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Christmas Stories

Mrs. Santa Claus had made him a new, beautiful red coat, with a cap to match, and she had trimmed it with soft, white ermine. Some of the tailor fairies had helped her, and they also had made him a new pair of trousers. The little cobbler elves had made him a new pair of tall boots and the glove-makers brought a pair of warm gloves. “We want his fingers to be warm,” they said. Some of the fairies brought some animal skins and made them into a nice fur robe. The water nymphs brought him a new meerschaum pipe with an amber mouth-piece from out the sea, “For,” they said, “he has smoked that old clay one so long that he ought to have a new pipe.”

The forest fairies placed under the tree a wonderful, new magic sleigh, which was much larger than his old one. “He has to carry

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