Christmas Testing

Teddy had been up and down stairs several times with lots of big cardboard boxes. Henry thought this was a rather unusual activity for Teddy and was intrigued to find out what was going on.

"Hey Teddy!" he called. "What are you up to?"

"Oh, hi, Henry!" Teddy answered, "I'm just getting our Christmas decorations down from the loft. I think we should check them before the Big Day, just to make sure that everything is still intact and working properly. It will be too late if we find out that something is wrong on Christmas Day!"

"That's an excellent idea," responded Henry. "Can I help?" he asked.

"Of course," Teddy said. "I'll climb the ladder into the loft and hand down some boxes to you."

So Teddy and Henry went back upstairs and brought down even more boxes until the living room floor was totally covered! The other bears had gathered round by now, wondering if they might help too.

Teddy assigned groups of bears to sort through different boxes. Their job was to see if anything was damaged or had any bits missing, and whether everything still worked.

Harry decided to start on the Christmas Tree lights - it was very important that those were working and there were no unlit bulbs. He ended up getting very tangled in the very long strings of lights and had to ask for help to get himself untangled! But luckily all the lights were working - brilliantly!

Edward, Richard, Henry and Vicky had a very similar problem with the contents of their box. It was full of strings of beads of all colours and shapes. They checked that none of them were broken or damaged, and had a lovely time modelling their favourites to everyone else! They did look gorgeous!

Custard, Boo, Crackers, James and Lizzie had the box of ornaments which they usually displayed across the mantelpiece, making little scenes of woodland animals and snowflakes. They had a great time dipping into the box and finding all their favourites. James especially loved the shining tinsel and made himself a necklace from it - just to check that it wasn't damaged of course!

Boo came across a small wooden chalet whose roof could be removed. "What's this for?" he asked Lizzie. "I think it's one of those smoking cottages," she replied. "We have some little scented cones which we can light and put on the metal base, and when we blow them out they go all smoky and we can put the cottage back over the base and the smoke swirls out of the chimney. It looks very realistic."

"Ooooh!" sighed Boo. "Do you think we could try one? Just to see that it is still working properly, of course."

Lizzie smiled. "OK, let's try it," she said and she fetched some matches and passed them to Scary so he could light the tiny cone, blow it out and place it in the cottage. Suddenly, the cottage looked very real, with smoke coming out of its chimney as if someone really lived there.

"I like that," said Boo. "Are there any more in here?" and he rummaged through the box and found a couple more chalet-style cottages. Scary patiently lit the cones for each of those too, and they all proclaimed that the cottages were working perfectly.

Crackers, Teddy, Custard, Tommy, Boo, Bubbles and Scary then moved on to another box. "This one must be empty!" declared Bubbles, throwing it into the air. "It's as light as a feather!"

They proceeded to open the box, only to find that it was full of all their paper chain decorations - no wonder it wasn't very heavy! The bears proceeded to slowly pull out the coloured links, taking care not to rip or crease any. They had taken ages to make last year, so the bears were especially happy that they had managed to survive to be used again this year.

Tommy was a bit upset that, because he was so little, he couldn't help look in all the boxes. Scary, Teddy and Bubbles came to his rescue. They opened their next box, then lifted Tommy into the top of it so he could look round. He found a lovely star, which he proceeded to use as an ornate necklace, though it was rather too big for him!

The bears finished looking through all the boxes and, surprisingly, found only a few things which needed fixing or a bit of restoration. Luckily, they had been very careful last year when they put their decorations away, to make sure that they were tidy and organised - maybe because Teddy was in charge! Now they could really look forward to Christmas knowing that, when the time came to decorate the house on Christmas Eve, everything would be perfect!

"Hey, Scary!" shouted Boo as they packed their boxes back up. "Shouldn't we be testing out some mince pies too? Just to make sure they'll be alright for Christmas too!" Everyone laughed. They would be sure to try some well before Christmas Day, of course. They all loved mince pies at Christmastime.

Maybe you should check your Christmas decorations in advance too. Or even take some time to make a few new ones. There are several ideas in the stories here. Have a great Christmas! Remember there won't be any long stories here during December as everyone spends time helping Harry to be The Bear On The Stair, with funny little scenes every day up to Christmas!