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easy chair after setting up the Christmas tree,” Bob said. “It was our family custom to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve, and my brother and I were in a hurry to get started—but Dad said he wanted a chance to sit down and rest a bit.”
    The twin boys could not imagine how anyone would want to sit down and relax on such an exciting night. Grown-ups were so unfathomable!
    As the boys paced the room, waiting for their mother and older sister, Wendy, to join them, Bob remembered that he began to quiz his father regarding a very important matter about which he had been quite concerned but had been afraid to confront. “Daddy,” he asked, “how can Santa come down the chimney? Wouldn’t he just end up in the coal bin?”
    Bob knew that the chimney was connected to the furnace, because one of his chores around the house was to keep the “worm,” a metal corkscrewlike device, covered with lumps of coal so it could draw fresh coal from the bin into the furnace.
    His father acknowledged that that could be a problem for an ordinary person, but Santa was magic.
    â€œYou mean, the furnace can’t burn him?” Bob persisted. “How does he get back out of the chimney?”
    His father’s voice rose just a bit impatiently. “I told you, Bob. Santa is magic. He can come down in the chimney just as far as he wants and then come out. Because of his magic powers, the chimney becomes an elevator. He can get out in the kitchen and eat the snack we’ll leave for him. He can stop out in Wendy’s room—or wherever he wants.”
    Bob seemed pleased that there was an explanation for what had seemed to him to be a troublesome aspect of the whole Santa-Claus-down-the-chimney scenario.
    â€œBy the way,” his father said, “how about you two going up to Wendy’s room to see if she needs any help wrapping presents. Your mother and I will call you when it’s time to decorate the tree.”
    Bob recalled how he and Ned had raced upstairs to his sister’s room. “Wendy had been wrapping presents from our parents to our aunt and uncle,” he said. “She had already finished when we burst into her room to offer our services, so we sat on her bed and talked about what we hoped we would be getting for Christmas.”
    Wendy was a year older than the twins, so Bob knew that she was keener in the ways of grown-ups. He told her about their father saying that Santa Claus had magical powers that could transform the chimney into a kind of elevator—and he asked her if such a thing could be true.
    â€œHmmm,” Wendy said, thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen Santa do it, but that must be how it works. Since he’s magic, he can do anything, really.”
    Once again, Bob recalled, he felt reassured.
    â€œWe sat on the bed, looking out the window at the Christmas lights strung across the avenue,” he said. “Suddenly Wendy said, ‘Look! Look up at the moon!’ ”
    There, in front of the moon, was a strangely formed cloud that projected a silhouette of Santa’s sled so perfect and so clear that Wendy didn’t have to explain.
    â€œThere it was,” Bob said. “You could see the runners and the curvature of the front of the sleigh—and on the back was Santa’s bag full of toys!”
    Bob remembered how the three of them stared at the silhouette in thrilled astonishment. “You couldn’t see the reindeer pulling the sleigh, but there was no mistake who it was that we were seeing!”
    After the initial shock, the three of them raced down the stairs to tell their parents that they had seen Santa Claus’s sleigh silhouetted against the moon, and they begged them to go to the windows to look up at the amazing sight.
    â€œMother hurriedly ran to a window to have a look, and Dad eventually left his chair to check out the hubbub,” Bob said. “But you know how it is. By the time the