Wednesday 2 December 2020

Creative Christmas writing ideas for children (and adults?) By Steve Way

 

I thought you might find the example ideas below useful for stimulating children (and maybe adults) to do some Christmas related creative writing. I’ve used them in schools and in other contexts and they seem to have gone down well! Just a possible tip; since the children invariably ask how many letters to Santa etc that they have to write I generally tell them that they have to write at least two but no more than six million (in which case we have to inform the police.) If the children are responsive to my daft humour I also let them know that I am going to let them write on the special modern, ‘new-fangled’ (I bemoan the fact that we never had any when I was at school) DOUBLE SIDED (Gasp!!) paper. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see how many of them get the joke!

~~~~~

                                                 Pongos Circus of Wonder,

                                                 The Big Top,

                                                 Wherever it is we’re at this week,

                                                 Tuesday 16th December 2021

Dear Santa,

         I hope you are well. Giggles the clown here. For Christmas could I have some enormous trousers? I need them for my fellow clowns to pour custard down. I’ve had to wash my current pair of enormous trousers so many times they’ve shrunk – I think the custard makes them shrink faster for some reason.

         Also, could I have a new car for our act? Our old one is so worn, the pieces of it stick together when they are supposed to fall apart. Why at the end of one act the stupid old thing was running perfectly and still had all its doors on – ridiculous!

         Finally, unlike last year, please don’t send me any more new jokes. We’ll stick with the old ones, like we always have.

         Yours sincerely,

Giggles

~~~

                                                          Germany,

                                                          Germany,

                                                          Wednesday 16th Dec 2021

Dear Santa,

         It’s Germany here. I hope you are well. For Christmas please could I have a few more mountains? Although I’ve got quite a few high bits, no one ever talks about my mountains. Lots of nearby countries are famous for their mountains and as you know I like to be the best at everything.

         It’s also occurred to me that as well as having a huge “Black Forest” how about letting me have a “Green Forest” or an “Orange Forest” or even a “Stripy Yellow and Blue Forest”. That would be a bit of a laugh – and you know how much I enjoy a bit of a laugh! … As long as it really is only a bit.

         Best Wishes,

                              Germany

 

~~~

                                                          9 Liquid Street,

                                                          Water Avenue,

                                                          Drinktown,

                                                          DR14 8WW

                                                          Friday 13th December 2021

 

Dear Santa,

         I am writing on behalf of my carpet. My carpet has been in my house for over forty years (it was put in the house by the person who first moved into it.) In all that time it has never received a Christmas present. As you might imagine after forty years of being walked over, having dirty shoes cleaned on it, several muddy dogs rolling on it and quite a few cups of tea spilt on it, it is very threadbare. Is there any chance you could send it a couple of rugs to cover the most worn out and dirty patches, I’m sure it would appreciate them?

         Also, while I think about it, my old fridge could do with a couple of new drawers and a plastic thingy to go in the bottom of it. Finally, just to mention, my toilet roll holder needs a new middle bit.

         Thank you for your help.

         Yours,

                  Tony Turtlesoup

~~~

                                             The Round Table,

                                             Camelot Castle,

                                             Camelot,

                                             Fair England,

                                             Tuesday 4th December Time of Yore

Dear Santa,

         I hope ye be well. For the season of Christ Mass, would ye be so kind as to send me some more knights for my round table. Some of them have been killed by dragons before others have slain them (the dragons that is.) Also, some of the victorious knights have married the fair maidens they’ve rescued and so that leads to an even greater shortage of knights. It’s depressing, especially at this time of year when the nights are drawing in. The nights are short and I’ve a shortage of knights.

         Oh, and did I mention that some of my knights have gone off on quests and never come back?

         Yours knight-shortagely,

                                               King Arthur

 

~~~

                                                               York Castle,

                                                               York (where else?)

                                                               14th Dec 1649

Dear Santa,

         I hope you are well. The Duke of York here. I was wondering if you could send me ten thousand more men? The ten thousand I’ve got at the moment are hopeless!

         All I did was march them up to the top of the hill and march them down again. And when they were up, they were up in arms about how hard I was making them work and when they were down, they were down on their backs snoozing the minute we’d got back to camp. I can’t have an army as useless as this! It wasn’t even much of a hill! Why if I try and take them over the Pennines to invade Lancaster, they’ll take all year to get there and be no more use as soldiers as a bunch of school children!

         I look forward to hearing from you and hope you’ll send me some real soldiers.

         Yours sincerely,

                                  The Grand old Duke (of York)

 

                        ~~~~~

                                                      Buckingham Palace,

                                                      The Mall,

                                                      London

                                                      Monday 16th December 2021

Dear Santa,

         Could One please have three hundred new corgis for Christmas? The palace seems so empty with only two thousand of them running around the place and knocking over the statues.

         Also, could One have some more guards and things covered in gold and jewels.

         Yours sincerely,

                                    Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth

 

P.S. A few pairs of warm slippers would be appreciated too.

 

P.P.S. And a new crown if you’re running out of stocking filler ideas.

 

~~~~~

The Stables,

                                                    Behind the Toy Factory,

                                                    LAPLAND,

                                                    Wednesday 16th Dec 2021

 

Dear Santa,

         Rudolf here. I know I ask for this every year, but this year please can I have a year off. It’s exhausting flying around the world pulling your heavy sleigh. It always makes me laugh to think that children think your sleigh is magic and floats of its own accord. As you know if we didn’t pull on your sleigh fast enough and hard enough, it would fall down.

         Well frankly this year I really am exhausted. OK the rest of the reindeer and I have had a whole year to rest… but so have you and you aren’t getting any lighter.

         Finally, another thing I don’t want is a silly red hat with a white bobble on it. Reindeer don’t wear hats – how many times do I have to tell you.

         Yours red-nosedly,

                                       Rudolf

 

~~~

The Moon,

                                             Earth Orbit,

Above Turkey at the moment, oh now its Greece… ah Italy… um France… oh forget it…

Thursday 16th Dec 2021

 

Hello Santa,

                We hope you are well. It’s the Lunar Reindeer here. From the colony that got started when a few of our forefathers (and foremothers) escaped from the harness attached to your sleigh.

       Now, we hear you’re finding it hard to find flying reindeer to help pull your sleigh. Well we’ve got a few young bucks up here keen to volunteer. So, all you have to do is give us the Christmas present we want - namely LOTS OF CHEESE!!! There’s absolutely none here and for some reason it’s the only thing we want to eat all the time! We think about nothing else!

       Hope to hear from you.

       Yours sincerely,

                                  Rudolf Armstrong

 

P.S. Any chance of also buying us a lottery ticket? Ta.

 

~~~~~

Revolt in the Christmas factory.  

 

We of the Working Everyday Elves Party (WEEP) hereby issue the following demands.  If they are not met by you Father Christmas, we will not make any more presents.

 

1) We want some heating on in the factory. It's freezing!

 

2) Stop coming up behind us and saying, "Ho Ho Ho!" when we're not expecting it.

 

3) Why should we have to change out your reindeer? … Yuck! … It's about time you did some of the dirty jobs.

 

4) GO ON A DIET!!  We're fed up of getting squashed in the corridor when you walk by. Also eating so much makes you burp all the time, which we think is very unprofessional.  Children look up to you, you know.

 

5) We want pictures of us working in the factory on more Christmas cards - so people can see who really does the work around here.

 

6) Buy some new sacks for goodness sake! They're hundreds of years old! They're all about to collapse. You'll look a fool if they split open and the presents fall out all over Poland, won't you?

 

7) Do we have to listen to a tape of Christmas songs all year round while we're working? Can't we have Radio One on - at least for one month?

 

8) Why do you still insist on having Christmas cards showing you coming down a chimney? No one has chimneys anymore! Cards showing you using your huge bunch of skeleton keys to break into people’s houses would be much more up-to-date and accurate.

 

~~~~~

Ways to make Christmas easy.*

*Abridged version of ‘400 ways to make Christmas easy’ which first appeared in What kind of fool would buy this ridiculous magazine magazine.

 

1.    Go to the moon. You can have Christmas on your own.

2.   Find out how to become an octopus and swim under a rock and hide for a month. (See explanation above.)

3.   Arrange for all your relatives to be abducted by aliens or kidnapped. Then you won’t have to send them cards or buy them presents.

4.   Hire someone else to be you and go on a world cruise.

5.   Tell everyone that Father Christmas doesn’t exist, that Jesus was actually born in March and that pagan festivals never took place in December.

6.   Spend all day swallowing carbon dioxide so you cause drastic Global Cooling causing it to snow so much that no one can go anywhere and certainly not come to your house expecting Christmas dinner.

7.   Travel back in time and send everyone such an awful present last year that they won’t want anything to do with you this year.

8.   Steal all the clocks, diaries and calendars in the world. (This may be a little difficult, only attempt if all else fails.)

9.   Teach turkeys the rudiments of language and social unrest and hope they organise massive nationwide escape attempts.

10. Use the ideas from the book “Frankenstein” to reincarnate Scrooge and produce thousands of clones, each to be manager of every workplace in the country.

11. Invent aerial speed cameras so that Santa gets caught for speeding so many times he has his flying sleigh-riding licence removed.

~~~~~

It’s been around a while but I’ve only just discovered this link to stories on cutalongstory.com; https://www.cutalongstory.com/authors/steve-way/1172.html

 

1 comment:

Lynne Benton said...

Great fun, Steve - thanks for the laugh!