A Family Christmas: Bedtime Story

In this heartwarming Christmas tale, excited children go to bed early on Christmas Eve, hoping to spot Santa. They sneak down to see "Santa" by the fireplace and are thrilled to find he's had the snacks they left. Unseen, their father had dressed up as Santa, adding to the magic. Christmas Day brings joy with gift unwrapping, a festive family meal, and a beautiful walk through snowy woods. The day ends with the children playing, parents relaxing, and everyone contentedly sleeping after a day filled with love and family warmth.

Transcript

So you can take a moment to just allow your eyes to close,

Allow yourself to get comfortable and begin to drift off asleep.

And as you drift comfortably asleep,

So I'll just tell this story in the background and as I tell this story I don't know whether you'll drift deeper asleep to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words.

And one day there was a family preparing for Christmas and the children always looked forward to Christmas.

They enjoyed giving people presents,

Seeing people made happy as they opened those presents.

They enjoyed getting to spend time together during the holiday season,

Playing games.

And their Christmas Day begins the night before and the night before Christmas the children are excited.

They want Christmas Day to already be here and these children still believe in Santa Claus.

And so the night before Christmas they want to go to bed so they can catch Santa Claus delivering the presents during the night.

And as the evening progresses so the parents turn off the lights,

Turn on the Christmas tree lights,

The fire warming the room,

Flames flickering away,

The crackling sound of that fire,

The light from the fire,

Glistening of decorations around the room,

Christmas cards on the shelves and on top of the fireplace,

Presents under the tree.

And together they all sit down,

They watch some Christmas TV,

Some feel-good TV before bedtime approaches.

And the children go up to their rooms,

Parents go up to read to them.

And the children get into bed,

Relax in bed,

Feeling so warm,

Snuggled,

Comfortable as the parents read to their children.

And while they read a bedtime story so the children drift and float asleep.

And the children have this plan that they'll wake up a little bit later in the night to try and catch Santa Claus delivering the presents.

And they know that there are many presents that are already under the tree,

That are presents from their parents.

But Santa delivers a stocking of presents for each child and they want to catch Santa doing so.

And so the children wake up during the night,

Sneak downstairs with all the lights in the house off.

They hide behind the sofa and excitedly they wait because they want to catch Santa delivering those stockings.

And as they wait so they still feel tired and they feel their eyes occasionally shutting.

And then they bring themselves back to alertness and then notice their eyes shutting again.

It's almost as if the harder they try to stay awake,

The more asleep they feel.

And they try really hard to stay awake but keep noticing themselves nodding off.

And then after what feels like hours and hours of waiting,

They hear the sound of sleigh bells in the distance.

They hear some sounds coming from above them,

Possibly on the roof of the house.

And they hide and wait.

And then they hear a sound in the living room and they peek out from the sides of the sofa.

And they look over and they see what looks like Santa Claus hanging some stockings up by the fireplace.

Then they notice that Santa Claus is turning around.

So they move themselves back behind the sofa out of sight and wait just a moment to give Santa time to finish turning around and to hopefully turn back or face another direction.

And after a few moments they peer out from behind the sofa and are surprised to find that Santa seems to have vanished.

And they go over by the fireplace.

They see that the mince pie they'd left out has gone.

The glass of milk they'd left out has been drunk.

They feel so excited that they've seen Santa.

And they head back up to bed knowing in the morning they've got their presents to unwrap.

And these presents in the stockings from Santa.

And they drift off asleep.

Sleeping soundly so rested.

That evening after the children went to bed.

So the parents began to prepare for the night and prepare for Christmas Day.

The mum helped the dad get into a Santa costume.

They made sure the stockings had all the presents in them.

That Santa was going to give to the children.

They knew that the children were going to try and spy Santa visiting and delivering the presents.

The children would often talk to each other having secret conversations.

Completely unaware that they could be overheard by their parents.

And then the mum went upstairs to the bedroom.

And the dad sat reading in the kitchen.

Just waiting for the children to awaken.

And then after a little while the dad heard the children coming back downstairs again.

He turned off the kitchen light.

Picked up the stockings.

Stood up and waited out of view.

He could hear the children come into the lounge.

He could hear them scurrying behind the sofa.

He knew that his wife would have noticed them leave their room upstairs.

And he just had to wait for her cue.

And so he waited and waited.

And after a few moments he could hear the sound of sleigh bells.

Sounds of hooves.

As if there were noises on the roof.

Which actually was the mum playing some noises on the stereo in the bedroom.

And then after a little while the noises stop.

And the father dashes in to the living room.

Just in time for those children to poke their heads out.

And see him hanging up the stockings.

And drinking the milk.

Eating the mince pie.

And then he starts turning towards the sofa.

And sees their heads pop behind the sofa.

And as soon as their heads have popped behind the sofa.

He dashes out of the living room.

Back into the kitchen.

And hides again.

Until he hears the children come out from behind the sofa.

Explore the living room.

Notice the milk and the mince pie have gone.

Then he hears them heading up to bed again.

And after they've headed up to bed.

He starts changing out of that Santa costume.

To go to bed himself.

And after he's changed.

Out of the Santa costume.

He heads up to bed.

His wife asks how it went.

He explains that it went perfectly.

That the children seemed to be convinced they'd just seen Santa.

Place the stockings in the living room.

And then they drifted and floated relaxed asleep.

And the next morning the children were up really early.

Coming in their parents bedroom.

Awakening their parents.

Then they all headed downstairs.

The parents made breakfast for the children.

And all sitting around in dressing gowns.

Making the living room cosy.

Comfortable.

Giving a real nice atmosphere to the living room.

They sat down on the floor.

And they passed around the presents.

And the children were excited.

To see their siblings opening the presents.

Were excited to see their parents opening presents.

And the parents were excited to see the children opening presents.

And the children took the presents out of the stockings.

And they spent the morning playing with presents.

As the parents began to prepare for a Christmas dinner.

And the Christmas dinner wasn't for many hours yet.

But there was a lot of preparation required.

So while the children enjoyed playing with each other.

The parents got on with preparing food.

Making the dining room look nice.

Ready for having a family Christmas meal later in the afternoon.

And the children turned the TV on.

And they watched Christmas morning films.

Cartoons.

And the parents discussed what it was like when they were young.

That enjoyment of being able to just wake up on Christmas morning.

Play with your toys.

Watch some telly.

And just have such a relaxing time of it.

Spending time playing with your parents.

Other relatives.

And if the weather's suitable.

Going for a nice walk in the afternoon.

And they discussed how as parents.

Once you're an adult.

Things change a little.

Suddenly you spend Christmas working.

Preparing food.

Having to wash up after the meal.

Just looking forward to an opportunity to have a nap.

And that you still might enjoy Christmas day.

But what you do during Christmas day.

Is different to when you were younger.

And after midday.

Family members started arriving.

Some uncles and aunts and cousins.

Grandparents.

And they all hugged the children.

Hugged each other.

Seemed so pleased to see each other.

They engaged in playing with the children.

And then mid-afternoon.

The parents had prepared the food.

Laid the table.

Placed all the food on the table.

And called everyone through for Christmas dinner.

And they always had Christmas dinner.

Late afternoon.

And during Christmas dinner.

They enjoyed the meal.

They enjoyed good conversation with each other.

The smells of the food.

They enjoyed the pudding.

They always felt that they'd probably overindulged.

During Christmas meals.

They talked and caught up about.

How life has been going.

What's been happening since they last saw each other.

And then after the main meal.

And just before dessert.

They all picked up a cracker each.

Reached across each other.

And all simultaneously around the table.

Pulled the crackers.

Took out a little gift from the cracker.

Took out the foil crown.

Placed that on their heads.

And took out the joke.

And they could smell across the table.

The smell from each of the pulled crackers.

And they took it in turns to read out the joke to each other.

And each joke was a really cheesy joke.

And they laughed or groaned as each person told their joke.

And then dessert was brought out.

And they enjoyed the dessert.

And after dessert.

The parents and a couple of the other adults.

Did the washing up.

Tidying up.

Drying up.

Just chatting and enjoying conversation while they did so.

While a couple of the other adults spent time with the children.

Or just sat watching the TV letting their food go down.

And after everything was cleared up.

They all had a round of drinks.

Before dressing for the cold weather.

And outside was cold and crisp.

With the most beautiful layer of snow.

And near their house.

Down a footpath.

With some woodland and a lake.

And so all together.

They left the house.

Late afternoon.

To go for a late afternoon walk after all the food they'd eaten.

And they could feel that fresh crisp air on their cheeks.

They could notice their breath.

As they breathed out.

They walked down the footpath.

Headed down into the woodland.

Crunching on the ground as they went.

Walking through that snow.

Being aware of how incredibly still and silent everything seemed.

As they headed into the woodland.

They could hear just the faintest sound of the breeze blowing through the trees.

Noticing the occasional dusting of snow fall from the trees.

As the wind moved some of the branches and leaves.

Before arriving at the lake.

And the children walked close to the lake edge.

It was a really shallow lake.

That had really shallow sides.

And so near the sides.

Was a layer of ice.

And the children enjoyed going over to that edge of the lake.

Just resting their feet gently on the ice.

To the point where they could hear that stretching and then cracking sound of the ice under their feet.

And watch the bubbles of air trap just beneath that ice.

Moving as the ice flexes.

And then watching that ice sink beneath the surface before bouncing up.

And then floating away from the side and out towards the centre of the lake.

And there were some benches by the lake.

And so they all went and sat by the benches.

And the children started making snowballs and throwing snowballs at each other.

And the parents were listening to the sound of the laughter playing.

And then a couple of the adults started building snow people.

Rolling snow around the ground.

Creating large snowball.

And then creating a smaller snowball and placing it on top.

And another couple of the adults decided to build their snow person differently.

Gathering up that snow.

Just pushing it all into a pile.

Making that pile higher and higher.

Patting around the sides.

Rubbing down the sides.

And then making a snowball for the head.

And then finding some sticks.

Some stones.

To do the arms,

The nose,

The eyes,

The mouth.

And they tried to get the kids involved in doing the same.

But the kids were busy.

Running around.

Throwing snowballs at each other.

And then shortly before they were going to leave the lake.

The kids started throwing snowballs towards the snow people.

Trying to see who could knock the head off a snow person first.

And so the adults then joined in with this.

And they just played and had fun.

And then one of the kids lay down on their back in the snow.

Made a snow angel in the snow.

And as the sun began to set early in this evening.

So they all headed back home.

And everyone said it was time for them to head to their own homes.

And so everyone left.

Went back to their own homes.

Leaving just the parents and the children.

And the parents were exhausted.

And wanted to just sit in front of the TV.

Relaxing.

During the evening.

Having a bit of a rest.

Before having something to eat in the evening.

And the children carried on playing with their toys.

While the TV was on in the background.

And then the children.

Feeling tired.

Went off to bed.

Not that long after eating their evening meal.

And the parents.

Relaxed.

Snuggled up on the sofa.

And watched a romantic Christmas film.

Having some time together alone for a while.

Thinking about how the day has gone.

How well it's gone with everyone getting on with each other.

The children seeming to enjoy the day.

The children being pleased with themselves for noticing Santa.

Delivering the presents the night before.

And after the film.

The parents went up to bed.

And very quickly and easily they drifted.

And floated comfortably.

Relaxed.

Asleep.

Reviews

Very soothing voice….I never heard the end of the story ☺️Lol

Loved the story. Kept smiling Saw those little heads behind the couch. ☺️