Short Story: A Tropical Christmas

Short Story: A Tropical Christmas

Singapore is a hot and humid country, so when the airplane door finally opened the heat hit Toby and Susan, it was like walking into the kitchen when Mum was busy baking on a chilly Saturday morning, but it didn’t really have the same sweet smell though.

“Wow” said Susan, “it is so cosy and warm outside, can we swim at the beach Mum?”

“Hot” said Toby his little face lighting up with such pleasure as he squinted into the sunny afternoon sky. “When can I see the Equator Mum” he naively kept asking his now exhausted, but ever so patient Mother.

“Thank you so much”, said their drained Mother to the flight attendants, as Susan and Toby were already on the move, quickly jogging up the ramp away from the plane and their tiring Mother.

This was the first time the two kids had ever been on an airplane; it had all been so exciting. Toby had endlessly played computer games, been amazed at the view out of his window seat and slept for about ten minutes, but the best thing had been the ice cream in the middle of the night, he couldn’t figure out how they did that.

“Where does the ice cream come from Mum” he had asked over and over again.

Susan had watched two romantic girly movies, she watched the flight attendants go up and down and thought their uniforms were really cool, then slept for one hour with the eye mask over her eyes, until her little brother had pulled it as far as he could from her face and then let it go, whack! Yes, she woke up and was not happy.

Their Mum Jane, had not really had a good night, she had to keep them both from getting over excited, it was not easy when her two young children were acting like they had rubber legs, bouncing around the plane.

Now as the children gawped in amazement out of the taxi window at the palm trees, the solid blue sky above, and the sparkling glass and steel buildings reaching so high, they were getting excited again.

“It’s beautiful here Mummy”, both children said together, and then they all laughed.

“Will Santa find us here, there is no snow” said Toby,

“We have Polar Bears and Penguins in the zoo” said the elderly, friendly taxi driver.

“Cool” said the kids at the same time again, everyone giggling together,

“So he will come then” said Toby, “oh yes, he will come” said their flagging mother.

The bright red taxi stopped and the children were suddenly overwhelmed by the building in front of them,

“Is this the hotel Mum” said Susan,

“Uhu”, said Jayne, now needing a coffee.

A gigantic, brightly decorated Christmas tree greeted them all in the hotel lobby.

“Oh look it is Santa Claus”

Their Mother pointed to a large man with his back to them, he had a red shirt and white trousers on.

“Daddy”