It’s Christmas Eve, and everyone is running around getting ready for Christmas, hanging up their stockings and putting up the last minute decorations. They sang carols and then all the children went to bed. They could hear the grown-ups moving around downstairs, but soon the whole house was quiet and everyone was fast asleep.
Meanwhile, in the attic, the mice were excited about Christmas. Christmas means crumbs! They had spent the day letting the cat chase them so he’d be too tired to chase them tonight when they crept downstairs to see what they could get into. Brown Mouse was too young to remember last Christmas, so he was especially excited to learn more about the traditions.
The older mice agree to take Brown Mouse with them when they head downstairs at midnight, and they all waited anxiously for the clock to strike. It finally did, and they headed out, going through the walls and around the pipes, and out the mousehole in the kitchen. They saw the most wonderful tree covered in decorations, cookies everywhere, lights and snowflakes and stars. It was incredible.
The other mice got to work right away, but Brown Mouse was star struck with all that he saw, so he wandered from thing to thing, wondering where to begin. When Santa came, the mice didn’t stop in their gathering – they kept right on, but Brown Mouse hadn’t taken anything yet. The other mice told him to hurry. They had to get back up to the attic – he’d better pick something and take it, fast!
All he took was a piece of tinsel, but he did a good deed in exchange. When Mother came downstairs with her children, she found her wedding ring, the one that had been missing for months. She didn’t know where it had been or how it got returned – only a sleepy little mouse knew the answer to that.
(This book was published in 1980 by McGraw-Hill and was illustrated by Wendy Watson.)
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