Room at the Inn

For the little ones, who will soon be visiting

Meet Pinto the mouse and his family of three,
who live down my garden in the roots of a tree
Elmina his wife and their two naughty boys,
Hushka the quiet and Deano the noise.

One dark Christmas eve came a tap at my door
and there they stood this cold family of the four.
The snow was so heavy it had filled up their home
and poor little Hushka was froze to the bone.

“Oh please can you help us”? said Elmina in tears,
“it’s no fun for small mice at this time of year”.
Pinto explained they’d got caught in the snow,
dug themselves out but had nowhere to go.

“Come in” I said, “the fires nice and warm,
I’ll get you some soup and keep you from harm”.
For Elmina and Pinto I made a bed from a box,
while Hushka and Deano snuggled down in a sock.

In the morning I woke with poor Huska in tears
and Deano was shouting with his nose in my ear.
Wake up, wake up, we’ve had a bad dream,
It’s now Christmas day and Santa’s not been.

Oh, I said and looked out through the frost
perhaps when you moved poor Santa got lost.
I gave them breakfast, some cream and mince pies,
then we all wrapped up warm and went outside.

Look! said Huska there are tracks on the roof,
Oh yes! said Deano, they’re reindeers hoofs.
We followed the trail to the roots of their tree,
the boys started digging and giggled with glee.

They disappeared into tunnels but finally came back,
running towards us with two bright red sacks.
“You had us all worried”, Elmina said,
“Santa left these in the snow by our beds”.

They took them inside and we sat with the boys
and watched as they quickly unwrapped their toys.
I made Christmas dinner and the mice had some cheese
then we all played some games because the boys said please.

That night as we drifted to sleep in our beds,
the boys spoke quiet but I heard what they said.
Deano was glad we were all there together,
and Hushka thought it was the best Christmas ever.