The Story of Santa Hooves
By Lux
“Gather around youngins,” the old earth pony said to his grandfoals, “I have a story to tell you.”
The pony had a once brown coat now dull and greying with age and a mane and tail, which once was as green as a tree on a summer day, had too faded into a greyish green. Yet despite his aged appearance, the stallion still felt as strong and as happy as he was in his prime. Tonight was a special night, Hearth’s Warming Eve, a night when ponies gathered to remember the importance of family and friendship. No greater was this feeling than from him living with his wife, son, daughter in law, and of course his grandfoals.
“Is it about how you got your cutie mark?” the filly asked; a pony with a yellow orange coat and a blonde mane and tail.
“No Applejack. That is a story for another time.”
“Is it about how you met grandma?” a colt said; clearly older than his sister with a red coat and blonde mane and tail.
“Well, that is a nice story that I have to tell you,” the stallion said looking over at the kitchen where Granny Smith was busy preparing the food for the next day’s Hearth’s Warming Day feast, clearly with a look of love in the pony’s eyes,
“But tonight I want to tell you about a pony that is very important to Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
“Princess Celestia?” Applejack asked.
“Well she is important, but this one I’d say was just as important. Have you heard about Santa Hooves?”
“Isn’t he the pony that gives us presents on Hearth’s Warming Eve?” Big Mac asked, “The one with the red coat and white mane, tail, and beard?”
“That’s right, he is. For you see, Santa Hooves lives far up north where it never stops snowing in a town he built. There he works with other ponies all year to make presents for everypony in Equestria.”
“How does he get everywhere to deliver presents in time for Hearth’s Warming Day?” Applejack said to her grandfather, clearly interested in the story.
“And how is he able to deliver the presents without us knowing?” added Big Macintosh.
“Well, Santa Hooves is actually an Alicorn, just like the Princess is. I’m sure that you know about him you’ve seen this. So he is able to fly with his bag of presents from house to house and town to town. As for getting into houses without being noticed, I’m not an expert on magic but I’d guess that he can either teleport into a house or disguise himself so no pony can see him. But that is the story I want to tell you about, how Santa became what we know him today as.”
The older pony paused as the two grandfoals waited with anticipation about the story that he was about to tell. He then took an old worn book that sat by him and opening it up began to read.
“Once upon a time, long before even I was born, Equestria was not the friendly place like we know it to be. A strange creature had plunged the land into chaos before Princess Celestia and her sister, Princess Luna stopped him. But then another tragedy occurred as Princess Luna turned against her sister and threatened to plunge the land into eternal night. She too was defeated, banished to the moon where she has been there ever since.”
“Sounds like a nightmare,” Big Mac said.
“Yeah, who was the creature that decided to make things all crazy? And why did the other Princess turn against her sister?” Applejack asked.
“Well, those I’ll have to tell you about later. Anyway, Equestria was a sad place, especially for ponies your age. For you see, the ponies were trying to get their lives back together so they had little to no time for parties, presents, or fun. But there was a pony named Tinker Hooves, an earth pony that saw the sad children and decided to fix things for them. Now Tinker was a normal pony that had a great mind and worked great with his hooves to invent things for ponies to use. Now his mind was at work again to make the fillies and colts happy. And so he began to shape wood and metal together to create the first toy. And the fillies and colts loved it as they played in the streets with tops, toy animals, balls, and all sorts of other items the earth pony made. And wouldn’t you know it; some of these toys are still used today thanks to him. And he did this all for free, not accepting a single bit for his task, for the greatest joy he saw was in seeing the fillies and colts happy.”
“Sadly though, the other ponies did not like the toys at first. They thought that making toys was a waste of time for the stallion as they thought he should be inventing more useful things. But Tinker was unmoved by these comments, seeing the joy in the children’s eyes and hoping that one day they may understand. So he kept making toys and giving them to fillies and colts, even as other ponies turned away from him and even sought to destroy the toys he made. For the adults could not see the wonder of fun when there was so much sadness.”
“One day word of the earth pony’s deeds reached Princess Celestia who became interested in what she heard and how ponied were becoming happy. And so she flew to the town and saw that the town had gathered around Tinker’s shop, threatening to force the poor pony out of town! Naturally Celestia broke up the group and decided to meet with Tinker. And so as the stallion explained that he felt that, unlike those that were rallying against him, he was making a difference by providing joy to others. And so Celestia spoke to the group explaining that although it was important to rebuild, it was also important to have fun especially for the children.”
“And so, the ponies began to slowly accept Tinker’s deeds as he began to make more toys. The earth pony realized though that he wanted to do more than just make the fillies and colts happy in town but everywhere in Equestria. So with the Princess’s permission Tinker decided to set aside Hearth’s Warming Day as a day to give his toys, a fitting date to an event that was for friendship and family. He then began to hire others to help make toys and deliver them to other places.”
“Years passed and Tinker grew older. He found himself unable to help others since Equestria had more ponies. He was afraid that he was no longer going to be able to give out toys to children that his mission was over. But the Princess seeing what he had done gave him a gift, to make Tinker into an Alicorn so that he may live on to make ponies happy. And that is what happened. Tinker became Santa Hooves and then built his own town where ponies could travel to help him make toys. And so the legend was born.”
The older pony closed the book looking at his two grandfoals as they sat amazed.
“So you like the story?”
“It was great,” Big Mac said.
“Yeah, I loved it,” Applejack said with a yawn.
“Well I think it’s time for someponies to go to sleep. You don’t want to still be awake and have Santa Hooves pass by your house, do you?”
The two ponies quickly got up, said goodbye to their grandfather, grandmother, and parents and raced upstairs, hoping that they were not too late for Santa to arrive. The grandfather chuckled at the two ponies as he placed the book up on a shelf and then went to the kitchen to help his wife Granny Smith.
****************************************************************************************************
Applejack stared at the picture of her grandmother and grandfather smiling back at them.
“Ah miss you grand pa,” she said hugging the picture as if trying to hug him again. Her eyes then saw on the bookshelf that same worn book that her grandfather used to read from. An idea crept into her mind as she took the book from its shelf.
“Hey Apple Bloom? Have Ah ever told you the story about Santa Hooves?”
The End
Have a Happy Hearth’s Warming Holiday and a Happy New Year!
