NOTE FROM PENNY: This is way longer than my usual stuff. My apologies. Hope you like some of it.

Young Charlotte was never sure what would happen when Auntie Barbara would babysit. Auntie Barbara was a wonderful, loving person, with episodes of delirious madness.

The week before Christmas would be another odd adventure.

Mother wasn’t paying attention, or didn’t seem to care, what would happen when Auntie B was babysitting her children. That day she dropped off 7-year-old Charlotte and her brother, 5-year-old Malcolm, at Auntie B’s cozy little cottage just outside of town.

“Charlotte! Malcolm! How wonderful to see you!”

She ushered them inside. Auntie B’s tiny teacup poodle yipped at their feet.

“Leave your coats on! There is much to do! Do you need to use the bathroom before we go?”

They shook their heads.

“Excellent!” She grabbed the keys to her Ford station wagon with wood grain side panels and ushered them into the car. “First one in the car gets their choice of Christmas cookies!”

Of course we raced to get in.

“And hold this!” Auntie B ordered, tossing us a canvas bag. “My purse. We are gonna need all of this stuff today.”

Charlotte and Malcolm peered inside the smoky bag.

Cigarettes.

A tube of Auntie’s bright red lipstick.

A Bible.

A candy cane.

And a blue plastic Rosary.

The two siblings looked at other and shrugged.

***

“Quick stop,” Auntie B said. “I gotta pick something up.”

She had parked in an alley behind Dot’s Five and Dime.

The kids were too busy eating her Christmas stained glass window cookies to worry about what she was doing.

“Hold on to this bag! Don’t let anyone take it!”

“Ok,” they said.

And she was gone.

***

TAP. TAP. TAP.

Charlotte looked up. A man was standing outside the car. “I need that bag,” he yelled. His fingers scratched at the window. They had long claws.

“Oh no you don’t, coward!”

Auntie B grabbed the scary man by the shoulder and slammed him onto the ground.

Keys in the ignition, Auntie B hit the gas and the car sailed out of the alley back onto the street.

“Charlotte! The Bible! Open it to the book of Job, page 695!”

Three tickets fell out of the Book of Job onto Chatlotte’s lap.

“Hold onto them!”

They drove for the next hour at what Mom might have described as “a rather dangerous speed.”

It soon became apparent that they were being followed. It was a brown Pacer, driven by the man who had tried to get to them in the alley.

“Malcolm! The lipstick! Give it to me!” She held her hand toward the child.

She pulled the cap off the lipstick and threw it out the window. The brown Pacer was soon engulfed in smoke.

“Ha!!” She bellowed.

A few miles later they pulled up to what looked like a tunnel in the mountain. A small, dwarfish person waddled out to greet them. He looked annoyed but accepted the tickets and waved them through. Charlotte was sure he wasn’t happy about something.

The station wagon parked. they all got out and walked to a big door that swung open as they approached.

Another short, dwarfish man sat at a table with a large book. “Sign here. Do you have a pen?”

“Charlotte! Candy cane please!”

With a quick movement to pop the head off the candy cane, Charlotte and Malcom observed that it was actually a pen, not a real candy cane!

“Sign on the parchment,” auntie B said. “Malcolm, you can just draw an X, dear.”

As they finished signing, Auntie B slipped the man a pack of cigarettes. He nodded and cracked a smile. As they walked down the path, they heard the scrape of a matchstick and perceived the burning smell of unfiltered cigarettes.

***

A knock on a door at the end of a long corridor.

Charlotte and Malcolm couldn’t believe their eyes.

“Santa??”

A large man in red and white sweatpants, a green hoodie and a long white beard faced them. He looked up at Auntie B. “You signed the Nondisclosure Agreement?”

“Ah-yup!”

“C’mon then. Welcome to the tour of Claus Operations, Northeast.”

**

“This was the best tour ever, Auntie B!”

“I’m so glad!” Auntie B chirped. “Wasn’t easy to set it up, that’s for sure! Oh, we have to do one more thing.”

“What?”

She held up the Rosary. “This is for a friend of Santa’s.”

Down a very dark hall they went until they got to a closed door. Auntie B knocked. “Open up, villain!”

A shuffling noise. Bolts and locks undone. The door opened. A large black furred bearish beast looked back at them. It was holding a branch of mistletoe. A red tongue lolled out of its hideous mouth.

“Who dares interrupt the Krampus?”

Auntie B held up the Rosary to the creature’s face.

“Aack, watch what you’re doing with that thing!”

She waved it back and forth. “I’m on a mission from Santa!”

Krampus held his paws to his face. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s cheap religious tokens! What does the old codger want?”

***

The Uber from Santa’s Northeat workshop arrived just 5 minutes before mom arrived to pick up the kids.

“Thanks so much, Mr. Krampus!”

The exhausted trio unloaded themselves from the little Mitsubishi.

“Weren’t nothing,” he said. “Might want to give me 5 stars, though.”