CHAPTER 4:
In which the North Polar Bear bakes cookies!
Cliff House,
North Pole.
December, 19—
My Dear Children,
Well well! Another year has gone by. Thank you very much for your nice letters and kind inquiries. I have been doing splendidly, thanks to Ilbereth's excellent work last year. I am very much looking forward to delivering your toys. We shall not have to wait much longer now!
Our house is quite abuzz this year. The North Polar Bear is especially active. He suddenly got such a great hankering for cookies and has now taken up residence in the kitchen. How quickly he works! He has baked Eleventy-One batches so far, and he will not stop until he has reached One Gross (One Hundred and Forty-Four!).
We all helped with finding cookie recipes for Polar. There were all sorts of them: old recipes, new recipes, experiments, goodness me! One of the gnomes even found a spiced cookie recipe from a very worn Medieval manuscript. Ilbereth particularly wishes to have chocolate chip cookies with coarse sea salt on top. A curious mixture of flavours, says Polar, but he is willing to try it.
Must be becuz salt reminds him of the Sea. Elves luv the Sea as ive herd.
Snow Man so dearly wanted to help with the baking, but he nearly melted the instant he got close to the oven! He is now helping to chill the dough while Polar's nephews watch the oven. They have become more attentive of it after the first batch, which was sadly burnt. The silly fellows distracted themselves with licking the mixing bowl, and not one of them noticed the billowing smoke until Polar raised the alarm! All work came to a halt until the windows were flung wide open and everyone had stopped coughing. Paksu kept the ruined cookies, however. He says they will make excellent "bricks" to throw at any marauding goblins. He and Valkotukka now have dozens of colorful little hourglasses to keep track of the time- one on every countertop and in every nook.
That is all for now. Polar is calling me. It seems he has upset a pile of baking pans. Crash! Clatter! Clang! I am off to help him now. I send you many warm wishes this year.
Your Loving,
Father Christmas
never fear, children! the pans dont have any cookies on them. Much luv. will send you some gingerbred.
Polar Bear
A.N: Gentle readers, it is my great pleasure to inform you that I entered this chapter and the previous one in a holiday writing challenge, and I won! As always, thank you for your kind reviews. :)