You hold the snowy, wrinkled piece of paper tightly in your mittens. It's only half of Santa's Nice List, but it's better than nothing. You hurry back through the trees, past the squirrel's acorn stump, past the frozen candy-cane creek, and past the twinkling lights of the reindeer practice field. When you reach Santa's Workshop, you push open the big red door. "Santa! Santa! I found this!" you say, holding up the torn half. Santa gently takes the paper from your hands. He smiles at you—then frowns just a tiny bit as he reads it. "Oh dear," Santa says softly. "This is only the first half. We're missing the rest." The elves gather around, peeking over his shoulder. You can read the names from A to M… but the rest of the list you don't know which toys they were hoping for. "Can we still do Christmas?" an elf whispers. Santa rubs his chin and thinks hard. "We will do our very best," he decides at last. "Children whose names begin with A through M will get their planned gifts. But children from N through Z… well… we will have to guess." And that is what they do. On Christmas morning all the kids on the "Nice List" get a toy. But, some of the toys are not what the child had expected. Some kids laugh. Some kids look puzzled. A few kids trade presents with each other. But every child still gets something. Later that night, Santa pats your shoulder. "You tried, my little elf," he says kindly. "And because of you, half the list was saved. Christmas wasn't perfect… but it was still filled with joy." The End.