Something was going on...
A small tree that used to grow in a pot in the garden now sat in the front window, covered in sparkly stuff. Over the past week mum and dad had placed lots of objects around it, all wrapped in tempting crinkly, crackly paper. Dad had been in the bookshop ALL THE TIME - or so it seemed to Finn.
Then, in the middle of the night, Finn was woken by a strange noise coming from the living room. He leapt over there right away. What did our tiny hero find but a large man, with a jolly face, chuckling to himself.
"Oh hello little man" he said. "I hope I didn't startle you. I just find it so amusing the way people get confused about Christmas."
Finn stared at the man with his big blue eyes. He didn't blink.
"All this fuss about gifts, all the talk of wise men and babies and stars..."
The big bloke picked little Finn up, tucked him under his arm and went outside. It was frosty, foggy and dark but Finn could see a funny shaped car with a furry back seat. They climbed in and the big man zoomed them off into the sky. Up and up they sped.
"See that?" The big man pointed at a bright cluster of stars. "That's my digger!"
Finn gazed in the direction the big bloke was pointing and yes, if you looked close, that group of stars did look rather like a digger.
"Every year, round about 25th December, I have to get my star digger running and then I have to re-do the foundations of the sun. Otherwise it would fall into a black hole and go out - that would be a bad thing. In the very old days people understood things a bit better. You'll probably learn all about the places they built to worship the sun and the things they did to try to keep it happy. These days people have electric light and tend to forget the bleedin' obvious. They take the sun for granted."
Finn said nothing. But he widened his eyes a little.
Next thing they were climbing into the cab of the glittery digger. Instead of chugging like a normal engine there was a sort of vague throbbing sound. Then the star digger lumbered off towards the sun.
Finn had a great time with the big bloke. He was not like dad at all - not daft. He knew all about digging in space and produced some quite complex equations that ordinary people hadn't managed to think of yet that showed how to dig foundations beneath vast hot things like stars. He was so good at explaining things even small brained Finn could understand.
"So you see all this fuss about presents, babies, food - it's all a bit of a distraction. But I don't mind. I just do my thing every year. Make sure the sun keeps on rising."
When they were done they climbed in the strange car and zipped back down to Camberwell.
The big bloke put the small chap carefully in his cot. Mum and dad were snoring away next door. Finn watched with his big eyes as the large bloke put a finger to his lips. With a final jolly chuckle he left and Finn drifted off to sleep.
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