Once there was a little Dutch girl named Daniëlle Kappel who lived in a castle on the coast of Holland with the windmills. She had the best view of the ocean from her bedroom window, which sat high above the fields.
“I’ve placed my wooden shoes next to the fireplace for Sinterklaas,” the 12-year-old girl said to her father and kissed him on the cheek.
She admired her large Christmas bouquet of mistletoe from her friend Niels on the fireplace mantle. He had fancied her since she was a child, always bringing her gifts and sending her love notes. Her stepmother hated him because he never brought her gifts, only Daniëlle.
“Why doesn’t Niels ever bring me a gift?” her stepmother asked Daniëlle. “It’s you. It’s always you. It’s never me. Besides, you’re too young to have a suitor. I need you to do work around the house.”
Not sure what to say to her stepmother, Daniëlle looked at her father’s kind eyes.
“What did you get me for Christmas, Papa?” Daniëlle asked, as she flipped open her father’s pocket watch and looked at the late hour on Christmas Eve. She hoped to receive many special gifts this year. She had always been the apple of her father’s eye.
“It’s a surprise!” he said with a chuckle. “Don’t you like surprises?”
She was so proud of her father, who was a very rich merchant that sent ships all over the world. He traded rare goods in foreign lands, and often gave his daughter gifts, like perfume from India. When she was young, she and her mother would spend hours in the fields by the ocean and frolicked by the windmills.
“Why aren’t you in bed by now, Daniëlle?” her father’s second wife said to her.
Daniëlle could not believe that her stepmother tried to shoo her away on Christmas Eve without another thought. She felt so hurt.
“Besides, the dreaded wicked witch was back again this year to haunt me,” her stepmother said. “She stole our Christmas ham, and I had to buy a new one.”
“Don’t worry about it, darling,” Mr. Kappel said. “It was only a ham.”
“I hope the wicked witch doesn’t bother you anymore,” Daniëlle said. She hugged her stepmother’s side. She had always wanted to be friends with her and could not understand why her stepmother disliked her so much. Since her mother died, her father seemed so lonely.
“The wicked woman always shows up at the worst times,” her stepmother said. “Did you tell Niels to send him to harass me? You hate me because I am not your mother. I forbid you to see him.”
“He’s my best friend,” Dutch girl said. “Besides, Mother always liked him and wanted me to marry him. And I don’t hate you. I don’t hate anyone!”
Pretending not to hear Daniëlle, her stepmother kissed her husband and handed him a helping of blackberry pie. Then, she grabbed Niels’ mistletoe bouquet from the mantle and threw it into the fireplace. Heartbroken, Daniëlle watched her father scowl, but he said nothing.
“Would you run an errand for me tomorrow, Daniëlle?” her stepmother said with a grimace.
The woman moved Daniëlle’s mother’s photo to the back of the shelf and placed hers in front of it.
“It will be Christmas, and I wanted to spend the day with father,” Daniëlle said. She felt chills watching Niels’ bouquet burn to ashes.
“It’s fine, darling,” her father said. “We’ll have dinner later. Don’t worry about me.”
“Now take a basket of baked goods and fruit to your aunt, your mother’s sister, in her cottage by the windmills. I’ll leave it by the door for you in the morning,” the stepmother said with a smirk. “We want to wish her a Merry Christmas!”
“I will be back for dinner and wish her Merry Christmas for all of us!” Daniëlle said, as she smiled at her father. Her blond braided hair lay gently across her shoulders and looked like a gift itself, as it was tied with red ribbons.
“Now I also have an errand to run tomorrow,” her stepmother said. “I am taking a pie to an elderly woman on the coast. We will both surely be back before nightfall, and then we can enjoy a Christmas feast with ham and apples.”
“I love you more than anyone!” Daniëlle’s father said to his daughter.
Her stepmother grinded her teeth and bit her lip.
When Daniëlle woke in the morning, her stepmother had already left to run her errand. She found her shoes filled with candies and coins. A porcelain doll in a blue dress sat beside the shoes with a fiddle in a black case. She blew away a handful of ashes from the burnt mistletoe that sat next to the shoes. Then, she dug beneath the candies to find her father’s pocket watch.
“Oh, Father, is this for me?” Daniëlle said, as she held the watch close to her chest.
“Your mother would want you to have it,” her father said, as he glanced at her black and white photo on the mantle.
Daniëlle put the pocket watch in her dress pocket and felt like a princess as she held the porcelain doll. Then, she picked up the fiddle and played squeaky notes.
“Can I please take fiddle lessons, father?” she asked. “I can learn Christmas songs!”
“Of course, but now run along on your errand, and be a good girl,” her father said. “Don’t be late for dinner.” She hugged him and put on her wool jacket, scarf, and gloves.
As Daniëlle ran along the coast, it started to snow with a brisk wind and grew dark earlier than she expected.
“How grand! You remind me of mother,” she said, as she admired a lovely windmill while she stopped for a break. “We used to visit you all the time!”
Although her father expected her back soon for dinner, Daniëlle saw a bouquet of mistletoe in the door to the windmill. She picked it up and admired its red berries.
“This is just like my bouquet from Niels,” she said. “I don’t know why my stepmother had to burn it in the fireplace.”
Then, a cold hand on her back pushed her into the windmill, and she fell to her knees.
“I knew I would finally get rid of you!” a gruesome voice rang throughout the windmill as the door slammed shut. Then, someone barred the door with a thud.
“Wait! Who would do such a thing on Christmas?” Daniëlle said. She cried as she peered through a crack in the door.
To her surprise, her stepmother—dressed in a black gown like an evil witch—pranced outside the windmill.
“I knew you were never good for Father!” Daniëlle yelled through the door at the top of her lungs.
“Well, he will never see you again, or your do-gooder aunt!” the stepmother said.
Daniëlle collapsed in tears and fell asleep only to dream of her mother dancing on a spring day in the Holland tulip fields.
“My love for you will prevail,” her mother said. “I will always love you. You have the power to harness time. Your father’s pocket watch will tell you when time is running out.”
When Daniëlle woke in the morning, her father’s pocket watch lay on her chest, tick-tocking away. Outside the windmill, she could hear high-pitched voices as they chattered away. She even heard singing.
Then, she looked through a crack in the door, and she saw seven elves as they held warm cups of apple cider and sang Christmas hymns with harmonies.
“This is where the footprints lead,” one voice said.
“Help! I’ve been locked inside this windmill since last night! Help me get out!” Daniëlle said. “Please get me out of here.”
“We’re going to try, child!” another voice said. “How did this happen?”
“My evil stepmother who is a witch locked me in here,” she said. “Do you see her anywhere?”
“Not right now,” a worried elf said. “We’re getting you out of here before she comes back.”
All at once, the seven musical elves pushed the heavy bar on the door.
“Heave-ho! Heave-ho!” the elves chanted, as they put their weight on the bar. Then, they swung open the windmill’s door. Warm sunlight hit Daniëlle’s face. She felt such relief.
“We’re the Mistletoes from the North Pole! Joyful, Cheerful, Merry, Peaceful, Carol, Nightfall, and Claus,” they said in-between singing harmonies. “We lived in your aunt’s attic. She hid us, so we could deliver gifts for Sinterklaas at Christmas.”
“So nice to meet you!” Daniëlle said. “I love every single one of you!”
“Of course, we pretend to be human, but we have magical powers in song that we use for good deeds,” Joyful said with a chuckle. “I am the chief elf.”
“My darling elves,” the little Dutch girl said. She ran to each of them with hugs.
“We sang you back to life!” Nightfall said, as he rubbed his eyes. “So sad, I found your aunt last night. She died in the foyer of her cottage before we could save her.”
“Oh no!” Daniëlle cried. “First my mother! Now my aunt!”
“We took her to the closest cathedral and asked for peace,” Peaceful said, as he sighed to himself and held back a tear.
“I sang a song until she flew to the angels,” Carol said and hummed as though no one could hear him. “We tried to sing her back to life when we found her, but she was already dead too long.”
“How did you find me?” Daniëlle said and gasped. “I might have died as well. My stepmother tried to kill me!”
“We followed footsteps in the snow from your aunt’s cottage,” Claus said. “We didn’t know what to do, so we started singing. Then, you woke up!”
“Your aunt could never find a way to prove it, but she always thought a witch killed your mother,” Merry said, as he patted his tummy. “And she always thought the witch was actually your stepmother.”
“My stepmother made up a story about a witch when she was actually the witch!” Daniëlle said. “She was worse than a witch! I think she will try to kill my father.”
“Now we must save your father from your stepmother,” Joyful said with delight. “I believe that the spirit of Christmas will prevail.”
“We are so glad we found you before you froze in this windmill,” Cheerful said.
“The hands on my father’s pocket watch seem to be slowing. I feel like this is a bad sign. Like father is trying to tell me he needs help,” Daniëlle said, as she looked at her watch. “I hope father isn’t dying.”
At once, the little Dutch girl and the seven musical elves set out to save Daniëlle’s father. She felt sad at the loss of her aunt and happy to meet the Mistletoes at the same time. She was so glad to have made new friends, and she was excited to introduce them to Niels. She was also worried that her stepmother might also attack him as well.
“What will we do once we find my evil stepmother?” Daniëlle asked the Mistletoes.
“I say we wrap her up and ship her off to the North Pole for Sinterklaas to deal with,” Claus said to Nightfall.
“That seems like an excellent solution to me,” Nightfall said, as he pulled up his sleeves in the cold morning air.
“Sinterklaas would probably agree,” Cheerful said to Merry with a nod.
“The Christmas spirit will win!” Merry said in a high-pitched voice.
“She killed someone, Cheerful!” Nightfall said. “I think we should definitely send her off to Sinterklaas.”
“I can summon Rudolph and his reindeer with a song,” Carol said. He started a round of “Adeste Fideles.”
“Sinterklaas can decide what happens to her,” Peaceful said. “Maybe she can work for him for the rest of her life.”
“What do you think, Joyful?” Claus said in a whisper.
“Her evil spirit can be changed into the Christmas spirit,” Joyful said.
As Joyful spoke, Daniëlle tried to think of the highest possible good. She was afraid for her father’s well-being and thought of how much she loved him.
“When we find the stepmother witch, we will all sing until she is overcome and collapses,” the chief elf said. “Then Daniëlle can bind her in ropes, and we will send her off to Sinterklaas once and for all.”
“Agreed,” said Daniëlle. “Father and I will be free of her, and you can come live with us as long as you want!”
“But how do we know that Meneer Kappel is not already dead?” Nightfall said.
Daniëlle looked at the ticking pocket watch and remembered her mother’s words. She showed it to the elves: “We still have time. I don’t think he’s dead yet.”
Through wind and snow, the pocket watch moved slower and slower as Daniëlle hurried to try to save her father’s life with the Mistletoes.
“Oh, I’m so filled with worry,” Daniëlle said. “Run as fast as you can. I think we are almost out of time.”
When Daniëlle and the elves reached her father’s home, they peered inside the windows to find her stepmother crying. Daniëlle’s father held the witch as they cried.
“I tried to save Daniëlle and her aunt, but the witch killed them,” she lied.
“It’s not your fault, darling,” Daniëlle’s father said with tears. “That horrid witch has been after you for years. She killed my first wife. Now she also killed my daughter and first wife’s sister.”
“No, it isn’t my fault,” the evil witch said. “Now how about you sign over your last will and testament to me, just in case anything was to happen to you.”
She slid a piece of parchment across the table and handed him a pen.
“Of course, dear,” Daniëlle’s father said, as he signed the paper. “If the witch came after me, at least my affairs would be in order.”
After she put the parchment in her purse, she stood up and grew as big as the ceiling of the Dutch castle. The witch grabbed a knife from the kitchen that doubled in size as soon as she touched its metal handle.
“You were the evil witch all along! How could I have trusted you? You took my wife and my daughter,” the father said. He grabbed the kitchen chair and held it in front of himself in defense.
“Leave my father alone,” Daniëlle said, as she burst through the castle with the Mistletoes who sang in full voice. As the witch held the knife at Daniëlle’s father’s throat, she said, “Papa, I knew you were still alive! Your pocket watch told me.”
“Adeste Fideles laeti triumphantes,” the Mistletoes sang in harmony. As they sang, the witch shrank back to normal size. Before the witch could grow large again, Sinterklaas landed in the front yard with Rudolph and his sleigh of reindeer.
Daniëlle wrestled with the witch until she dropped the knife on the kitchen floor. She kicked it to her father.
“I will not let you harm my daughter,” Daniëlle’s father said. He tied up his unfaithful wife and gagged her.
“Father, you are my Christmas gift,” the little girl said, no longer worried about what presents she would receive from him. Her father was the best gift of all.
“We are going to exile the witch to the North Pole,” Joyful said to the father.
“I would be glad to take her off your hands,” Sinterklaas said. He walked into the Dutch castle with gifts for everyone. “Please load her onto my sled and tie her tight to the railing.”
“We love you Sinterklaas,” Daniëlle said. “Merry Christmas to one and all!”
“That witch has been trying to end Christmas for years. It’s one of the reasons I sent the Mistletoes to Holland in the first place. As redemption, I promise to send you and your daughter true love in the coming years,” Sinterklaas said to Daniëlle’s father. “Until then, please help me celebrate Christmas. I would be so honored if the Mistletoes could live with you.”
As the years went by, Daniëlle watched as Sinterklaas kept his promise and brought Meneer Kappel true love with a Greek princess. Since her father was divorced from the evil stepmother, Daniëlle was no longer forbidden to spend time with Niels. She never again had to worry about what the nasty woman thought about her suitor. Niels felt to her like a prince.
In the spring among the cherry blossoms, Daniëlle and the Mistletoes orchestrated a wedding for Meneer Kappel—and then for Daniëlle to Niels when they came of age. The wicked witch never bothered anyone in Holland again; she was too busy working for Sinterklaas among the ice and snow. Christmas was always celebrated in peace with harmony and good cheer.
Copyright 2015 Jennifer Waters
