Celebrate The Season: Winter
	Stories by Allen Morgan
	Art by Vladyana Krykorka
	Six stories - 72 pages

Winter Solstice Tree (part 5)

The White Wolf was definitely very pleased. He howled and growled and ran all around them in leaps and bounds and stole Megan's hat and her mittens.

"Now he'll stay close to home for sure," Winter laughed. "But he says that his friends are hungry too. There's not much left to eat any more. The birds are especially hungry he says, they don't store away any food like the squirrels, and even the squirrels are a little bit worried they don't have enough put away."

"We can bake cookies for them," Michael said.

"I don't think they like to eat cookies much," Megan told him.

"They like a treat from time to time," Winter replied. "But they like seeds and nuts much better. So do the squirrels. Rabbits prefer having vegetables mostly, and almost everybody likes to eat apples. Why don't we give them all something to eat. It's almost the Solstice and that's a good time to give things away."

"The Solstice?" asked Megan. "What's that?"

"It's the longest night of the year," Winter told her. "And that's probably why everyone is so hungry. Let's make up a feast, it's the least we can do."

So Megan and Michael ran back home and got right to work. They made popcorn strings and cranberry strands and they strung some peanuts too. They even made a few suet balls and stuck lots of seeds all around the outside. They got apples and carrots and celery and lettuce and they broke up some loaves of stale bread into heaps of crumbly crumbs.

And when the day of the Solstice arrived they met with Winter down in the ravine and picked out a nice little evergreen. They wove the popcorn and cranberry strings all through the branches and hung up the apples and vegetables too. They put piles of seeds by the foot of the tree and when they were done it looked absolutely wonderful. Then they all joined hands and sang a song so the animals would be sure to know it was all for them:

They sang the song a few times through and they each took a handful of bread crumbs and threw them up into the air. They also made lines with the crumbs on the ground pointing off from the tree in all directions.

"That way no matter which way they come they'll be sure to find the tree," Winter said.

Megan and Michael still had some crumbs so they made more trails until they were done, then they sang the song again one more time and went home.