Disclaimer! I don't own The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It was Christmas eve and Santa Claus was on his sleigh about to deliver the toys all over the world. Jingles and his big family were watching the whole thing up close. Laughter and happiness filled the air. The young elf felt like his heart was swelling with excitement. Everyone was singing and cheering, then in a dreadful flash, Santa's big bag of toys swallowed him up! Suddenly all of the decorations were black and the toys chasing all of the other elf's. Joy turned into fear as a tall and dark snowman grabbed him. Jingles wished he could run away but he couldn't move. This, snowman (if it could be called a snowman) had him entranced, Jingles was frozen. The snowman opened it's big dark mouth and roared so loud Jingles eyes jolted open.
It was a dream, but of the corner of his eye he saw a black figure jump out of the window. Jingles tried to catch his breath. It wasn't Christmas eve, it was fifty-five days till Christmas, probably fifty-four days now. All of his brothers and two sisters, Holly and Star, were fast asleep. The window was open and the cold air gently rush in in the room. It was quiet, like nothing had happened. He got up to shut the window. As Jingles walked the floor creaked ever so slightly, which make him feel like someone was watching him. His turned around and everyone was still sleeping. Jingles looked outside, everything was how it should be. The snow was falling and the smell of cookies filled the air like normal. He shut the window and walked back to bed. But his brother, Snowflake, had stolen his spot on the crowed bed. Not again Jingles shook his head and crawled to the foot of bed. He looked at the ceiling, barely falling asleep. The soot-covered snowman haunted him every time he closed his eyes. So he laid there and waited, and waited, and waited.
The sun was rising and Jingles didn't get much shut-eye the night before.
Mother walked in merrily shouting "Frostbite, Twinkle, Jingles," She began waking everybody up "Holly, Evergreen, Gingerbread," one by one heads popped up and got out of bed. "Ginger, Snowball, Snowflake, Star, Candy! Get up! It's time to eat!"
All eleven of the little children ran down the stairs, the biggest family in all of Christmas Town. Most family's have around two children, but the Tinsel family break the record of the most children. In Tinsel house they always say 'The more the merrier!' and they definitively have more. It had gotten to the point of having to give the boys girl names like Ginger or Candy.
At the table were peppermint-pancakes and hot chocolate like normal. Jingles sat down and began to sip the hot chocolate. Unaware of a snowman shaped marshmallow in his cup, Jingles put it up to his lips. Looking down he saw the marshmallow and his mind immediately flashed to the dreadful, twisted face of the horrid snowman creature.
"Ah!" Jingles gave a scream and jumped out of his chair.
Snowflake gasped "Jingles are you ok?"
Mother looked worried "Is your chocolate too hot?"
"No, it's not too hot" Jingles got up off the floor.
Mother had grabbed the cup and set it on the table "What's the matter?"
"I had a dream." he tried to put it in words "It wasn't a nice one, it was..." tried to explain the terror and fear, but his vocabulary didn't have words like terror or fear just...
"Naughty?" Candy replied.
"No."
Twinkle spoke up "Was it a anti-merry dream?"
"Well," Jingles was thinking about it. "I guess so."
Mother frowned "I've only hear this word once," she had a concerned look glued on her face "I think what Jingles means to say is that he had a bad dream."
The whole room gasped "Bad?" they all murmured to each other, no one ever really heard the word 'bad' before "What's bad?" they all asked, but their question was ignored.
"I'm sure I'll be fine Mother." Jingles was trying to make Mother feel better.
"Alright, but if you have another bad dream, tell me." she smiled and kissed his head.
Once she had walked into the kitchen Snowflake leaned over and asked "What's a bad dream like?"
"Ya!" everyone was looking at Jingles with excitement.
"Well," he began "My bad dream was all of us watching Santa takeoff to deliver toys, like every Christmas eve. Well, it didn't go like normal. Santa was eaten by his bag! Was swallowed up like a fresh batch of cookies. It was the badest thing I ever saw!"
"Jingles," Gingerbread looked nervous "I don't think it's a good idea telling stories about Santa getting eaten."
"But I'm not done." Jingles knew that Gingerbread was quick to stop things if was the slightest bit different. He looked at all of his siblings. "Then everything turned black and gray. And everything didn't feel all nice and soft, but it was all hard and sharp. The toys ate elf's and made everyone run around like crazy."
Frostbite and Snowball had the same look as Gingerbread "Maybe you should stop." said Snowball trembling a little. "I don't like it."
"I didn't get to the part about the snowman yet!"
"What snowman?" A elf with a tall bakers hat on his head and apron covering his body had walked through the door.
"Father!" cried all of the children. When this household gives family hugs they bring out the 'race' in embrace. All of the kids ran as fast as they could so they could be the first to give Father a hug. The elf toppled over as the children covered him like snow on the ground.
Mother had walked in and laughed "I know you love Father, but don't squish him."
One by one they got off, mumbling their own apologies to Father. Father got up and laughed and closed the door. "A snowman?" he said "You know, I heard that the Kris sisters saw a snowman fall apart before their eyes."
Jingles was scared, but curiosity was getting the best of him, and he began to get interested "They did? What where they doing?"
"They where riding a wind-up polar bear. When they past the snowman, it fell to the ground."
"Where was it?"
"By the Van Snow's Christmas Tree Store. Why do you ask?"
Mother had butted in on the conservation. "Let's not talk about it now. I bet you would like some breakfast too, Father."
He sat down and said "It was a hard night, we baked about seven-thousand batches of cookies last night."
"Sounds like a good night's work." Mother handed a plate full of food to Father.
Evergreen piped up and asked "May we go outside?"
Mother walked over the the hall closet "Of course, just remember your scarfs and mittens."
Outside, the houses were a gingerbread brown with snow covering all of the them. Everyone was ready for Christmas, elf's were singing and Christmas lights lit up the town.
Jingles was walking to the park when Snowflake called from the bedroom window "Hey Jingles! Help me find my scarf!"
When Jingles looked up he saw footprints on the roof. Then the young elf got an idea. He ran to the room to help his brother find his scarf.
Once Jingles opened the door, Snowflake crawled out from under the bed "I don't know where my scarf is. It's lost I tell you."
"Where did you last have it?" said Jingles as he opened the closet.
"Hmm," Snowflake got up and thought "Oh! I remember putting it behind the door." He ran to the door and shut it. There was a blue and green scarf wadded up in the corner.
"What's it doing behind the door?" Jingles scratched his head thinking of ways it could had ended up there.
Snowflake laughed "I threw it there when I was so tired from playing outside. I guess I didn't even think of putting it away."
"Well," said Jingles "you have your scarf, now help me with this garland."
"The house is already decorated for Christmas." Snowflake replied as he handed Jingles the green garland. "We don't need more garland."
Jingles opened the window and twirled the garland in the air. Then crossing his fingers, he lassoed the chimney. Jingles climbed up, the pine needles from the garland scratched and poked his palms and pinched his fingers. Jingles was almost at the top when he slipped on some ice. He held on to the garland with his little hands as tight has he could. Thankful he didn't slide all the way down the roof, he climbed up some more. On the roof he saw imprints in the snow. It looked like someone, or something, tall had slid down the roof too.
Snowflake called from the window "What are you doing!?"
Jingles didn't answer because he was climbing to the other side of the roof to see where this thing came from. He peaked over and saw foot prints. But there was only three and they were small. Two of them were on his roof and the other was of the neighbor's. It must have been leaping in a zig-zag pattern. Then Jingles looked to his right to see a hand print. It had long fingers, almost as long as Jingles's arm. "This thing had to be tall and skinny, how else would it have been able to jump up here?" he quietly said to no one in particular.
"Jingles!" cried Snowflake "What in the name of Kris Kringle are you doing!?"
Jingles turned around to see his brother climbing up the garland. "Snowflake look at this hand print! Not a elf in Christmas Town has a hand like that!" Jingles pointed to the imprint in the snow. "I told you that something bad is happening."
"It's just a hand print." Snowflake frowned "I can do that."
Jingles shook his head "You don't get it. I saw something crawl out of our bedroom window last night and I think it has to do with the dream that I had."
"So you do think that Santa's bag is going to eat him all because of a snowman?" Snowflake looked at Jingles like he was insane "You have no real proof, not many people are going to believe a few tracks in the snow and a dream."
"I'll get more evidence when we talk to the Kris sisters," A plan began to spark in Jingles's mind "and investigate the Van Snow's snowman." and with that the two climbed off of the roof and ran to the three sisters house.