text: It was Christmas and I was in hospital. Actually, it was Nonni, my father’s mother, who was in hospital - I was just visiting. Papa had been away for work, Nonni had had a fall and hit her head and he’d come back to find her in hospital. He’d been by her bedside every moment he could spare since then. I’d come to be with her while he went for coffee and Mama was doing the shopping. So, I was just sitting watching her when she opened her eyes, looked straight at me and said, “Jan, is the sleigh ready?” “Don’t worry, Nonni,” I replied. “We have the four-wheel drive. We don’t need the sleigh.” “No,” she said firmly. “You must check the sleigh.” “Alright. I will, Nonni.” Then she closed her eyes and seemed to go back to sleep. Shortly after that, Papa came back. “Has she woken up?” he asked as he came in. “Well, yes. It was a bit weird. She woke up and spoke to me but I don’t know if she knew who I was or when she thought it was.” “What did she say, Jan?” “She wanted to know if the sleigh was ready and told me I had to check it.” Papa looked concerned. “What day is it?” he asked. “I mean, what is the date?” Wondering why on earth he wanted to know, I told him. “It’s the twenty-second of December, Papa.” “Right, Jan. It will be dark by the time you and your mother get home today and I will be staying here. So, tomorrow you must check over the sleigh.” “But why, Papa? We don’t even use it for going to church on Christmas Day.” “Jan, I can’t explain now, but trust me, it is important. Every year, it must be checked, even if it hasn’t been out of the barn all year. You must do it properly. Check every strap and bolt. Make sure the runners are clean and the metalwork lubricated. If you find anything that needs replacing, you must ring me tomorrow so that I can bring home whatever is necessary and fix it tomorrow evening. Understand?” I looked at him in amazement. He was serious about this. I nodded slowly. “I can trust you to do this for me?” he asked. “Yes, Papa,” I promised. The next day, I overslept. It was the holidays and Mama let me sleep in, so I didn’t get started on the sleigh until almost noon. It was cold out in the old barn and I had to keep stopping to warm my hands up. The barn isn’t really a barn, it’s just three sides and a roof, so there was good enough daylight coming in to start with, but the days are really short in winter where we live and I knew I didn’t have long before I lost the light. By mid-afternoon I’d had to go back to get a torch so that I could see properly. Mama made me a flask of hot chocolate to take back with me, but didn’t ask what I was doing out there. It was as if she already knew. It’s a big sleigh - the sort that would take a whole family around in winter, pulled by horses. Of course, we haven’t used it for generations, but now I remembered that Papa used to work on it every winter before Christmas. When I little, I sometimes used to watch him and then I would think that he’d take us out for a drive in it as a treat. But we never did. It never occurred to me then that we didn’t have any horses to pull it anyway. I’d almost finished checking the sleigh: cleaning and oiling the runners and metalwork, washing the painted parts, rubbing teak oil into the woodwork. I really got involved in the job once I was started - and the more effort I put in, the less cold I felt. Last of all, I climbed back onto the driver’s seat to put the leather seat pad back in place. There were leather straps that go round and underneath it, to stop it sliding about, and I found that they had gone stiff and brittle and one of them broke as I was trying to fasten it. It was far too late to phone Papa, he would already be on his way home and expecting everything to be done by the time he got here. I was going to have to repair it myself. I carried the pad and straps down to the house. I had some leather, and leather-working tools, in my room. It was a good piece, already treated and softened. I was planning to make my own pair of snowshoes for the first time and had bought and prepared the leather for making the bindings. Part of me was annoyed that I was having to cut it up to use on the old sleigh, but I didn’t want to let Papa down, so I got on with the repair, trying to get it all finished before he got home. I did get it done. It was really cold and dark going out to the barn again to get it fixed back on. I couldn’t wear my gloves to strap it back in and it was difficult to wedge the torch to shine the light in the proper place. It was fiddly and my fingers were numb and clumsy and I thought I’d never do it, but at last I managed it. I went back to the house and was just going in when I saw Papa’s headlights turning into the drive. I didn’t wait out for him - it was too cold. As soon as he came in, Papa looked over at me. “All done, Jan?” he asked. I nodded. I couldn’t actually trust myself to speak because my fingers were hurting and burning so much with the returning circulation that I might have moaned, but I was really glad that I’d finished in time. I hoped that he would tell me why it had been so important to make the sleigh ready, but Mama called us to the table for supper and asked Papa how Nonni was. Papa said that she was much better now and, although they wanted her to stay there tonight, we could go and bring her home to us tomorrow for the Christmas celebrations. “Shall we save our presents until she is here with us?” he asked. Mama and I agreed. That evening, we all made sure that everything was set out ready for next day. Papa and I would drive to the city to fetch Nonni from the hospital, while Mama made her room ready for her and got our Christmas dinner prepared and everything else ready for family and friends coming to visit. Then I went to bed, tired out from all my work, despite having slept in that morning. I still didn’t know what the fuss had been about the sleigh. I woke up on Christmas Eve as excited as always. The Christmas tree downstairs was sparkling with its white lights and decorations, the presents were there waiting and I had to be patient, eat breakfast, clear up and then set off with Papa to fetch Nonni. As we left, I noticed that Papa had been up to the barn already. I could see the front of the sleigh poking out. We brought Nonni home and the rest of the day passed with presents, laughter, food and drink, and people visiting to see Nonni and celebrate with us. It was no different from any other Christmas Eve - all about families and fun. Still, the sleigh was in the back of my mind and every so often I would find myself wondering. Next morning, in the quiet time before we set off for church, Papa called to me to come with him outside. There had been another fall of snow overnight and the ground was all crisp and clean and squeaked underfoot. The sun was in our eyes low on the horizon as we walked up to the barn. It was difficult to see clearly, but there was the silhouette of the back of the sleigh outside the barn and there was a figure standing beside it in the brightness. As we got closer, I saw that he was a tall man, with a trousers and tunic made of white reindeer hide, with a fur-trimmed hood, mittens and soft hide boots for walking in snow. He nodded in greeting to Papa and held out his right hand to me. I shook it politely, as one does when meeting a stranger, and waited to be introduced. He spoke in a deep, resonant voice, “I thank you, Jan Jansson, for your good work on that seat. If you look in your sleigh, you’ll find something there for you.” He released my hand and gestured to our barn. I looked at Papa. He smiled and said quietly to me, “Yes, Jan. Go on.” I’d been so focussed on the man that it was only then that I realised that this was not our sleigh. I looked again at the stranger, whom Papa seemed to have been expecting - there was something about him that kept drawing my gaze - then I turned and went into the barn, still blinking from the sunlight. Our sleigh was there, with its back towards me as if it had just been pushed in. On the front seat, I found a piece of leather. It was as big as the one I had cut up two days before in order to mend the sleigh and it was just as soft and well worked. I would be able to make my snowshoes after all. How had he known? Papa couldn’t have told him. I stood there, holding it in my hands and wondering. Then I remembered. I went back out to thank him and to show Papa, but the sleigh was gone and the stranger with it. Just Papa was waiting there in the sunlight, smiling at me. “Papa,” I said uncertainly, “Who was that? How - where did the sleigh go?” “Now, Jan, now I can tell you about it, and why we have to look after that old sleigh. There are not so many of them about any more.” So, he told me what his father had told him. How long ago, in my great-grandfather’s day, a stranger had needed to borrow a sleigh because his own had been damaged by something - falling branches perhaps. It had been during the night of the twenty-third of December, when all the children in Scandinavia have their presents delivered ready to open on Christmas Eve. The stranger had said that he would bring the sleigh back on Christmas Day after he had delivered to all the other children on Christmas Eve night. Ever since then, our sleigh had been kept ready at Christmas time. Sometimes, it was used, most often it wasn’t. Papa said that, one year, a completely different sleigh had been left in our barn, but ours had been returned the following Christmas. So, it seemed that we were not the only family who were prepared to help out in case of need. I went with Mama and Papa to church that Christmas Day with one thought after another going round in my head. Does Santa really exist? Did I really meet him - Saint Nicholas, Tomte, Father Christmas - call him what you will? He didn’t look at all like the jolly pictures. He was much more solemn and awe-inspiring. I suppose even last-minute presents ordered on the internet have to be delivered by someone. All I know is that I am going to keep looking after that sleigh, just in case. But maybe I’ll start checking it over in the summer next year when it’s warm - not leave it all until December.