"Christmas on the Mantel"

A Ping-Ping Story by Marti Koeppe, © 2003, 2008

"Hold it steady!" Ping-Ping stood atop a stack of furniture consisting of two dollhouses, a wooden trunk, a rocking horse perched rather precariously, and three doll chairs. It was just high enough for him to hold up the cuff of a large, knitted stocking that was ten times his length and hook a loop of yarn over a nail in the mantelpiece. He puffed, wobbled then balanced, wobbled again and managed, somehow, to fasten the stocking in place. Work done, he scrambled down the stacked up furniture and stood back to admire his handiwork.

"Er, how come it's hanging kinda crooked?" asked Pan-Pan, the small, rather quiet panda.

Ping-Ping scowled and squinted, tilting his head this way and that way, then sighed. "You're right, it's crooked."

"What are you going to do about it?" Pan-Pan asked, wishing he had kept his mouth shut in the first place. There was no telling to what lengths his little friend would go to so the stocking would hang better. Visions of past debacles - Easter egg colors in a huge puddle, stacks of folded pre-bears sliding onto the floor, beehives falling into the canoe of a hapless camp counselor - flashed through his mind. "Never mind it," he put in, hoping it was quickly enough that Ping-Ping hadn't decided to do anything at all. He was out of luck.

"I'm going to climb back up there," Ping-Ping announced, hitching up his ruffle, "and I'm gonna fix the thing right."

Pan-Pan put his paws over his eyes, wishing he were somewhere else. Like Cleveland.

"I don't think that's a good idea," the two large polar bears said in unison. They did everything in unison, even argue.

"Well, I do," Ping-Ping answered, already busy stacking the piled up furniture more securely. He dusted his palms, hitched up his ruffle again and swarmed up the pile. Once atop the furniture, he grabbed onto the stocking and swung aboard, using it to climb to the top of the mantel. He peered over the edge at his friends, very small indeed now that they were far below him on the floor. "I'll fix it right now," he announced, and began pulling and fussing with the stocking until a shout from Pan-Pan told him it was much straighter. That done, he was a little reluctant to climb down and mess up the stocking again, so while he thought about a way to get down, he decided to walk around the large mantelpiece and see the sights.

The first thing that caught his eye was a lovely wreath that hung in the center of the wall above the mantel. He stood in front of it and gazed upward in awe. It was fresh balsam and it smelled like the forest and Christmas, and, oh, just everything wonderful. And the bow on it was so beautiful! White velvet with sprigs of holly, and long, curling tails that wrapped around the wreath... oh, Ping-Ping thought it the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.

After an awestruck few minutes of gazing at the wreath, he walked over to look at a sort of ramshackle building that was on one end of the shelf. It had straw in it, and some sheep, a camel, a cow, several richly dressed gentlemen in robes, and inside it was the figure of a pretty lady in blue and rose bending over a hay-filled manger in which lay a tiny porcelain baby. Ping-Ping thought that baby had the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. He fluffed the hay, patting the china infant gently, and then looked around. The fancy-dressed figures each held a present of some sort - one a golden box, another a jeweled vase, and the third one a velvet sack with pearls on it. They must be presents for the baby, Ping-Ping decided.

He thought about that. It must be that this was a very special baby, or at least, a statue of one. Everyone had brought him gifts. So Ping-Ping decided he needed to give a gift also. But what? He thought and thought and thought, then grinned. Quickly removing his golden neck ruffle, he arranged it around the neck of the tiny baby. Since it was a little big for the baby, it made a kind of halo around its whole head. When the lights from the Christmas tree shone on it, they made it sparkle. Ping-Ping thought it looked really nice and hoped everyone else would too. Then, somehow or other, he was never sure just how, it seemed the Baby was smiling at him. There was a kind of soft, distant music in the air and the scent of spices and winter on the breeze that came from nowhere to brush his fur like a tender caress. He smiled back at the Baby, and the smile seemed to go on forever, and the music and the perfumed breeze, even though it was really only a few moments in real time.

He came back to himself with a start and saw that the china baby wasn't really looking at him, and there was no breeze, and the lights weren't extraordinarily bright, but it was still very very special there in that crèche. Still caught in the magic of that brief moment in time, Ping-Ping finished his excursion around the mantel by sniffing each of the scented candles, rearranging the holly that ringed them, and tasting a cookie he found there on a plate. It was delicious. With a last, satisfied look at his ruffle, which now seemed to glisten around the china baby, he began to carefully climb back down the stocking.

He lowered himself onto the stack of furniture, and then climbed down over the rocking horse, chairs, dollhouses and trunks. When he got to the floor, he craned his neck to look back up where he'd been. Sure enough, there was a kind of glow from where that beautiful baby lay in the hay filled manger. "What did you see?" the other bears all wanted to know. They asked him over and over as they dragged the various pieces of furniture back where they belonged. "What? What was up there? What is that glow?"

At last, Ping-Ping sighed, and almost reluctantly, as if he didn't want to break the spell of the place where he had been, he whispered, "I saw the real Christmas up there, and it was wonderful." And that's all he would ever say about it, though the other bears knew it must have been something magical. In the morning their group stocking was stuffed to the top with the most incredible presents, and the bears all realized once again how very special Christmas is.

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