← Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
St Nick’s Summer Holibobs 🎅🏖️ Short Kids Bedtime Stories
00:31:51
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- [00:00]
Sam
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Coco
Hello and welcome back to Koala Moon, a podcast of original children's bedtime stories and meditations designed to make bedtime a dream and blow me down with a feather. If we haven't already made more than 50 million bedtimes dreamy so far, let's keep going. Share this episode with your friends and tell everyone you know who has trouble dropping off after a busy day all about us. Please. Before we begin, a quick message for the grown ups. If you'd like to support our podcast, enjoy ad free listening, unlock four bonus stories per month and much, much more. You can join Coco Club. Subscribe in just two taps via the link in the show notes, but now here's a quick word from our sponsors. Tonight, Coco is welcoming Ayla Colvin from Torquay, Australia into the club.
- [01:06]
Sam
Woohoo.
- [01:08]
Coco
The reason it's tonight is because, as you well know Ayla, in three days time it's your birthday. We hope you have a great one and we hope you enjoy this super cool and funny story Coming up. I'll make it sleepy though. Don't worry. Soon we're going to join St. Nick, or as you may know him, Father Christmas. No, it isn't Christmas time yet. You've not somehow missed six months of the year, it's still midsummer. But you may not realise St Nick also loves a hot holiday. He's getting himself all packed and ready as there's going to be some swimming, some drinking out of coconut cups and even a zebra or two. So let's fully relax to wind down your busy body and charge up your imagination. Take a few deep breaths in and out. Wiggle your fingers and toes, roll your neck around and snuggle down under your blanket or your duvet and nestle your head nicely into your pillow as you imagine a long white sandy beach with lapping turquoise waves fringed with palm trees swaying gently in the breeze. This is St. Nick's Summer Holly Bobs by Jane Thomas St. Nick is packing his suitcase. You know why? It's because there are two very important dates in St. Nick's calendar. You know one, of course, that would be the 25th of December, when he races around the world, squeezes his way down chimneys and with a sprinkle of stardust and the magic of reindeer hooves, manages to visit every child in the land. The other is the date of the first day of St. Nick's Summer Holly Bobs. And a Holly Bob, just to be sure, you know, is basically a holiday, but it sounds a lot more fun if you add bog to the End of it. And St. Nick has the perfect place. I'll let you in on the secret. St. Nick learned long ago to make use of one of the world's strangest places in order to hide himself away. And that place is called the Bermuda Triangle. For the record, the Bermuda Triangle is also used by a whole host of others to have sneaky little holidays without anyone knowing. For starters, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy have been going there for hundreds of years. It's a sort of private hangout for serious celebrities. And Saint Nick is most definitely one one of those. After all, if you lived most of your life at the North Pole, you too would want to go and defrost your toes for part of the year. Out comes the giant red sack with the white faux fur fringe. If it works for presents, it works for pants. That's his policy. And in it go the brightest, most colourful, most flower patterned shirts you've ever seen. Here's a blue shirt, the colour of the sky, with huge red hibiscus flowers dabbled all over it. And here's a green shirt smothered in a mass of bright purple flowers that twist and wind their way around the sleeves. Next, a great yellow pineapple of a shirt whose buttons are are all made to look like teeny tiny coconuts. So you can't help but feel as if you're on holiday the moment you see it. There are swimming shorts, little red ones for when he feels like getting as much of a tan as possible. And then huge orange flowery ones that he wears when he's surfing. I say when he's surfing. As if he can actually surf. Saint Nick loves nothing more than getting on a board, paddling out into the ocean and then sitting around with his big white beard waving in the wind, watching the dolphins play in the waves and doing his best to avoid trying to catch any because it always ends in disaster. The zebras have enough jokes about him without needing to add to that. Oh yes, I should explain the reindeer. You know, Dasher, Blitzen. The whole crew have no desire whatsoever to go to the Bermuda Triangle. They are perfectly happy rolling about in the snow at the North Pole. And besides, they rather enjoy the peace and quiet when he goes away for the week in the height of summer. So in order to travel, St. Nick breaks out his summer sleigh and gathers up his crew of zebra to pull it for him. I mean, if you're a fan of St. Nick, I'm sure you already know that, but just in case you didn't, you should probably learn Their names that's only polite. After all, there's Stripey and Stroppy, Happy and Hoppy, Coal dust and Starlight, sunrise and moonlight. There's also a zebra who has a very surprising, quite unusual, never seen before in a zebra. Bright red nose. His name is Randolph. He often comes along on the summer holly bobs too, where his nose gleams in the heat of the sun and is a very handy beacon on the beach when St. Nick comes out of the sea and is looking for where he left his towel. Anyhow, where were we? Ah, yes, St. Nick is packing his bag. One, two, three, no, four bottles of sunscreen go in. One can never be too careful after all. And five, six, seven, no, eight different hats, because every occasion does, after all, require a different hat. Baseball hats, straw hats, trilbys and those wide brimmed hats with corks to keep the flies away. Every kind of hat goes into that great red sack of his. His favourite is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a red cowboy hat with a white trim around the edge and that he keeps out to wear. On the flight down to the Bermuda Triangle, he's adding flip flops by the dozen and one of those cameras that instantly prints off the photo you've just taken. Because St. Nick is, if anything, quite an impatient sort of person. If you could travel around every house in the world in a single night, you'd be quite used to doing things quickly too. He has an inflatable flamingo to use in the pool and a miniature inflatable flamingo that bobs alongside and very handily holds St. Nick's drink for him. And finally he throws in a whole load of emergency presents, because you just never know when you're going to come across someone in need of an Emergency present. Now St. Nick is ready to go, he visits all the reindeer and tells them to be on their best behaviour. For Mrs. Claus, who doesn't go with him on holiday, she's perfectly happy in their home in the North Pole, and to be honest, she welcomes the break she gets when her husband takes his week and disappears. She gives herself a few treats while he's away. Things like staying in bed for a few hours longer, snuggling down into the covers and wrapping herself in their warmth. Then she always makes her favourite breakfast, eggs and soldiers, followed by a small mountain of toast just covered in marmalade. And then, giggling to herself, trots back upstairs and dives right back into bed. She reads, she watches the sort of films that make her laugh out loud. And she sleeps even Better without the sound of his rumbling, bumbling, grumbling, tumbling snores alongside her. By the time he comes back, she is very happy to see him. But it has often been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. And this she finds to be true. Just for one week a year. That's quite enough. A few of the elves come with Saint Nick every year. They say it's to keep an eye on him and to help him out with the emergency presence if needed. But really, they all just love going to the Bermuda Triangle. Think of the person you know who absolutely loves going to water parks. Then double that. No treble it, no quadruple it. And that is how much an elf loves a water park. They'll get changed into little striped bathing suits, keep their little hats with bells on firmly on their heads, and race along those slides and chutes and tunnels having more fun than you can possibly imagine anyone ever having. And nestled in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle is one seriously amazing water park. Every year, the elves all put their names into a huge box, rustle them around, and then invite St. Nick to pull out four names. He closes his eyes, dips his hand into the box, rummages around and hunts down four little folded pieces of paper. Then he reads the names aloud one by one, in great ceremony. Elves being elves, never get jealous of those who are picked. They all squeal in delight whoever gets chosen and somehow all get involved in the packing process. Which means that alongside St. Nick's enormous red and white present sack on the back of the summer sleigh, there are four equally enormous sacks for each of the elves. Even though their clothes are a fraction of the size of his, elves are incapable of of packing light. The eight zebras are hitched up to the summer sleigh. And finally Red Nosed Randolph goes to the very front of the line, his beacon of a nose shining their way through the darkness. Everyone at the North Pole gathers to wave them away. And as St. Nick reaches the heights of the nearest star, a huge whoop of excitement goes up. Back on the ice, party poppers are popped and streamers are streamed. A disco ball is swung out of the stables and the resident reindeer band, antlers of glory, hops onto the stage. St. Nick leans back into the comfort of the summer sleigh, a much lighter affair than his winter one, but still with big piles of soft cushions and a lovely cosy blanket to pull up over his knees. For even in the height of summer, it gets chilly when you're soaring among the stars. The zebras race through the skies, black and white stripes gleaming and polished, hooves dancing in the darkness, following their familiar route from the North Pole all the way down to the Bermuda Triangle. Randolph's nose glows a soft red glow as they go. And anyone on Earth who happens to look up at just the right time might see a flash of red and gold and silver and stardust go by and think they've seen a falling star and rush to make a wish. The elves, although technically on holiday, gather up all those wishes that come flying past and pop them into notebooks. They will go through them when they return home and see if any Christmas wish lists need updating. And now the zebra are circling above Bermuda, a tiny jewel of an island dropped in the middle of the ocean, far away from anything and anyone else. They dance around and around, looking for the elusive triangle, waiting for it to show itself so they can race down and disappear into that magical safe space where nobody can see them or find them or bother them while they're on holiday, and where, if anyone does happen to see them, they will instantly forget it and believe, oh, it was all a dream. For that is the power of the Bermuda Triangle. Finally, there it is. A perfect triangle where all three edges and all three angles are exactly the same, lit up in gold and gleaming as if it were covered in diamonds. The zebras line up, heading to the perfect centre of the triangle, racing and racing ever downwards, ever downwards. And behind them, St. Nick and the elves start to cheer as they realise they're only moments now from their perfect holiday. St. Nick's white beard whips up around him in the rush of wind as if it were a soft mound of candy floss. The bells on the hats of the elves jingle and jangle in the excitement of it all. And then there they are, the zebras, hooves touching down on the pink sand beaches of Bermuda. The sparkling sea the color of melted sapphires. St. Nick has, as always, reserved his favourite hut on the beach. Well, series of huts, one each for the elves and one for him. There's a little porch that looks to the west, perfectly lined up for the glorious sunsets at the end of each day. And on the porch hangs a hammock, red with a white fringe, just waiting for St. Nick to wibble and wobble his way into. St. Nick hauls his sack into his hut, diving through everything to find his swimming shorts and then running out onto the beach, his feet sinking into the soft pink sand. Then he runs into the warm water, rushing through the shallow waves and then diving into the water Breaking through the surface and swooping deep into the ocean, feeling the salt on his skin and the sun on his face as he rises up and up and up. And then he floats in the shape of a starfish, arms and legs splayed, head resting, great beard floating around him in the water as if it had a life of its own. Back on the beach, the elves all pile on top of each other. 1, 2, 3, 4. And then pass the camera up to the one at the very top of the pile and take a photo of St. Nick there in his swimming shorts, floating in the perfect sea. And thanks to the magic of the Starlight Express postal service, they whisk the image straight up to St. Nick's wife so she can see that they've arrived safely. And there, snuggled up in her bed with her book, she receives the photo as it flies through the window and hovers before her eyes for a minute before, poof. Vanishing in a flash of sparkles and stardust. Meanwhile, the zebra, all of them, you know, stripy and stroppy, happy and hoppy, coal dust and starlight, sunrise and moonlight. And of course, Randolph with his very shiny nose, have trotted further along the beach to the cafe and are busy sharing stories with a group of flying foxes who've brought a little mermaid all the way here for her summer holidays. St. Nick floats in the sea and looks up at the sky, a perfect cloudless sky. And with his ears tucked into the ocean, he can hear nothing, nothing at all, except the beating of his own heart. He is just considering swimming to the shore and putting on his shirt the colour of crushed strawberries, the one with teeny tiny watermelons as buttons, and deciding whether he should flop over and swim on his front or stay on his back and swim that way when a passing dolphin makes the decision for him, scooping St. Nick onto his curved back and whisking him back to shore. The elves would surely have taken a photograph of that too, if they hadn't already disappeared and gone off to the water park. They're soon busy lining up for an epic slide that promises to race them through tunnels and then, whoosh, send them flying high into the air. There they'd hover for a moment before crashing, dashing, splashing down into the bright blue pool. And so St. Nick wanders up the pink sand beach, shaking the salt water out of his beard and heads up to his little hut. He eyes up the hammock as he passes by, but thinks, no, no, he will go inside and get himself dressed and wander down to the Stand at the end of the beach where he can buy glorious, gorgeous, crunchy tacos. There someone will hand him a coconut freshly fallen from a tree and with a few quick cuts, or slice off the top and pop in a straw and he can sit on the stool and look out to sea with his tacos and coconut and shirt the colour of crushed strawberries, with the teeny tiny watermelons as buttons. Three of the zebras are there too, stripy, Happy and Moonlight, and the four of them sit in silence behind their coconuts on their stools, admiring the way the sea and the sky are both the absolute perfect shade of blue. Happy trots back to his hut and reappears with a baseball and a bat, and St Nick bowls while the three zebras charge around the beach, their hooves seeming not to touch the sand as they flash and dash here and there, faster and faster as they race up and down to and fro, back and forth. The elves come back from the water, park towels around their shoulders, and when they see the beginnings of a baseball game, they trot along the beach, bells all a jangle, and take up positions so they too can fly from here to there, rushing after balls and dashing after glory. They finally persuade St. Nick to have a go with the bat and he hits the ball, sending it soaring high, high into the sky. Then he sends up sprays of pink sand behind him as he rushes from base to base to base and makes it back home. A moment, a mere moment of a moment before the ball returns there too. This is how the next week will be spent, sometimes hanging out with some of the elves and some of the zebras, some of the time enjoying absolute peace and quiet. Some of the time he will even go into the nearby town for karaoke. There he will stand on stage and sing into the microphone and be cheered on by strangers, even though he is singing Christmas classics in the middle of summer. Some evenings he will go with a zebra, usually Randolph, and they will trot along the edge of the sea together as the sun starts to set, and St. Nick will take photos with his camera, but prints the pictures right away, and he will send them to his wife with the Starlight Express postal service, and she will smile to see him and his ridiculous shirts and his nose all smothered in big blobs of white sunscreen, and his beard getting bushier and bushier as more and more salt and sand works its way into the curls. But this evening, his first evening, St. Nick takes a fresh coconut and wanders back along the beach to his hut gently lowering himself into his hammock. For it is quite an art getting into a hammock, as perhaps you know, and then easing himself back, picking up his coconut and resting it on his big round belly, and he leans back to watch the setting of the sun making the sand pinker than it already is and the sea turns from being the colour of crushed sapphires to liquid gold as the sun sinks lower and lower in the sky a gentle breeze swings St. Nick slowly from side to side and ripples through his great white beard and he sighs a contented sort of sigh. It is one of those picture perfect evenings when dolphins know that they should dance through the waves and make anyone watching go ooh and ah. When a mermaid climbs up onto a rock and sings a lullaby, a soft voice drifting out across the water and finding its way into the hearts of anyone for miles around. When zebras sit on striped deck chairs and clinks coconuts together, toasting their friends here and their friends in the North Pole and their friends in all corners of the world. When elves disappear into huts on beaches and climb into beds, surrounding themselves safely with piles of presents because no elf can sleep unless he knows he's watched over by a mountain of emergency presence. When St. Nick's wife can snuggle down into the cosiness of her bed and watch the stars come up one by one, winking down at her, and she can smile to think of her husband in his hammock looking up at the same sky from thousands of miles away, wearing his shirt the colour of crushed strawberries with the buttons made from teeny tiny watermelons.
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Sam
Sam sa.