CNN - 'Santa: My Life and Times' December 24, 1998

(CNN) -- Santa has finally unwrapped his exclusive story, answering all those questions that have kept generations of Santa fans awake on many a Christmas Eve: Where did he come from? How do reindeer fly? How does he make so many toys?

PROLOGUE

A Cup of Tea

It was all upon a quiet Christmas morning, as chilly a day as any I can remember, when I was invited in for a cup of tea. Dawn was just breaking as I approached a familiar wooden house with its blue tin roof; a house that had once marked the end of my Yuletide journeys. I hadn't visited this little place in many years, but now I felt drawn to it and I soon discovered why: it was once again aglow with the brightness of childhood. Inside, I found two tiny new stockings hung by the fireplace, emptied of all but the wishes of two little children, awaiting the delights of their very first Christmas.

As I filled the new stockings with toys and sweets, I thought of the first time I had visited this house and of the little girl whose greatest wish had been to one day ride with the reindeer. I remembered, too, how she had always tried to catch me leaving the presents, even when she had grown up and had children of her own. She had never seemed to lose her childlike spirit, and now she had her great-grandchildren to share it with. How quickly the time passes.

Smiling to myself, I lit up the colored lights on the tree and was just about to rise back up the chimney when I heard a soft sound from the room behind me. As I turned, my gaze met with the marvelous grin of a small and aged woman whom I knew in an instant was none other than that very same little girl, come to catch me in the act at last.

"One hundred years have I waited for this chance," she said in a voice that was barely a whisper. "Now won't you join me for a cup of tea?"

So we sat together by the fireside, two old friends talking of our memories of each other and of all that had happened since her childhood days. She showed me the toys she had saved from Christmases long past, and as we sipped our tea, she asked me all the questions that children have been asking since I first began my visits: Where did I come from? Are there such things as elves? How do the reindeer fly, and how does a belly as big as mine fit down all those little chimneys?

Then, when I had answered all of them from first to last, she looked at me with a smile and said: "Do you remember my wish?" And of course, I did. High above the rooftops of her village we flew, the reindeer soaring over snow-tipped forests and ice-covered lakes while my old friend shrieked with delight. Up, up past the wintry clouds we rose, and there we stayed until the bright morning sun came to waken the children from their Christmas dreams.

When at last it was time to leave, she bade me goodbye with a kiss on the cheek, and I could see even as I sped away how her eyes shone like those of a young girl. She had told me that she always remembered that little girl inside of her and could still see me as plain as day, long after her friends had forgotten how.

AS I rode home that Christmas morning, I kept thinking of the words she had whispered to me as we parted: "Yours is a story that wants telling," she had said. And she was right, for I have always wished that I could take the time to sit with each and every child, answering the questions that have gone too long unanswered. Now is the time to do just that.

This book you now hold in your hands is a wish that came true not so very long ago, with a cup of Christmas tea and the innocent wonder of a most unusual one-hundred-year-old little girl. It is for her, and for you, and for all the children everywhere who know to believe in magic, that the tales in this book have been written.

And I promise you that every word is true.