The Story of the Snick

There is magic in all the creative ways that we come together and share stories this time of year. The short days and long nights allow our imaginations to unfold whimsical tales and "what-if" wonderings if we let them.
Here is a story that came to me one evening last year. It became a creature, a muse that further inspired the story. After making one, I had to make another and another until six "Snicks" had made an "earth landing."
I've shared it with my friends, young and old, and taught them to make their own Snicks. I always invite them to add freely to the story so it can come alive. And boy, has it ever already!
A new tradition has been born, one that I hope to continue for years to come. The Snick is a'foot and so is magic if you invite it in...

The first successful Earth landing of the Snick was in the fall of 2022. Snicks travel by telepathic transmission from their home base on the moon. They send signals in the form of inspiration to receptive humans. These energetic frequencies can only be detected when devices are OFF!

Snicks were once elves who lived at the North Pole and worked at Santa's factory. They were daydreamers who always had a feeling there was more to life than following Santa's instructions to make the same toys every year. And they didn't feel right about the wastefulness. Santa's standards were very high, and anything that didn't meet them would be catapulted into outer space by the Junk Jettison Disposal System (JJDS).

The daydreaming elves often wondered where they went. They began to discuss this among themselves in stolen moments in the break room eating cookies around the milk cooler. Eventually, their dissatisfaction led them to hatch a plan. Six of these elves gathered enough material to build a space capsule and convinced a few sympathizers to launch them via the JJDS. On Thanksgiving weekend, when they had an extra day off, the elves snuck into the factory…and successfully launched!

How did these elves become the Snicks, you ask? As they banded together to form their rebellion, they wanted to make clear their continuing fondness for Santa, despite his flaws. Sometimes he just gets so carried away being Santa Claus, he forgets to just be himself: good ol’ Saint Nick. “We'll name our secret guild SNICK, in honor of Saint Nick… and because Santa Never Can Know. We have to sneak! They all winked and agreed.

Did Santa intentionally construct the JJDS to point directly at the moon? The Snicks would later wonder as they celebrated their Independence Day on Thanksgiving. And they gave thanks that it did. Along the way they could see all of the factory's misfit toys drifting along, eventually pulled into moon’s orbit. The Snicks spent the next year cultivating a home at the cavernous center of the hollow moon. Each of the craters on the moon funnel down to a tunnel winding through to its glittering core, where pools and islands exist. The “Island of Misfit Toys” referenced in the 1964 movie “Rudolph Red Nosed Reindeer,” is located here.

As the new civilization flourished, the Snicks set to planning their return to Earth to distribute misfit toys to misfit children of all ages. They gave special focus to those without fireplaces. After years of traveling through moon tunnels, the Snicks had evolved longer, leaner bodies, skinny arms and legs, even pointed heads to optimize fast travel through tight spaces.

This meant they could easily sneak through the smallest air vent in any home. As you can tell by now, Snicks are as inventive as they are sneaky. So…

They invented a shrinking machine for the misfit toys. Now, two of the Snicks favorite things are ping-pings (otherwise known as miniatures) and snowball cookies. They decided to put the two together, shrunken misfit toys transported inside of snowball cookies!

I don't have time to explain all the details of the Snicks’ telepathic transmission to Earth by sitting around the biggest moon crater and falling into a deep meditation that lasts three hours to them, but three months on Earth. How they are recreated in earthly form by receptive humans with the right materials. And how, once replicated on earth, create a telepathic wormhole to send the snowball - excuse me - MOONball cookies containing many misfit toys through.

Suffice to say, that if you find a Snick - if it CHOOSES you - you're very lucky. Be aware, they will teleport back to their home on the first full moon of January. Once they do, it's best to let them sleep until the first full moon of October, when they'll return. And when they do return to frolic during the holidays, the proper greeting is...

“Snick’s A’foot!”

(hee hee hee!)