The Gnome in the Gingerbread House

On the first Sunday of Advent, Majken and Dad built a gingerbread house. It had four walls, a roof covered in icing-sugar snow and a door that Dad cut out a little bit crooked. Majken put a red jelly sweet on the door for a handle and an almond on the chimney. Then they stood the house in the kitchen window, between the Advent candles and the old Christmas gnome with a cotton-wool beard.

The next morning, something wasn't quite right.

The crooked door was standing open, just a crack, though it had been shut before.

“You must have been fiddling with it,” said Dad.

“I definitely wasn't,” said Majken.

She fetched her drawing pad and drew the door and the house, just like a real detective.

The next morning, the jelly sweet was on the chimney and the almond was on the door. The morning after that, a narrow track ran straight down the icing-sugar snow on the roof, as if someone had been sledding.

And on Lucia Day, a December day when children dress in white and sing, Majken came downstairs in her nightdress with tinsel in her hair. That's when she saw them.

Tiny, tiny footprints in the snow on the roof. Not paws, but boots with heels, no bigger than grains of rice.

“Someone's living in our gingerbread house,” she whispered.

She didn't tell Dad, not yet. A real detective doesn't say anything until she's sure. Instead, she thought of what Grandma used to say: at Christmas, you should put out a bowl of porridge for the gnome who looks after your home, or he might get grumpy and play tricks.

The door, the jelly sweet, the sled track. They were all tricks. Whoever lived in the gingerbread house was probably a gnome, only a teeny-tiny one. And a gnome that small wouldn't need a big bowl, Majken thought.

So on the evening before Christmas Eve, she took a thimble from Grandma's sewing box. She filled it with rice porridge left over from supper, put a raisin on top and set it just outside the crooked door.

“There you are,” she whispered. “And happy Christmas.”

That night, Majken couldn't sleep. The house creaked and cracked, and outside the snow fell so quietly she could almost hear it. At last she took her flashlight and crept down the stairs, past the Christmas tree that smelled of the forest, and into the dark kitchen.

She didn't turn on the light. She just sat down on the floor and waited.

At first, nothing happened. Then came a little scrape. The crooked door opened, and out came a Christmas gnome. He was no taller than Majken's little finger. His white beard reached right down to his belt, and his red hat was so long that its bobble nearly trailed in the snow. He was carrying something green in his arms.

The gnome laid it down in the snow beside the house. It was a needle from the Christmas tree in the living room. He stood it upright and stuck it in place with a dab of icing sugar. Right at the top, he put a sparkling grain of sugar.

The gnome had made a Christmas tree of his own.

Majken held her breath. The gnome turned round and looked straight at her. He didn't scurry inside. He just looked, and his beard trembled a little, as if he were smiling underneath it.

“Happy Christmas,” whispered Majken.

The gnome sat down by the thimble and ate his porridge. He ate every bit, saving the raisin until last. Then he tipped his hat to Majken, went in through the door and pulled it shut behind him.

On Christmas Eve morning, the thimble was empty and shiny, as if someone had scraped it perfectly clean. Beside it stood the little tree made from a single pine needle. Majken knew it was for her.

All through Christmas, the gingerbread house stayed in the window, and nobody was allowed to eat it. But on St Knut's Day, when people dance around the tree to say goodbye to Christmas, Dad wanted to throw it away. Majken said no.

“Someone lives there,” she said. “And it's winter.”

Dad looked at her. Then he looked at the little tree made from a single pine needle.

“The shed,” he said. “It's dry in there. And gnomes have always liked living in sheds.”

So the gingerbread house moved to a shelf in the shed, where it was dry and quiet. Majken filled the thimble again every Saturday. She drew the gnome in her drawing pad too, with his red hat.

And if you creep past the shed one January evening and look very, very carefully, you might just see a little light in a gingerbread window.