“How in the world did I end up in Sweden on Christmas Eve?” said Prancer the reindeer, standing up in the snow. “Ouch, my head hurts. I must have hit a cloud and fell to the ground. On the most important night of the year!”
Prancer stood up, almost losing his balance, kicking the snow. He wandered into the nearest village, saying: “I’m such a failure. I hope Father Christmas comes back for me. I can’t be sure at all which way he went or where the sleigh is now.”
As Prancer walked through the village, he noticed Christmas trees decorated with white candles and silver ornaments that caught the starlight. Then, a 12-year-old girl noticed the reindeer while admiring the glowing Bethlehem Star in her front window.
She ran out in the snow in a white dress with a red sash around her waist. As she ate a lussekatt bun, a crown of candles sat on her head in a wreath of Lingonberry branches. She said: “Did Father Christmas send you?”
Then she gently touched his nose and examined his flying antlers, which were larger than antlers on normal reindeer.
“I got separated from Father Christmas and his sleigh,” Prancer said, startling the girl, who didn’t expect that he could speak.
“Oh, you can talk!” she said. “My name is Lucia Johansson. Would you like to spend Christmas Eve with my family?”
“Thank you! I’d love to spend Christmas Eve with you. I hope Father Christmas comes back for me by morning,” he said. “How did I get lost at such an important time? I must’ve hit a cloud or a star and crashing onto the ground knocked me out.”
“I hope you can dance,” Lucia said, brushing snow off his tender body. “In Sweden, we dance around the Christmas tree!”
“I usually fly,” Prancer said. “I forgot to tell you that my name is Prancer. Almost like my brother Dancer. He can dance!”
When Lucia opened the front door to her home, a Christmas tree with white candles glowed with straw ornaments. Straw angels, flowers, and stars hung from the tree, and under it stood a Christmas goat from braided straw.
Beside the goat, a large wickerwork basket sat full of gifts that overflowed onto the red and green Christmas tree skirt. A room full of people ate from a smorgasbord, including pickled herring, salads, lutfisk, boiled potatoes, and rice dessert.
As the party went on, guests brought turkey, roast beef, Christmas ham, cheese, meatballs, sausages, stuffed cabbage rolls, jellied pigs’ feet, pork ribs, vegetables, bread with butter and mayonnaise, liver pate, and sweet pastries.
Next to potted red tulips and candles, a manger scene sat as a centerpiece on cotton wool snow with the various animals. Blue and pink hyacinths and lilies-of-the-valley surrounded the tulips in an extravagant flower display.
“What beautiful flowers!” Prancer said, smelling the tulips. “Oh, how I love to eat red tulips! May I, please?”
“No, but I can get you Christmas cookies with coffee instead,” Lucia said, placing her candle headpiece on the table.
“Lucia, what is a reindeer doing our home?” her mother said, laughing. “Is he a gift from Father Christmas?”
“It’s just for tonight, Mother,” Lucia said. “Please tell Father that the neighbors sent him for holiday fun!”
“Well, the neighbors must have sent him for fun!” her mother said. “Where else would he have come from?”
All of a sudden, Lucia’s extended family joined hands while thumping their feet and danced in a ring, holding a lighted candle. The dancers sang: “We fain would like to start up a judge’s dance now, but he’s not at home for the present.”
“Dance with me, Prancer!” Lucia said, jumping on his back. The duo went round and round the table and down the halls of the house. When the halls were danced, Prancer and Lucia went through each room and up and down each staircase.
“I wish you could stay with me forever!” Lucia said to Prancer, kissing him on the cheek. “You’re so much fun!”
“I know, but my whole family will be worried, and I’m usually helping to pull the sleigh on Christmas Eve,” he said. “I have a feeling that good ole’ Father Christmas is running behind tonight because of me. I messed everything up.”
“Maybe by morning Father Christmas will find you,” Lucia said. “Why don’t we sleep next to the Christmas tree and wait for him? I can use you as a pillow, and you can keep watch out the window for him on his sleigh.”
Tears filled Prancer’s eyes at the thought of never seeing Father Christmas or his reindeer family again.
“I don’t even know if I could find my way back to the North Pole,” he said. “I’ve always flown with the reindeer pack.”
“If Father Christmas never comes back for you, you could always stay here with me,” Lucia said, hugging his neck.
As Christmas Eve went on, Lucia’s family exchanged gifts and ate Christmas cookies and rice dessert.
“Father Christmas didn’t come yet!” one of Lucia’s sisters said to her parents. “I’ve been good this year. I want my gifts.”
“I’m sure he’s on his way,” Lucia said, looking at Prancer. “Maybe he’ll come tomorrow instead of tonight.”
“He always comes on Christmas Eve!” another cousin said, blowing his nose crying. “What’s the party for without him?”
“I’m really sorry,” Prancer said, curling up beneath the Christmas tree and burying his head in his forearms.
When every disappointed relative had left for the night, Lucia’s mother, father, and three sisters sat with Prancer.
“The neighbors didn’t exactly send the reindeer, did they?” Lucia’s father said. “He’s a lost Christmas reindeer, isn’t he?”
“I’m the reason Father Christmas is late on Christmas Eve,” Prancer said. “I’m so very sorry. Please, forgive me.”
While Lucia’s parents and sisters went to sleep in their bedrooms, Lucia snuggled up with Prancer as he wept.
Then, early in the morning, when it seemed that Father Christmas would never complete his rounds on Christmas Eve, there was a thud in front of Lucia’s house, several whinnies, and a large, red glowing reindeer light.
“Are there any good children in this house?” Father Christmas said, knocking on the front door with a sack of gifts.
“Father Christmas! You found me,” Prancer said. “I’m so sorry. I hit a cloud or something and fell to Earth and lost you!”
“Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!” Father Christmas said. “Not a worry, we made do. Now go join your brothers. I have seven other reindeer, but I had to go after the lost one until I found you! We flew all night. I didn’t forget you.”
As the story goes, Prancer made sure to be especially alert when flying on Christmas Eve and never got lost again.
Father Christmas gave Lucia extra Christmas gifts for taking care of one of his most precious reindeer. Even if Christmas was a bit late that year, it was on time every year after that because of a Swedish girl who took in a stranger. God Jul!
Copyright 2016 Jennifer Waters
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