Dedicated to:

My Mom and Dadand

my friends and familyfar and wide

from Indiana to Texas, California to New York

and all the way up in Wisconsin

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas

and a happy and prosperous New Year

<3

Holly and Mistletoeand the

Christmas Eve Adventure

Written and Illustrated by:Krystal V. Weber

Edited by:Joel BergmanGreg Vestal

Special thanks to:Suzanne Zaleski Matt Legrande

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Below your roof and above your heads is the Attic King-dom. Not everyone has an Attic Kingdom, but this family does and their Attic Kingdom is a grand one indeed. In the Attic King-dom live the happy folk of the Attic, who live and work and play among the dusty boxes and trunks left there by the house people. Some of the attic folk are pretty old and dusty themselves, hav-ing been there a very, very long time, but they are happy anyway because they are among the friends and family in the place they have come to call their Home. Holly and Mistletoe are sister and brother and they are two of the happiest denizens of the Attic Kingdom. They haven’t lived there for long, having only been put away one year ago, but they made the best friends any toys could ask for while living there. They are friends with King the Lion, who is the King of the Attic but doesn’t make much of a big deal about it. Also, Buttons the Mouse, who is in charge of making sure all the attic’s plushy folk stay soft and lovable for the day when the house people come to take care of them again. And let’s not forget Piggy, who was al-ways dressed like Santa Claus even when it wasn’t Christmas and had a jolly little snort that made all the attic folk laugh. There were many other attic folk but these three were like family to Holly and Mistletoe and they always stayed very close. One Christmas Eve, just as the sun was starting to set and the stars were blinking through the sky into the Attic Kingdom, Holly was practicing her bells with Buttons and Piggy. Carol the Christmas Angel was conducting everyone and Holly and But-tons held a bell in each hand while Piggy wrapped his curly tail around one and kicked another with his back hoof.

“Ready?” said Carol, “one, two, three, four!”Ding ding dong ding dinga-ling ling dong! Went the bells.Ding ding dong ding ding dinga-ling ding--

-JINGLE-

“What on earth was that?” said Carol. She motioned for silence and everyone stopped playing.

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“That didn’t sound like any of my bells!” said Buttons.

“I don’t think it was any of our bells!” said Holly, who had gotten up to look around for the source of the sound. “Hey, brother was that you?” she called. Mistletoe had been known to play pranks on the attic folk and this seemed like just his style. But she got no reply, instead there was another loud-

-JINGLE-

-followed by an even louder-

-JINGLE- JINGLE-

“Gosh” said Piggy, “that sounds like an awfully big bell!”

“That bell has got to be bigger than my head!” said Buttons, who actually had a very tiny head and there are a great many things that are bigger than it, but he liked to believe that he was bigger than he really was.

“A very big bell indeed,” was Carol’s reply. “I think someone ought to go see what it is. But be careful!”

“I’ll go,” said Piggy, “after all I’m pretty big myself”.

“I want to go too!” said Holly, who always liked going on adven-tures.

So it was decided that Holly and Piggy would go and check out the noise. All the while the-

-JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE-

-had been growing louder, and sounded liked it was coming from the direction of the stairway. Holly jumped up on Piggy’s back and they started their way toward the stairway. Along the way they ran across Mistletoe, who was napping. Holly woke him up and told the story about the noise. Just as she was getting to the

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part about the big bell sound there was another-

-JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE-

-but this time it was much louder and much closer!

Mistletoe jumped onto Piggy’s back right behind his sister and they all rushed off toward the sound. When they got to the staircase door they saw that it was open. This was rare, since the house people usually kept the attic door shut, but this year they must have forgotten to close it. Piggy nudged the big door open with his little piggy nose and they all peered down the deep, dark stairway.

Suddenly,therewasaloudsoundandaflashoforange-y,white-y,stripystuffcameflyingfromthedarknessbelowandev-erybody was knocked over into a big pile of soft clothes that had been stored away for the winter. After all the dust had settled and everyone had a chance to catch their breath they all turned to look at what had pounced at them from the darkness. It was big, and it had a big head and big green eyes. The ears on its head were big too and pointy and it had a big pink nose thatwasbusilysniffingalloverPiggy.Itwasorangeandwhiteand had big fuzzy white feet and a long stripy tail. Around its neck was a big gold bell that went -JINGLE- every time it moved around. Holly and Mistletoe walked over to it and it sniffed all over them too.

Holly giggled. “My goodness!” she said, laughing, “what on earth IS it? It kind of looks like King Lion!”

“Mrrrrew!” said the orange-y stripe-y thing with the bell.

“Idon’tknowwhatitis”saidPiggy,“butitneedstostopsniffingall over me--Ahhh! Now it’s licking me!”

“Piggy doesn’t like that” said Mistletoe, and gently pushed the fluffythingawayfromPiggy.

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“Thanks” said Piggy, “I felt like I was going to be nibbled on any second!”

“Well,” said Holly, “what should we do with it? We can’t just leave it here and it’s awfully dark down the stairs.”

“I bet it’s lost” said Mistletoe. “We should take it to King and see what he thinks.”

“Good plan” replied Piggy.

SotheysetofftofindKingandaskhimwhattodo.

~ ~ ~

The King of the Attic took one look at the creature and said:

“Why of course I know what this is. I know all about all sorts of things, and if there is one thing I know best of all it is things that are like lions. This is a tiger, which is very much like a lion but notasfierce.Seehowhehaspawsandeyeslikealion,buthehasorange stripes and lions do not.”

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Everyone nodded in agreement. Yes, yes obviously this must be a tiger- the King of the Attic said so!

“But” said the king, “I have never heard of a tiger wearing a bell. This is very strange indeed!”

Thetinytigerwasbusysniffingaroundalltheatticfolkand making small mewling sounds. Holly walked over to it and gave it a pat on the head. The tiny tiger started to make a loud, low rumbling sound, which tickled Holly’s hands. She reached over and shook the big bell. It was just like her bell. Just then an idea occurred to her.

“I know! This little tiger must belong to the house people!” she said excitedly.

“What makes you think that?” said the king.

“Well, the house people put this bell on me when they found me. They told me that the bell was a special bell that I should wear forever and ever so I would never, ever get lost. Maybe the people putabellonthetigersoitwouldn’tgetlosteither!”shefinished,with a big grin on her face.

“But it did get lost!” said Piggy. “It is very, very lost because our kingdom is a very long way away from the house people’s king-dom. They live very far beneath us.”

“Well,” said Buttons, eying the tiger warily, “maybe it’s just not a very smart tiger.”

“It makes such a small sound,” ventured Carol, “perhaps it is just a baby tiger?”

Atthiseveryonenoddedagain.Yes,itmustdefinitelybeababyti-ger for it sounded like one, plus a grown-up tiger would never do something as foolish as wander up into the Attic Kingdom alone.“Wellthen”saidthekingatlast,“it’sveryimportantthatwefinda way to get it back home. I welcome all guests to my kingdom

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and I know that all of you would welcome it too, but if it is lost and the house people are searching for it, it would be best to help itfindawayhome.”

Everyonecheered,“Yes,yes!Helpitfindawayhome!Hometothe house people!”

And so it was decided: Holly, Mistletoe and Buttons would help the lost tiger back to its home. They each packed something to help them on their journey. Holly carried a small plastic candle to light the way, Mistletoe took his cap to carry things in, and But-tons brought along a spool of long, sturdy twine. The tiny tiger, who wasn’t completely sure what was going on just mewled even louder and jingled its bell. The small party waved their goodbyes. It was time to go.

~ ~ ~

As they headed toward the door to the dark staircase, Holly held up the little candle and switched it on. Despite the light it was still very, very dark down the stairs and she couldn’t help but feel a little afraid of what was down there. After all, the attic folk had no need to journey down into the house below. They were quite happy being attic folk. But she knew the tiger wanted to home to his family just as much as she wanted to stay with hers, so she journeyed forward bravely. Buttonslookeddownoverthefirststepthatwaslitbythecandle and said, “that looks like a very long way down”.

“Farther down than I am willing to fall,” said Mistletoe nervously. “Buttons, have you got plenty of string?”

“Yes indeed I do,” replied Buttons proudly. “There’s over six feet of the stuff!”

“Okay,” Mistletoe said, “I think the best thing to do would be to tie it to the top here and use it to help us down.”

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“Ohh! Like mountain climbers!” laughed Holly.

“Right”, agreed Mistletoe “we’ll be just like mountain climbers”.

With that, the three adventurers tied the end of Buttons’ twine to the clasp of a heavy trunk near the doorway and then turned and tossed the spool down the stairs where it fell with a pop, clunk, thunk, clink off into the darkness below. When the tiny tiger heard the noise it darted over to the stairs to see what it was and almost knocked Holly and Mistletoe down the stairs with it.

“Well, that is that,” said Buttons. He pulled on the string a few times to make sure it was tightly secured to the trunk. As he did the string bounced and wiggled and danced around. The tiny tiger’s eyes grew very big as it watched the thread. It also grew very, very still; nothing moved but the tip of its striped tail. Before anyonecouldsayordoanything,ittookaflyingleapatthestringandfellpaws-firstdownthestairs,mewingandhissingandmak-ing all sorts of commotion as it fell. And it wasn’t the only one to fall. Buttons, who had been holding onto the string, was tugged down after it, and after him went Mistletoe and Holly who tried very hard to catch him and instead found themselves with no one left to catch them! The whole lot of them went tumbling down the stairs, which thank-fully were covered in soft carpet and not hard wood. They all landedatthebottomofstepsinabigpileofdustandfluff,and

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after everyone had gotten their bearings they looked around them in wonder. The tiger had scampered off down the hall after the spool, which no longer had any thread on it, and had cornered it. It was too busy poking at its prey with one paw and then the other to no-tice that the trio had followed it down. Holly ran over to it to see ifitwasalrightandwasgladtofindthattheirnewfrienddidn’teven have a scratch. It was just as bouncy and playful as ever, except… something was missing…

“Oh no!” cried Holly loudly. Mistletoe ran over to her side, with Buttons close behind.

“What’s the matter?” Mistletoe said. “Are you hurt?”

Holly assured him that she was alright. “But look!” she said, “the bell is gone!”

Sure enough, the tiny tiger no longer had a great big bell on its little collar. They looked around the hallway for it, taking turns using the plastic candle (which thankfully survived the fall) to look into the shadowy nooks and crannies for it. Alas, they couldnotfindthebellanywhere.

“Well, well,” said Buttons, “it’s sad that we’ve lost the bell but at least we’ve got the tiger. That’s what is most important.”

Mistletoe agreed that the tiger’s safety was the most im-portant thing, but Holly was still very upset.

“The house people put that bell on the tiger so it would not get lost. How can we be sure it won’t get lost again?” Holly said wor-riedly. “I don’t think I would feel very safe without my bell- or very special.”

“Oh Holly, don’t be silly,” said Mistletoe, coming over to his sis-ter’s side, “of course you are special, bell or not!”

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“Maybe,” she said, “but I wouldn’t feel special without it. I don’t think the little tiger does either.” Buttons was skittering around gathering up his thread. All six feet of it had unraveled everywhere and he was busily trying to wrap it around his belly, since the spool was long gone.

“Sorry about your string, Buttons!” Mistletoe apologised.

“Goodness me,” he said, “I need to get all of this back up to the attic right away and get it back onto a spool before it frays! I will head back up to the Attic Kingdom and report what happened to the king. If you are not back by tomorrow’s eve, we will send someone after you!” And with that, he turned and headed back up the staircase. Now it was just Holly, Mistletoe and the tiger. Holly took hold of the tiger’s collar and pulled it away from the corner, so Mistletoe could rescue the spool and return it to Buttons later. He tucked the spool into his cap and grabbed the other side of the tiger’s collar, so they were each on one side. Then together, they led the tiger down the hall, away from the Attic Kingdom.

~ ~ ~

Soon they came to the end of the long hallway and found themselves staring out into an expanse of white. Holly and Mistle-toe stared at it in wonder. They had never seen ground like this before! In the Attic Kingdom the ground was made of wood, so thefloorwasroughandalwaysabitdusty. This ground however was neither rough or dusty. It was smooth and slippery and very, very hard to stand on! Holly and Mistletoehadbothsteppedontotheflooratthesametimeandfound themselves sliding around in all directions.

“Ohhh, Mistletoe this is reeeally straaaaange!” squealed Holly as she slid this way and that.

“Ahhhh—EEEE— don’t really like iiiiittttt!” replied her brother as he slipped around after her.

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“Thiiiiis must be what they call- OOMPH”- she slid right into a counter.

“Are you oka---eeee---ay?” asked Mistletoe.

“Yep,I’mfine.IthinkImightbestartingtogetthehangofthis,”laughed Holly. “How is the tiger doing?”

“Itseemstobedoingjustfine!”chuckledMistletoe,andhepoint-edtothecentreofthefloorwherethetigerwasstandingandsniff-ing around curiously and having absolutely no trouble doing it.“I guess its paws are better for standing on this stuff than our soft boots are,” said Holly.

“I guess so,” agreed Mistletoe with a laugh. Then he got a very good idea. “I know what we can do!”

He carefully made his way over to the middle of the floorandverycarefully,verygentlytookholdofthetiger’slongstripytail.Thetiger,whowasstillbusysniffingthefloor,didnotseem to notice or care that a small reindeer plush was attached to its tail. Mistletoe gestured to Holly that she should join him, so she pushed off from the counter and skated her way across the ground toward him. She stretched out and took her brother’s hand, but before she could reach the tiger she slipped. When she fell, she took Mistletoe down with her- and when he fell he pulled the tiger’s tail down with him.

The tiger was not thrilled about this, at all. He gave a loud:

“RRREEEEEEOOOOOWWWW!”

and leapt into the air. Holly and Mistletoe let go of the tail in alarmandfelltothefloor.Thetigerwasrunningacrosstheflooras fast as its little legs could carry it. It didn’t really seem to know what direction it was going though and soon enough it ran head-firstrightintoabigwhiteboxandfelldown.Itshookitselfoffandthenstartedsniffingaroundundertheboxandproddingitspawunderneath.

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“What’s it doing?” said Holly, who was rubbing her head from the fall.

“I don’t know,” replied Mistletoe. He carefully stood up and slid over to the tiger.

“We’re so sorry, little tiger!” said Holly as she slid next to him.

“Mrrrrrppp” said the tiger. It was still focused on something un-derneath the big box.

Holly got down on her hands and knees and looked underneathit.Atfirstshecouldn’tseeanything,thensheremem-bered the little candle and took it out of her pocket. She clicked it on and looked around. It was very dirty- even dirtier than the dirtiest corner of the Attic Kingdom! But she could see something shiny among all the dust. She squealed with excitement.

“What is it? What do you see?” asked Mistletoe, who was holding onto the tiger by the collar again.

“It’s the tiger’s bell! It’s right under here. It must have rolled a long way,” she said.

“Can you reach it?” he asked. “Can the tiger even reach it?”

“Hmmm…I don’t think so” said Holly disappointedly. “I guess we won’t be getting it back after all.”

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“I already told you it’s not the bell that’s important, it’s getting the tiger home safely!” he insisted.

“You’re right!” she said, standing up and taking hold of the tiger’s collar with her brother.

“And we had better hurry up, it’s almost time for everyone to wake up!” said Mistletoe, pointing down at the sunlight starting toslowlycreepacrossthefloor.

It was already morning and they still were not sure where they needed to take the little tiger. The king had not told them where the tiger needed to be, only that he needed to be taken back to his home. The one thing they were sure of is that they weren’t goingtoleaveithereonthecold,slipperyfloor.Thebestthingwould be to take it where everyone could see it and it couldn’t get lost again. Sotheyslowlymadetheirwayacrossthefloor,beingverycarefulnottofall.Soontheyreachedtheendofthewhitefloorand found themselves on warm, soft carpet again.

“I suppose the best thing to do would be to go straight forward,” said Mistletoe to his sister.

“Yes,” she replied from the other side of the tiger, “I think that would be best.”

As they journeyed forward Mistletoe stopped and said, “Holly! Look!” He was pointing over to the side, through another doorway into another dark room. Holly turned to look where he was pointing and saw the biggest, brightest, most beautiful sight she had ever beheld. It was just like the tree that she had seen the house people put away up in the Attic Kingdom many times, but this tree was covered in bright, colourful lights and pretty decora-tions. All around it were huge boxes, wrapped in shiny paper and topped with bows.

“What is all of this?” said Holly in wonder.

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You see, though Holly and Mistletoe came to the house on Christmas, they had never seen the tree all decorated. The place theyhadsatwasthemantleabovethefireplace,whichwasinadifferent room from the one the house-people put the tree up. So they had been put up and then packed away without ever seeing the tree or the presents. And this year they hadn’t even been put up at all, so they only got a glimpse of the undecorated tree in the attic when the house people came to fetch it. They were so busy gazing up at the tree and decorations in amazement they didn’t even notice the tiger was crawling all over the boxes. Suddenly it let out a “mrrrrow!” and jumped into a box with no lid that was hiding a bit to the back of the tree. Holly and Mistletoe scurried over to the box and peered inside. The tiger was happily curled up in a blanket at the bottom of the box and making the deep rumbling noise. It looked up sleepily at them and gave a tiny “mew”.

“Oh, Mistletoe I think we found the tiger’s home!” said Holly happily.

“I think so too,” chuckled Mistletoe. “It looks awfully happy in there.” They climbed down off the box and sat down on all the presents, looking all around them at the almost magical site of all the lights and colours. Both of them felt very, very happy that they hadhelpedthelittletigerfinditswayhome,buttheywereverytired and didn’t know how they were going to get back up to the Attic Kingdom now. It had taken all night just to get down and it would take even longer that night to get back up without the help of Buttons’ string.

Mistletoe sighed and stood up. “We’d better hide soon so the house people don’t see us.”

“Wait,” said Holly, “look over here on the tiger’s box!”

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On the side of the box was a piece of paper with lots of writing and a picture of the tiger. Underneath the picture it said:

Thank you for adopting from our shelter! We hope your new kitten JINGLES will be your new best friend.

Happy Holidays.

“Well, look at that it’s not a tiger after all it’s a kitten- whatever that means!” said Mistletoe.

“It’s a kitten, yes. A kitten named Jingles. Jingles, like Jingle Bells! Mistletoe, he needs his bell back! He can’t be jingles without his jingle bell!” cried Holly.

“Don’tworry,”saidMistletoe,“thehousepeoplewilldefinitelylove the kitten anyway.”

Holly sat silently for a minute, and then an idea hit her. She got up andlookedovertheboxatthekittenagain.“Hedefinitelyneedsabell…” she said quietly.

“Holly, we don’t have one!” said Mistletoe, sounding very tired.

“Yes…yes we do, Mistletoe,” she said. She touched the bell around her neck. “We have a bell.”

“But Holly, that’s your bell! You said that without it you would never feel special,” he said.

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“Well…,” Holly started, and then stopped. It was true, she didn’t feel like she was very special without her bell, and she felt a little sad. But she felt something else too. Something…happy?

“I think that it would make Jingles happy to have its bell back. And I think that the house people will be happy if Jingles is hap-py. And- and if the house people are happy then…then I’m happy too!”shefinishedwithabiggrinonherface.

Mistletoe looked at his sister and smiled too. “I think you are right Holly. I think in the end that is the most important thing.”

So Holly untied the bell from around her neck and to-gether she and Mistletoe tied it around the collar in place of the other one. Jingles got up and yawned a big yawn with its tongue stuck out all the way. Then it carefully licked its paws and shook its head. As it did, the bell gave a cheerful little ring and Jingle started to rumble again. The kitten seemed very happy to have a bell again and it rolled around in the box causing the bell to ring even louder. Suddenly Holly and Mistletoe heard a noise from coming from far away. The house people were awake and they were com-ing!

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Mistletoe grabbed his sister. “Quick, we’ve got to hide!” he whispered. Holly nodded.

They gave Jingles one last hug and jumped down off the gifts to hide. Before they could decide where to go, they heard the thump thump thud of feet coming down the hallway and toward the room. In a panic, Mistletoe grabbed his sister’s hand and climbed up into the tree just as the two little house people ran into the room. Holly and Mistletoe grabbed onto a strand of lights and held on tight. Maybe no one would notice them. The kids were soon followed into the room by sleepy par-ents, carrying coffee mugs. They smiled and gestured toward the tree. Before long all the presents were unwrapped and the paper scatteredaboutonthefloorinfrontofthetree.Theparentssaidsomething that Holly and Mistletoe couldn’t quite hear and the kids got even more excited and ran behind the tree. There they found the box with Jingles in it and squealed with delight. They had their very own kitten! They jumped around and laughed and huggedtheirparents;allbutforgettingthepileofgiftsonthefloorand never once noticed reindeer twins all tangled up in the lights. A few hours passed and the kids and the kitten went off to play leaving the parents the job of cleaning up all the wrap-pingpaperandboxes.Theyfinisheduptheircoffeeandcrawledaround on their hands and knees gathering bows and paper and throwing them into a bin. As they worked, they talked about all the Christmases that had gone by. They went through the orna-ments on the tree one by one and reminisced about getting them for the kids. When they came upon Holly and Mistletoe they unraveled the dolls from the lights.

“I don’t remember putting these two on the tree, do you?” said Dad.

“Hmm,no.Icouldn’tfindthemthisyear.Ithoughttheyhadbeenlost in the attic,” replied Mom.

“Maybe the kids found them and put them on the tree?”

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“I suppose that must be it. We should put them somewhere where it’s easier to see them.”

“Wasn’t there a bell on the girl deer?”

“There might have been. I had a bell I put on her once a long time ago, but it’s probably long gone.”

“Oh well, it doesn’t matter now. They’ll look just as good on the fireplacewithoutit.”

“I’m glad the kids found these, they were always my favourite decorations. But I don’t think they should go on the mantle this year, that’s where the kids’ photos are now.”

“Hmm, well maybe next year we’ll set up a spot just for them here with the tree.”

“That sounds nice. We’ll have to be careful and make sure they go into the right box this year.”

“In fact, let’s do that right now.”

So the parents carefully took the two reindeer and placed them in the box that Jingles had been in, closed it up, marked it Holly and Mistletoe and set it down to be carried to the attic that evening with the rest of the decorations. Holly and Mistletoe were very excited to hear that they would be coming down next Christ-mas with the other decorations, but even more excited to be get-ting back to the Attic Kingdom to see their friends and tell them all about the amazing adventure they had.

“Oh look,” said the mom, “I found another bell to tie around Holly’s neck. Now she’s good as new!”

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Now Holly had a bell and Jingle had a bell. Everyone was happy, and no one would get lost again --or if they did they would cer-tainly be found by friends and the people who love and treasure them.

And that is the adventure that Holly and Mistletoe and Jingles shared.

The End

24© Krystal Vestal Weber 2012