Alice in Christmasland
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It was Christmas Eve, and Alice sat by the window, watching snowflakes perform polite pirouettes across the garden. The fire crackled, the pudding steamed, and a particularly opinionated robin kept telling the sparrows off for singing off-key.
“I do wish something odd would happen,” Alice sighed. “Christmas is all very well, but it’s ever so… ordinary this year.”
No sooner had she spoken than she heard a tremendous jingling, clinking, clanking sort of noise behind the fireplace. The stockings rustled, the clock hiccupped, and out popped — not Father Christmas — but the White Rabbit, wearing a woolly scarf and snow boots far too big for his paws.
“Late! Late for the Yuletide Fate!” he cried. “Oh, Alice, do come at once! We’ve got gingerbread hedgehogs, flamingo carol-singing, and the Queen of Hearts is threatening to cancel Christmas pudding unless she gets a jigsaw puzzle!”
“How very curious,” said Alice, who never missed a chance for curious things. And before you could say “sugarplum snail,” she followed the Rabbit into the fireplace, which had conveniently turned into a shimmering tunnel of icicles and cinnamon.
Chapter One: A Most Peculiar Sleigh
Alice landed with a puff in a land made entirely of gingerbread snow. A sleigh drawn by candy-cane reindeer awaited her, with a grumpy Dormouse at the reins.
“Hop in, or hop off,” he muttered. “We’re on a schedule tighter than a nutcracker’s knees.”
They zoomed past tinsel trees, snowmen sipping tea, and a crocodile chorus singing Jingle Bells in Latin. At the edge of the Sugarplum Swamp, the sleigh skidded to a halt.
“Out you go!” barked the Dormouse, and Alice tumbled into a forest where every tree was decorating itself — some with candles, some with upside-down socks, and one with an alarming number of alarm clocks.
Chapter Two: The Queen’s Very Unmerry Christmas
Alice arrived at the Royal Ice Palace just as the Queen of Hearts was shouting at a snowman.
“Off with his carrot!” she bellowed. “It’s crooked!”
“Please, Your Iciness,” Alice curtsied, slipping slightly on the ice. “I’ve come to help with Christmas.”
“Help?” said the Queen, sniffing her peppermint sceptre. “Then solve this jigsaw puzzle or there shall be no mince pies for anyone!”
The puzzle was shaped like a rabbit, but the pieces kept hopping away.
“Come back at once!” Alice cried, chasing a particularly smug piece under the sofa.
The Mad Hatter appeared from a snowglobe and offered his advice: “Try tickling them. Puzzle pieces hate being tickled.”
Alice tickled the rogue pieces until they giggled and shuffled obediently into place.
“Hurrah!” cried the Hatter. “Now we may eat until we are festively full!”
Chapter Three: The Feast of Fanciful Things
The banquet was held on a table that danced in slow circles to the tune of Deck the Halls. There were upside-down pies, invisible gravy, and crackers that told jokes in rhyme:
“Why did the turtle wear a Christmas hat?
Because his shell was feeling flat!”
Everyone laughed, even the Queen (though she later insisted she’d sneezed).
Father Christmas himself popped in via a trapdoor in the ceiling, wiping icing from his beard.
“Ho ho ho! Alice, thank you for saving Christmasland,” he boomed. “As a reward, you may choose one magical gift.”
“I’d like,” said Alice thoughtfully, “a snowflake that never melts and always remembers where it’s been.”
And so she received one — a shimmering, whispering snowflake that told her tales of every rooftop, chimney, and star it had kissed.
Chapter Four: Back Through the Bauble
All too soon, the sleigh reappeared, this time driven by a walrus in earmuffs.
“Time to go, young lady,” he said kindly. “Christmas Eve only lasts so long.”
Alice waved goodbye to the Rabbit, the Hatter, the Queen (who had warmed somewhat), and even the jigsaw puzzle, which winked at her.
She flew back through the chimney tunnel, landed softly by the fireplace, and found her house just as she had left it — except for one thing.
There, beside her hot cocoa, lay a tiny note tied with red ribbon:
“To Alice,
For bravery, cheer, and exceptional tickling.
— With love from Christmasland.”
And from then on, every Christmas Eve, if Alice listened very closely, she could hear puzzle pieces giggling, reindeer hooves on gingerbread roofs, and the White Rabbit jingling his way through the snow.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 