Hey there everyone… I sincerely hope y'all are enjoying this little Christmas story of mine. I would like to give a shout out to all who reviewed the previous chapter: screaming phoenix, JAKT, Comet Moon, Sentinel103, noncynic, Kwebs, Soth11, Katsumara, CajunBear73, waveform, Shrike176, Joe Stoppinghem, Mr. Wizard, Slyrr, Thomas Linquist, and bigherb81. You all Rock!

Disclaimer? Do I still need a disclaimer? Well, either way… don't own, so don't sue…

Chapter 3

While James went to the twins room to get them settled down and back to sleep, Anne stood at the bottom of the steps that led up to her daughter's bedroom. She didn't like hearing Kim cry, and she figured it would be best to talk to her about what happened as soon as possible.

Quietly Anne called up, just loud enough for her daughter to here. "Kimmie? Can I come up?" She could hear Kimmie sniffing back tears. "Honey please, I'd like to talk to you."

A muffled voice called down. "Go away!"

Probably has her face buried into her pillow. Anne thought to herself, knowing her daughter. "Please Kimmie… It's important. It's about what just happened… What you just saw your father and I doing."

There were a few heartbeats before a weak little voice was heard. "Ok…"

Anne quietly went up the stairs, and as soon as she was able to see her daughter's bed, Anne's heart almost sank. Kim was still lying with her face down into her pillow, and her little shoulders shaking from crying. Anne sat down on the edge of her daughter's bed, which made Kimmie turn over and sit up.

Older Kim had followed her mother up the steps, and sat down on the floor opposite the bed with her back against the wall. She sort of remembered the conversation with her mother, but it was so long ago she had forgotten parts of it.

"You Ok Honey?" Anne asked with all the love and understanding that only a mother could convey with those three simple words.

"(sniff)… Yeah… I guess s… so." She paused for a few seconds, and then said, "I'm sorry Mommy."

"What are you sorry for Dear?"

"For saying that I hated you and Daddy. I… I don't hate you. I just hope you don't hate me now."

Anne slid over closer to Kimmie and enveloped her in a hug. "Oh Honey… your father and I would never hate you. Why would you say that?"

"F… for what I said to you." Kimmie said.

"Oh Honey…" Anne said as she squeezed her only daughter a little bit tighter. "I know that you're sorry, and that you didn't mean it."

"Mommy…" Kim said as she pulled out of the hug and wiped away her drying tears. "I… I thought it was a bad thing to lie."

"What do you mean Dear?" Anne asked with her eyes slightly narrowed. Older Kim leaned forward a bit to hear a little better, but it was Anne who spoke next. "Oh… you think that your daddy and I lied to you about Santa, don't you?" Little Kimmie nodded, causing a few locks of her now mussed hair to fall into her face, which her mother absently brushed back with one of her hands.

Anne opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself. She sat there for a few seconds looking into her daughter's big green eyes, and then an idea popped into her head. "I think I've got something that can explain everything. I'll be right back." Anne left the bedroom for only about 2 minutes, and returned carrying a large manila envelope.

"This is something that a Great Aunt from New York left to my family. I've had this for quite a few years, but I think it will help us in this situation. It's a newspaper clipping, and it's quite old… so we need to be careful with it."

Little Kimmies eyes went wide. "What is it?"

"It's an article that was written in the editorial section of The New York Sun newspaper back in 1897." Anne said while she gently pulled the yellowed paper from the envelope. "We really should put this in a protective sleeve of some sort."

"You see Kim… a little girl wrote a letter to the newspaper back then asking if there was really a Santa Claus. Her father had told her that whatever was written in the newspaper was true, so she thought this would be a good idea. This article here is the response, and I would like to read it to you. The language may sound a little different since it was so long ago, but I think you will understand the gist of it. Do you want to hear it?"

"What was the name of the little girl?" Kimmie asked as she leaned forward. By now little Kimmie had replaced her crying eyes with eyes of wonder and intrigue. Anne smiled a little to herself at the way her daughter could switch her emotions around so quickly.

"Her name was Virginia, and the title of this article is 'Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus'". Kimmie's mother then cleared her throat. "From the editorial page of the New York Sun, 1897, an article written by Francis P. Church:

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

At this point, Anne didn't notice that her daughter's eyelids were beginning to droop, as the earlier events were starting to take their toll, and the fact that that it was a little after midnight. A wide-eyed older version of Kim Possible leaned forward as she listened to the article. She had heard of the article and the associated story, but she did not remember it being read to her by her mother, and she had never read it on her own before.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world, which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!"

When Anne finished the article, she saw that her daughter had fallen asleep at some point, and was softly snoring. She gave a little chuckle, and quietly said, "So much like your father."

Even though her younger self had fallen asleep while her mother read, the older Kim had heard the entire article, and only now did Kim truly realize the importance of Santa Claus and what he represented. It wasn't all about the supposed belief in the Santa figure it self, but it was the belief that was the most important.

Still sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, a tear fell from the corner of Kim's eye while she watched the younger version of her mother walk down the steps. She then looked over at the sleeping form of her younger self. Kim now finally understood just what was so special about believing in Santa. Heck… She might even start believing in the big guy dressed in red, now that she had heard the entire article.

Kim leaned back against the wall from her sitting position and squeezed her eyelids tightly. Her head started to hurt a bit, and when Kim finally opened her eyes, she was back in her car, and her head wasn't just hurting, it was throbbing.

She looked around with half-lidded eyes trying to take in her new surroundings, and she couldn't quite place a rushing sound that was echoing in her ears. When things started to clear, she saw a number of different things that immediately had Kim worried. One, she had something cold and sticky on the left side of her head. She looked at the driver's side window and saw a small crack and a bit of blood where her head had struck the window during the accident.

Yes… it was an accident! Kim now remembered swerving to miss an animal… a dog, she thought it was. The next thing Kim noticed was that it was cold… very cold. She saw that the passenger door window was partially broken out, and a frigid wind was blowing in, along with a few flakes of snow. Initially the bracing cold gave her senses a jolt, but now it was starting to actually make her a bit tired.

This is not good. Kim thought to herself.

She then looked out of the windshield, and saw just how perilous her situation really was. The front wheels of the car were just barely over the edge of the bank of Mid-River, and she could feel the water starting to push the car to one side very slowly. Instinctively Kim's hand went to her pants pocket to pull out the Kimmunicator, but it wasn't there. She had forgotten to bring it with her in her mad rush out of her and Ron's apartment.

"Ron…" Kim mouthed, seeing her breath as she exhaled, and wrapped her arms around her self, shivering. The coat she had brought wasn't made to keep her warm in these frigid temps. The next thing she checked was the dash mounted screen in her car. All it took was a glance to know that her car was definitely out of commission. The screen was continuously flashing the message "REBOOTING SYSTEM", but nothing was happening. It seemed that the combination of the accident and the cold had also affected the main computer, so she couldn't use the onboard system to call Wade either.

Then Kim both heard and felt a dull "thunk" near the rear of the car. With her head still throbbing, she turned around and tried to look out the rear window. It was partially frosted over from the cold, but she could see… something. It looked like the back end of a red vehicle, but she didn't hear an engine of any kind. Kim absently thought that maybe the howling wind was covering up the sound of the engine, but what she heard next made Kim suddenly question just how serious her head injury was.

She heard a deep voice almost floating through the air, and it was calling out some names. "Pull Dasher, pull Dancer, Prancer and Vixen!" This was followed by the snap of what sounded like a whip of some kind. "C'mon Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen! Pull boys… PULL!" Again there was the snap of a whip.

She then felt the car lurch a bit, and a sickening wave of nausea washed over Kim as the car moved sideways from the push of the river on the front wheels, and her head injury wasn't helping matters much either. There was another snap of the whip, and the Sloth almost launched back and away from the rushing water that Kim had earlier thought would be her grave.

The jerk of the car as it was pulled off the small bank had jostled Kim around a bit, making her hold her head again with a groan. With her face in her hands, Kim then heard a soft knocking on the driver's side window. When she looked up to see who her rescuer was, her jaw dropped to the floor.

There stood someone, who for all intense and purposes looked EXACTLY like Santa Claus. He had everything from the white beard, to the red hat, jacket and pants. The man cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled out so she could hear. "Are you Ok Kimberly?"

"Y… Yeah… I think so. I think I might have a concussion, but I'm fine." She answered back, not quite believing that there was someone running around pulling people from the river dressed as Santa Claus.

Kim then saw the flash of head-lights play across the windows of her car as it started to pass by where she had gone through the guard rail. The vehicle stopped, and started to back up.

The Santa figure then laughed. "Ho, Ho, Ho… I'd better go Kimberly. I've got a lot of work yet to do tonight. Looks like a young man is here to help you, so you should be fine." He looked over his shoulder at a vehicle that had stopped near the spot where her car had gone though the rail. "Well I better get to going. You're Fiancé is here to save you. Merry Christmas Kimberly!"

Kim looked over at the headlights, and saw someone getting out with a large flashlight which shone down on her car. She then looked back out the driver's window to ask the man how he knew it was Ron, but the man in red was gone.

Kim then felt something wet on her cheeks, and she realized that she had started to cry just a little. "Was that a dream?" She asked herself and rubbed her eyes a bit. When she looked back out the window, Kim saw Ron a few feet from her car. He almost fell once, but eventually made it to the vehicle.

"Kim!" Ron yelled out, and tried to pull the door open. His hand slipped off the handle, and the door didn't budge. It was wedged into the frame from the impact, and there was a bit of ice that had also built up on the vehicle.

Kim watched as Ron closed his eyes and brought his gloved hands together in front of his face for a bit, and she saw his hands start to glow blue. When Ron opened his eyes, Kim saw that they had a blue glow to them as well. He had just charged himself up to do something.

Kim leaned away from the door just as Ron reached out, and then with minimal effort, he yanked the door open and off it's hinges. After dropping the door, he looked at Kim with his now big brown eyes, and said with his goofy grin, "Oops… Sorry 'bout that."

Ron then reached in and picked Kim up in the classic carry, one arm under her shoulders, and the other under her legs. "It's a good thing you didn't go any further down Kim." He said as Kim lay her still hurting head onto his shoulder. "Any further and you would have gone into the river."

As Ron Stoppable carried his soon-to-be wife up the bank towards his SUV on the road, neither he nor Kim saw the tracks that were left when the car was pulled out of the river. By morning they would be filled with snow, not to be seen for a long time.

…x x x x…

While Ron put Kim into the front seat, he saw her eyes flutter a bit before it looked like she fell asleep. When he put her seatbelt on, Ron would have swore that he heard Kim say, "Thank-you Santa".

A short Epilogue will follow.

Well, I hope this wasn't too corny. I'm sure someone will tell me if it was.

I just want to make sure credit is given where credit is due: The article used in this story is a real article that was written in 1897 by Francis P. Church in the newspaper called The New York Sun.