" exclaimed Flora and Alexander at the same time, shouting above everybody else.
Babar could only sigh loudly, his small noise unheard beneath the chaos surrounding him. The holidays in Celesteville were beautiful, true… but calm? No.