Ice Nutcracker

The Ice Nutcracker was once a miserly old human, who hated Christmas and children and toys, and, more than anything else, Santa Claus. He was a rich man, and did everything in his power to make others just as miserable as he was around the holidays. Year after year, he would try to tear down peace on Earth and good will towards men, and always failed. Everyone, for the most part, ignored the old nutter as much as they could and had themselves a very merry Christmas.

Until, one day, he almost succeeded.

He stayed up as late as he could, like he would do every year, in hopes of catching Santa Claus and stealing his bag of toys. As he was very old, he usually could not make it; this year, however, something was different. Maybe his hatred had grown to the point where it was keeping him going, or maybe he just had a case of insomnia. Whatever the case for his sleeplessness was, he knew this was the perfect opportunity to catch Santa Claus.

And he did.

He suddenly heard the jingling of bells, and a hearty "Ho, ho, ho!" and knew that Santa had arrived in his village. He hobbled out of the house as fast as he could, hoping to somehow ambush Santa Claus. Obviously, this was not a very solid game plan, but Rudolph had gotten into the chocolate laxatives before they left, so when the old man found Santa, Jolly 'Ol Saint Nick was dealing with...other problems, and did not notice the miser climbing onto the roof. This gave him the chance to grab the bag of toys, and he would have made off with it and ruined Christmas for everyone, had it not been for a certain little thing we like to call 'Christmas Magic'. Specifically, the kind that magically protects things.

The old man found himself unable to move, and started to shrink. His clothes changed into that of a uniform, and his hair, beard, and eyes all changed to an icy blue. His skin turned into wood, and, just like that, the old man was turned into a Nutcracker, with an appearance to match the man's icy heart. When Santa finally got the aforementioned other problems dealt with, he notice the little Nutcracker lying on the roof next to his bag. Assuming his bag had fallen off the sleigh, and that the Nutcracker had fallen out of his bag, he packed up the former old miser and continued on his way. As the Nutcracker had not actually been made by the elves, and had therefore not been assigned to a child, Santa ended up taking it back to the North Pole with him and placing it in the workshop so it could watch over the toys. And it did so for a very long time.

The End.