Items related to The Stolen Christmas
"Dear Father Christmas, please help! My Father has stolen Christmas. We need your help to get it back." When Father Christmas receives this letter he sets out to find the sender, Christopher, a young boy from Kent. Together with Santa's dog, Polar, they search in a race against time for the London Landmark to make sure that Santa can deliver his presents on Christmas Eve, as well as trying to save Christopher's family.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Author:
When Christopher, a 9 year old boy from Gillingham, sets out to save Christmas from the greedy clutches of The Father Christmas Company, he ends up saving much more - including his own family. Join Christopher and his special friends in their quest to ensure that 'Christmas belongs to everyone'.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
It all began on Christmas Eve in the year 1944, in a little house in Christmas Street, in a small town called Gillingham, in Kent. Tom and Tilly Jenkins, an elderly couple, were making plans for Christmas Day when Mrs Jenkins stopped suddenly.
"What was that?" she exclaimed as there was a faint rustling at the front door.
They looked out of the window, but it was dark outside as all the lamps were blacked out because of the war.
"Sounds like a cat," said Mr Jenkins, as a faint mewling sound reached them. His wife hurried to open the front door.
"Oh my word!" she exclaimed. "Tom! Tom! Come and see."
Mr Jenkins rushed outside and gasped in amazement. There, in his wife’s safe arms, was a tiny baby wrapped in a blue blanket.
"Quick, Tom," she cried. "Look up the road, see if you can find anyone!"
Mr Jenkins rushed out in his slippers and ran this way and that, and up and down the alleyway, but could not see anything.
"It’s no good," he puffed when he got back. "Whoever left him there has gone."
It was late at night now, and the Jenkins did not have a telephone and neither did their neighbours.
"We can’t disturb folk on Christmas Eve," Tilly murmured, gazing into the little boy’s face. "Let’s keep him for Christmas Day; we’ll call the police afterwards."
And so the little boy found a warm and loving home and, this being during the dark days of the war, and after a good word being put in by the vicar, the Jenkins were allowed to keep the baby as their own.
"What shall we call him?" Mrs Jenkins asked.
"If I’d had a son, I would have called him John," said Tom.
"John Jenkins," smiled his wife. "But no, I’m sure that one day his mother will come to find him."
So, as was the custom with children found abandoned, they gave him the name of the street where he was found, and that was how the little boy came to be called "John Christmas".
John was a lucky boy, for his two guardians were devoted to him, showing him as much love and kindness as any child could want. Mr Jenkins was a carpenter by trade and worked in the local dockyard during the day. In the evenings and at weekends he would pursue his favourite hobby, which was making wooden toys.
John loved following his father around, and as he grew older he also wanted to learn how to make things with wood. Mr Jenkins’ speciality was carving wooden rocking horses, as well as the ancient and mysterious art of making carousel horses for fairground rides. Travellers came from far and wide with broken old horses that needed new manes or tails, or were missing an ear or two. In no time at all they would be as good as new or even better, gleaming and freshly painted. Sometimes the fairground people paid for their work in kind; with toffee apples and candyfloss, and once even with goldfish. His father would smile and say to John:
"Money isn’t everything, you know. One day they may do us a good turn."
It was no surprise when Johnny left school at a young age and became an apprentice carpenter, working with his father. When Tom Jenkins retired, John would help out in his workshop, carving and painting their beautiful wooden horses. But, sadly, by the time he was only 20 years old, both John’s adoptive parents had passed away. He still lived in their old house, and carried on making wooden toys, but now he often felt lonely as he worked by himself. It was not very long after, therefore, that John started going out with a local girl called Alice, and within a short time they were married. John and Alice were very happy together, and before a year had passed the new husband was busy carving a rocking cradle for their newborn son.
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- PublisherJune Winton
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 095726190X
- ISBN 13 9780957261907
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages40
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