The night before Christmas we had a big commotion around here. Someone pointed out that the stovepipe leading to our woodstove was altogether too skinny for Santa to come down and I got blamed, took offense, and things just erupted from there. Everyone went to bed feeling angry and miffed.
Then, in the middle of the night, after the fire had died down and the chill was creeping it, such a clatter arose on the roof! We all jumped up to see what was the matter! Except for the poor mice, of course - what with six cats in the house (our five plus a visitor down from Fairbanks for the holidays) there were no nice.
We all charged into the living room just in time to hear something sliding down through the stove pipe, followed immediately by a thud and then the sound of loud, angry, meowing from within the woodstove! As quick as a flash, I flung open the gate and out of the stove popped an orange and white cat wearing a floppy red cap and a silly set of fake reindeer antlers!
It was Sake Claus!
He passed out his gifts (two frogs for me and an oar for she) and then we all sat down and watched TV together. Half-an-hour into "A Christmas Story" Sake Claus suddenly lost interest, stood up, placed a singed, soot-stained paw alongside of his nose and up through the stovepipe he rose.
We didn't see him anymore after that.
