Reading time: 5 minIt was the depths of winter at the South Pole, and the landscape was covered in a blanket of white snow.
In the midst of this icy environment lived a small penguin family: Mom, Dad, and their curious little daughter Akira.
They lived a very lonely life in an igloo that Dad Penguin had once laboriously built from many blocks of ice. He had learned the complicated technique from the humans who had lived there a few years ago. But they had left and never returned.
Little Akira didn’t mind any of this. She didn’t feel lonely, nor did the cold bother her. On a particularly dark day, when it had been stormy and snowing all night, Akira came to her mom in the kitchen.
On the calendar above the kitchen table, she saw a red cross and a beautiful winter picture with a red candle and a pine branch. “What day is this?” she asked cautiously, pointing to the mark on December 24.
Mama Penguin put her wing on Akira’s shoulder and smiled. “It’s Christmas Eve, the beginning of Christmas.” The little penguin girl was still too young to know much about this special holiday.
But the picture on the calendar radiated so much warmth and contemplation that she wanted to learn everything about it from now on. From that morning on, the family counted the days until Christmas. Mama and Papa Penguin told Akira all about the holiday and its meaning.
One cozy evening, Papa Penguin surprised Akira with a picture book. He had gone to great lengths to find it in a faraway place and hoped it would bring his daughter special joy.
And indeed it did! Akira had never owned a book of her own and could hardly wait to look at each page.
Sitting on Dad’s lap, they turned the pages and looked at everything together.
Akira’s eyes lit up. “There’s a cozy fire burning in the fireplace, the children are baking cookies, and there are red candles on the green pine branches. It looks so cozy and warm and…” The little penguin girl fell silent.
“And?” asked Papa Penguin, stroking Akira’s head. “And the Christmas tree is so beautiful! That’s exactly the kind of Christmas I want!”
Now Mama Penguin came in too. She was holding a bowl of warm fish casserole and sat down with the two of them.
On a stormy day, Papa Penguin had to go out to sea. Large ice floes had become wedged together and piled up into huge mountains.
Only occasionally was there a small gap between the mighty slabs of ice. Here he wanted to look for small fish and bring them back for dinner.
But suddenly, a red light in the distance caught his attention. “Well, well? What’s that light?”
Curious and amazed, he set off. Far out onto the frozen sea. He watched intently as a white ship pushed its way through a narrow gap in the thick ice.
He didn’t know much about humans, but he had once heard that they sometimes came here to the eternal ice to do research.
He couldn’t imagine what that meant, but his curiosity was piqued. Because the ice floes were so thick, the ship moved slowly. He managed to catch up with the ship and observe it up close.
When it finally set sail for the open sea, he suddenly spotted something glowing in the distance again. But this time it was something different. Only when he was standing right in front of it did he realize what the people had left behind.
In front of him stood a beautifully decorated Christmas tree with a bundle of small red candles and some canned fish. “Thank you!” he called softly after the ship, which was moving further and further away in the snowstorm.
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