"Hey Seal!, Come over here and take a look through the telescope. Look at what's happening down on planet Earth. They are celebrating a holiday called Christmas. I've been researching about it for some years now, and you know what? there's a substance called snow. It falls from the sky, weird or what? There is a sense that you called cold. I think its the opposite to hot. I wish I could feel that. I bet you it would be lovely'. All the time here on planet Dogong its all ways the same hot, heat and even more hot all year round. I want to go and celebrate Christmas. It's all so much fun. All the things that you do. You go shopping and buy decorations. I know we put decorations but all we put is a smelly pumpkin. What's the point in that anyway. Well, oh yes, Christmas - Humans put up Chrismas trees, they look funny but they're very sharp. Candles - They light up and Santa..." "STOP! I've heard enough. Were not going. Is the most absurd thing I've ever heard.", said Seal. For the next decade 'a few days in human years', I begged and pleaded with him. He finally gave in. "All of Dogong will not be pleased." "They don't have to know" I said. It's just for a week or two, In human years a week or two. So we started preparing. It was a week of ultimate chaos! Our preparation started by preserving our food in time capsules. It was hard putting dogongdog space meat and slimy shakes as the slimy shakes tend to leak and the dogondog meat is lumpy, and packing our human clothes for earth. We had our old Halloween costumes from last millennium (a year in human terms), they were human skinned costumes, which made our blue skin look humanish! Finally, after much arguing we set off wearing our human costumes, secretly! Our luggage on board, risking any Dogians spying us. Fearing any humans discovering our true identities. 3...2...1...zoooom!! We were off !!!!! During the trip we decided our fake excuses for who we were. Seal was going to be Simon, a 12 year old boy in 6th class on a European island called Ireland, and I was going to be his twin sister called Christina. (We picked these names because they were like our own, Seal and Chris.
" Meteorite", flying past us". "Wow"! That was close". We decided that since it was so early we would visit our cousins in Pluto. We talked to them about our investigation of this thing called Christmas." Can we come with you", they asked. We were doubtful for a while, but then we agreed they would be good company. So they started preparing. It didn't take them long, as they had costumes too, plus they had a lot of clothes as they lived near earth. We set of once again. We decided they would be our older brother and sister. Sarah (aged 14) and Jake (a billion and two years). He would take the identity of a 16 year old boy. They had been to earth before. Jake had brought spaceships full of beer to Pluto. He decided to take the last few bottles of beer with him on the journey (Beer is a drink that humans drink, It did the weirdest things to him, he kept on singing and falling over until he fell asleep. We passed Neptune, Saturn,Uranus and Jupiter. We stopped on Mars to get something to eat. We got burgers and fries." I hope earth has food like this." " Probably don't " , said Chris.We set of and after a thousand light-years (in human terms an hour). We landed on earth, in Ireland. We got out. There was all mud everywhere. " This is like Jupiter" Chris said. I walked on. Suddenly I fell into some liquid form." That's water", said Jake." Is this what cold feels like because it is nothing like hot", I said. "Yes",Jake replied. We saw some light in the distance and decided that we would progress in that direction..
As we walked towards the light we discovered that the light we saw before was actually city lights, the city of Tuam, according to Jake. We knew it was very close to Christmas because the shop window displays were littered with Santa Claus models and toys of every sort. All of us thought we missed this joyful event called Christmas and started to worry! I asked a human what date it was? She replied 23rd of December of course! "Thank you," I replied, shocked that I spoke to an Earthling. I said, "There's still time left."
Jake being a sly kind of Dogian thought of an idea and told us to play along! He marched up to the door of a house and knocked 3 times. An elderly lady answered the door and immediately Jake jumped up and gave her a big hug saying "Granny ,we've missed you so, how have you been the last few years?" She replied ,’fine thank you’ .We thought we would stay with you for Christmas, being that Dad is working and we didn’t want you on your own, anyway haven’t the younger ones grown ?" Yes"she said, thinking to herself oh no I can't remember my own grandchildren! As Jake kept talking, I just stayed quiet and smiled. "It's cold out here" Jake said giving a hint to her to ask us in and she did, giving us a hug and kiss each. Deep down inside I felt a human feeling called guilt but she was our only hope!
Her house was beautifully decorated and she had just bought a turkey that day , big enough for us all. She brought us up to our rooms saying "Goodnight children". We apologized for not letting her know we were coming . In town we bought her a China tea set. After we all got our presents on Christmas, we all sat down and ate our meal, it was lovely. We all helped clean up and that's when it all happened!! Sarah started to cry for no reason.
" Why are you crying Sarah", said Seal. She replied " I just talked to granny and she told me that every Christmas she is alone and that we’ve made her so happy because we came to visit her. I think it’s unfair that people are alone at Christmas. We should do something to help them. "Maybe we could set up an organization like Willie Birmingham did. "No, never mind", she said. "It’s a bad idea". "No it's not" said Jake. "Lets do it". "We’ll put up loads of lights." You have a really long stand with lots of food’. "Let’s get granny to ask some children she knows to make a choir. " We have to do it in two days though. Chris you go with gran first you tell her about it and then get her to tell the children. Jake you go back to the spaceship and get loads of lights. Get long tables and lots of chairs. Sarah and I will get the presents. It turned out to be a harder job then I expected. Everyone had done their job the next morning, except Sarah and me, and we weren’t gonna get it done that day either. For you see. All the shops were closed because it was the day before Christmas Eve. "It's very strange". "Everything gone". Anyway I always thought the shops on Earth were small. I went to all the near and far. Some small and strange like, Clonberne and Williamstown. We managed to get nine presents, but that wasn’t enough. It came time to go to the Christmas party. Everything went great; the whole town turned up and some other towns too. It was now coming to the end of the night and suddenly out of nowhere, ‘Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas’. Everyone looked up at the sky. " It’s Santa Claus" one of the young children said. Then as if raining from the sky. Presents started falling. One for everyone and a few hundred left over. We gave them to charity. The next day we had to leave. That made granny very sad. "Can you stay until the New Year" she said. "I’m sorry we can’t". Gran said, " I will give you a lift". " NOOOOOOO!" It’s ok. We said our good-byes and then left. As we were journeying home, we thought to ourselves. " What a great adventure". All except for me, had brought a lot of beer and was now drunk, as we had learned on earth. So we all went for the long ride home.
