“My mommy loves her cooking, she loves it, she loves it.”
That was just one of the memorable lines in Kelsey Rexin’s story “The True Spirit of Christmas,” the story that won the five-year-old Vavenby resident first place in the Times’ Christmas story contest, division one, Kindergarten to Grade 3.
Second place in division one went to Sophie Collins, a student in a Grade 2/3 class at Raft River Elementary.
Collins’ story, “The Best Christmas Ever,” told about how two children rescued Santa when his sled was caught in a tree, but their mom and dad didn’t believe them – until Santa told them himself.
Grade 3 student Evan Cooke won third place in division one with his story “Santa Crashes.”
In his story, the hooks that connected the reindeer to Santa’s sled somehow fell off. The jolly elf had to walk to New York, where he bought a new sled so he could deliver all the presents.
Ethan Smith wins in division 2 for senior students
First place in division two, Grades 4 to 7, went to Grade 5 student Ethan Smith and his entry, “Christmas Story.”
His story tells about Hat Trick, a snowman whose wish comes true and he gets a pair of skates so he can play hockey with some kids. Go Hat Trick!
Lilly Frost, a Grade 4 student, came in second in division two with her story “A Magical Christmas.”
In it, a little girl with no home and no family was so poor that she couldn’t afford food on Christmas Eve.
An angel helped her find a home, family and food to eat. The girl and her family live happily ever after.
A story titled “The Best Christmas Present Ever” won Braxton Hall third place in division two.
His story was about a little boy named Gfert who loved Christmas but whose family couldn’t afford the magic set he wanted as a present.
He helps Santa deliver presents but the story leaves as a mystery whether he got his magic set or not.
The winners will receive their prize money in the new year. The winning entries appear on pages A14 and A15. Other Christmas stories appear on following pages, and will be in future issues of the Times.
Many entries for contest
The Times received 90 entries to its Christmas story contest this year.
This is up from the 81 received in 2015 and in 2014, and the 53 received in 2013.
Nearly all of this year’s entries were from Raft River Elementary School.
The only glitch was that the email connection from the school’s computer lab was not working, which meant that most of the teachers sent us scans of their students’ stories.
Unfortunately, optical character recognition is not perfect. Too often, Christmas came out as Chr.istmas or Christ1nas, which meant many of the stories had to be re-typed.
Next year we likely will not accept stories that need to be re-typed (except in exceptional circumstances).
DIVISION ONE: KINDERGARTEN TO GRADE 3
The True Spirit of Christmas
The true spirit of Christmas, to me, is all of the family getting together to have a good family day and 
special breakfast. Then we open our presents and we all play with them.
My mommy loves her cooking, she loves it, she loves it. She cooks a good turkey dinner for us all.
And my family are the best family I could have. I love them all.
The End
By Kelsey Rexin
5 Years Old, Kindergarten
The Best Christmas Ever
Once upon a time there was Santa and his reindeer. His reindeer were pulling Santa one night and they were on their way to the children’s house. When they got there to deliver the presents, Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk.
Then, they took off to go to another house. The kids names were Abby and Blake and Santa and his 
reindeer went back to the north pole. Mrs. Clause made them more cookies and gave the elves more cookies and gave the elves presents and all of the reindeer presents and then Santa and the reindeer went off to go deliver more gifts to the other children.
Santa the reindeer went off and they were flying and they got stuck in a tree. They couldn’t get out of the tree.
Mrs. Clause and the elves were getting worried. Santa and the reindeer ended up stuck there all night and then in no time it was morning and Mrs. Clause woke up from her sleep and Santa and the reindeer were still not back.
Meanwhile, two kids were out walking and saw Santa and his reindeer up in a tree and so the kids walked to Santa and the reindeer and helped them out of the tree. Santa and the reindeer flew back home safely and Mrs. Clause and the elves were happy to see them.
The elves were happy to see them too. Mrs. Clause asked, “Where were you guys?” Santa said, “We were stuck in some trees.”
Mrs. Clause said, “Oh.” and then the children said to their mom and dad, “We just saw Santa and his reindeer stuck in the tree, so we rescued them! They went back to the North Pole!”
Mom said, “Oh, right.” She didn’t believe her daughter or her son. Then, mom and dad drive them to the North Pole. It took them a day to get there and they were finally there so Mom and Dad asked Santa himself, if the kids had saved him. Santa said, “Yes.” “Oh.” Said mom and dad.
After that, they always believed their kids stories.
By Sophie Collins, Grade 2/3 class
Santa Crashes
One day at Santa’s shop there were lots of elves working hard because there was only one day before Christmas.
Some elves were polishing Santa’s sleigh and others were putting the presents in big bags. Santa was 
feeding the reindeer carrots so they would have energy to fly around the world and Mrs. Clause was making Santa’s suit. Santa was about to leave he said one elf could come with him. Jingle put his hand up first so Santa said he could come.
Then Santa went to get the reindeer then he hooked the reindeer to the sleigh then they flew off. But then the hooks that were around the reindeer unattached then they all fell Santa didn’t know where they were. So they started to walk.
They walked for half an hour then they where in New York. Santa and Jingle didn’t want to get seen so Santa shaved his beard and dressed like a normal person. Jingle went in Santa’s hat then they went to a shop and bought a sled. Then he brought it back in the forest then he put magic on it and he found his reindeer and flew off and delivered all the presents.
The End
by Evan Cooke, Grade 3
DIVISION ONE: GRADE 4 TO GRADE 7
Christmas Story
One Christmas Eve a group of kids went to the forest to play hockey on a pond.
When they got there they decided to build a snowman. They named him Hat Trick.
They gave him a helmet, gloves and a stick, but they forgot to give him skates.
Hat Trick watched the kids playing hockey, he thought it looked exhilarating.
He wanted to play too. It looked so exciting.
That night Hat Trick wished for a pair of skates.
When Hat Trick woke up the next morning he looked down and there was a pair of skates!
Woah. Wow!
That very day when the kids came back, the snowman played with them and he was an amazing skater!
Go Hat Trick!
By Ethan Smith, Grade 5
One Magical Christmas
Once upon a time there was a little girl who had no home and no family.
She was very, very poor. She was so poor she couldn’t afford food on Christmas Eve and she was really hungry.
“Every Christmas Eve I don’t have anything to eat," sighed the girl.
“Hi!” yelled the girl’s only friend Matilda. “Hi,” she said sadly at her. “I’d better get going ... bye."
She was alone once again. She started to sob. As she cried she was holding what seemed to be an angel with a broken wing.
“I wish you were alive," She thought. Then when she put down the angel somebody called out “Please don’t put me down!
“W-who said that?”stuttered the girl. All of a sudden the angel was on her shoulder. "C-can you help me’?” asked the girl. And so the angel helped her find a family,a home and got her dinner.
The little girl asked the angel if she wanted to stay with her but she said, “No, I have to go help other orphans.”
The girl tried to watch the angel leave but she vanished before her eyes. The girl and her family lived happily after that.
By Lilly Frost, Grade 4, Ms. Allan’s class.
The Best Christmas Present Ever
Once upon a time there was a little boy named Gfert. He loved Christmas day, the joy, the decorations and most of all the presents. A few days before Christmas,
Gfert made his Christmas list. He wanted a rubber band, dodo bird, a blue pen and most of all a magic set. Gferts family was poor so he couldn’t ask for more expensive stuff. Once he was done with the list he handed it to his parents to look at.
His parents, Joe Dirt and his girlfriend Stacy looked up at Gfert.
“What?”
“You know we can’t afford a magic set.” they told him.
“Well maybe Santa will bring it.” said Gfert.
“Maybe,” said his father, “maybe”.
The next day Gfert had to go and do firewood.
Ever since his older brother died in a car accident he did it by himself. He and his parents don’t like to talk about it too much.
As he was chopping and stacking wood he saw something moving in the bushes. He dropped the axe and slowly moved to the bush.
As he went to pull the bushes apart he heard a screech. He whipped around and saw a tall, wide, black shadow peering down at him for a split second.
Then he was pulled into the bush and everything went black.
Gfert woke up in a huge factory of some sort. He looked around saw a bunch of toys, little men running around, and a big dude in red.
It only took 1.37248963 seconds to realize he was in Santa’s workshop.
“Santa” said Gfert.
“Hey kiddo,” said Santa.
“What am I doing here?”
“I brought you here to help me deliver presents” santa said. “would you like that?’
“Heck Yeah!”
“Well let’s go!” So Gfert and Santa hopped in the big red sleigh and flew away stopping to drop Christmas presents in every home they saw. Soon they reached Gfert’s home and Santa and Gfert went down the chimney and laid a few presents under the tree. As Santa put Gfert’s present under, he immediately wondered what it was. Was it a magic set? He didn’t know.
“Well this is your stop.” Said santa.
“Ya, I guess it is, come back soon, Santa”
“One year” said Santa. Gfert had a huge smile on his face.
“Merry Christmas.” said Gfert.
“Merry Christmas to you too,” said Santa.
By Braxton Hall