a Very Peanutbuttery Christmas Story

A very peanutbuttery Christmas story
by jim of Monkey in the Middle

This story is written especially for the occasion of the Children’s Christmas Caroling of 2007. Permission is granted to copy, change the names of the characters and use for local church use.

One fine Saturday, Eliana and Nathan were playing a game of checkers. Instead of using regular checkers, the two five year olds were using chocolate chip cookies. Every time a piece was jumped, instead of moving it off the board, the winner got to eat it.
"Hey, Nathan, I think you are cheating," Eliana said, " This is your fourth cookie and you didn’t even jump any of my pieces."
"I’m not cheating," Nathan defended, "I’m just very hungry."
"Kids, put away the game now," Pastor Brad yelled from the other room, "It’s almost time to leave for Christmas caroling."
"I guess that means we can eat all the cookies now!" Nathan said happily. Nathan reached for all the cookies but Eliana said, "That’s probably a bad idea. We better just put the cookies away and get our shoes on."
"Okay," Nathan agreed, "but sometimes it’s no fun to be sensible."
Pastor Brad walked into the room and noticed that the cookies were back in the package.
"Hey, there were 24 in the package and now there are only 20. We were going to use those cookies to give to the people we sang Christmas Carols for. Now we don’t have enough. What happened to the cookies?"
"Maybe my camel ate them," Nathan offered.
Eliana gave her brother a stare that said, "Nathan you better tell the truth."
"Okay, my camel didn’t eat them,"Nathan admitted, "We were playing a game of chocolate chip checkers."
Eliana quickly offered, "Sorry, daddy, we didn’t know we needed those cookies for Christmas caroling."
"Alright, I know you didn’t mean it but now we have a problem."
Nathan smiled and yelled, "I got a great idea!" Nathan yelled this so loud that the dishes in the drainboard almost cracked. "We can bake our own cookies," Nathan said, "but instead of chocolate chips we can use peanut butter!"
Eliana smiled because she loved peanut butter. "That’s a great idea," she said.
"Okay, go ahead and take care of it then," Pastor Brad said and then went upstairs to write music. He was working on a new song he planned to sing on American Idol. But that’s a whole other story.
Eliana got all the supplies they needed for baking. Flour. Sugar. Mixing bowls. Eliana looked horrified when she realized an important ingredient was missing.
"We don’t have any peanut butter," Eliana yelled!
"I guess we’ll have to go to the store and buy some," Nathan replied.
"But daddy is busy writing a song and mommy is out at the mall and we are too young to drive ourselves." Eliana made this observation and it made her sad.
"Well," Nathan said, "It looks like we’ll have to take my camel."
Eliana was about to tell Nathan to stop being ridiculous when Nathan opened the back door and yelled,
"Come here, Spike."
All of a sudden a camel came to the door and Eliana was surprised. What surprised her was not that Nathan actually had a camel but that he really named him "Spike."
"Let’s go," Nathan said. So they both put on their shoes and out the door they went. Nathan sat in the front on the camel since Spike was his and Eliana sat behind her brother.
As they rode along, Nathan asked, "Why are we making cookies? I mean, why do we need to give gifts anyway? Isn’t it enough that we are singing with our lovely voices?
Eliana answered, "At Christmas, we love to give gifts away because that helps us remember that God gave us a gift at Christmas."
"God gave us a gift? Did God give us video games for Christmas?" Nathan asked.
"I think you already know the answer to that question," Eliana returned, "God gave us the gift of His Son. He was born in a stable with animals. God’s Son became a baby so He could grow up, show us God’s love and then die for our sins."
Nathan thought about that for a while and concluded that was much better than video games.
As they rode along, the two kids saw Samuel and Shellie playing in a park..Kirran was also there. Samuel had a football in his hand and was tossing it to his sister. Shellie didn’t drop it once.
"Hey, guys, want to help us make peanut butter cookies?" asked Nathan.
Samuel was always up for a challenge so he said, "sure."
"Wait for me, brother," Shellie said and the two kids jumped on the back of the camel behind Eliana. Shellie was very proud of herself because she wasn’t afraid of the camel. Kirran jumped on, too.
"Are we going to make cookies on the back of the camel?"asked Shellie
"No," Eliana said, "We have to buy some peanut butter at the store."
As they rode along they came across Emily, Amy and Michael. All of them were jumping on a tramper line.
"Hey, guys, hop onto my camel and go to the store with us!" Nathan invited..
"Sounds great," Michael said. He gave himself a big jump on the tramper line and landed right behind Samuel and Shellie. Amy did the same thing but jumped a little too hard and flew past the camel. Luckily, Michael grabbed her ankle and pulled her to the camel. Emily didn’t feel like jumping on so she took a near by step ladder and boarded the camel like a lady.
"Why are we buying peanut butter?" Amy asked.
"We have to make cookies for the Christmas carolers." Eliana answered.
"Giving gifts is an important part of Christmas, " Samuel said, "It helps us to remember that God gave us His Son for a gift.
Amy was satisfied with that answer and continued to enjoy the ride.
The camel came to a red light and even though it wasn’t a car, Spiked stopped, waiting for it to turn green. While they were at the light, they noticed Travis and Colin standing on the corner. They were busy eating pizza and hardly noticed the camel with all the kids on it.
"Hey, Travis and Colin," Nathan yelled, "Jump aboard, we are going to the store to buy peanut butter."
Both kids jumped aboard the camel but Travis dropped his pizza. He didn’t care much because he was down to the crust and he was getting full. The camel saw the crust on the ground and had a little snack and that made Travis smile.
"Why are we buying peanut butter," Colin asked?
"We are making peanut butter Cookies for Christmas. It’s always great to give things away at Christmas and not just get things." Eliana said.
Collin agreed and the light turned green so off they went.
They finally got to the shoprite and they all got off the camel.
"Spike, don’t run away." Nathan said, "We can’t take you inside the store."
Spike was not going to run away because he was too busy eating the pizza crust.
Inside the store they got the peanut butter and went up to pay for it.
"Hey, I just remembered something. We don’t have any money" Nathan screamed.
All the kids started searching their pockets but no one had any.
"What are we going to do now," Michael asked?
"Maybe we can trade the camel for the peanut butter," suggested Amy.
"No," Nathan insisted! "We have to come up with another way."
As they were standing there worrying, Alex, Jonathan, Evelyn and Olivia came by. They had pop tarts in their hands and were about to pay for it.
"Hey, guys can we borrow some money," asked Nathan?
Alex was going to say ‘no’ but when he heard that they were going to make peanut butter cookies he lent them money that he earned from mowing lawns the summer before.
The kids paid for the peanut butter and left the store. Spike had just finished his pizza crust and was anxious to leave. Alex, Jonathan, Evelyn and Olivia decided to join the kids on the way back so they rode back to the Nathan and Eliana’s house and made cookies. They were very happy because not only did they make enough cookies to give away, they made enough for them to snack on, too.
"And the best part is," Eliana said, "Giving away Christmas cookies helps us to remember that God gave us the best gift of all- His son Jesus."
The End