The Christmas Santa's Ladder Didn't Reach the Chimney

The Christmas that Santa's ladder didn't reach the chimney, fell short of it's usual festive expectations. In fact, this year, if Santa couldn't reach the chimney, there were going to be fewer felicitations. Santa usually didn't have any trouble whatsoever - his reindeers were magic, the sleigh supersonic and the weather great for flying. But the year that Santa's ladder didn't reach the chimney, made Santa rather short - tempered, no lying ! Santa had so many presents to carry up, across and down the chimney pot, but now, it seemed, he wouldn't reach that an awful lot ! (though he tried to measure the roof accurately, with the small tape measure that he'd got !). It just didn't at up at all, Santa's ladder was four feet, but the rooftop was twelve feet tall ! Hardly surprising, therefore, the short ladder drove Santa right up the wall ! (and, to be honest, round the bend, it was so small !). It took Santa an hour to get to the top of the first floor window. There were only twenty rungs on his ladder so he could only travel really quite slow. Hoping this problem wouldn't make Christmas late, or that the world's children wouldn't mind their presents being late, Santa tried desperately hard to speed up his climbing rate. Santa's ladder was too short, so he stopped on the second floor, for a glass of port. He wondered what, stuck there, he could possibly do, as he sat, admiring the panoramic view. When Santa leapt to get a better view inside the house, from the third floor, Santa's nose just touched the top of the window pane ... and he almost slipped down the drainpipe again ! Around about the fourth floor, Santa heard a "CRACK !", oops ! down another flight of stairs Santa suddenly slipped back ... and out fell another presents from his booty sack ! He hoped that the strings in his trousers weren't too slack ! as he quickly started climbing again, to get back on Christmas track ! Giving Santa hope, luckily, Santa found that on the fifth floor, there was a very handy rope. He swang up a little bit more, a little bit further from the floor ! He trampolined once and then hitched a lift from a bird - though Christmas was fun, it was rather absurd ! Santa loved Christmas (and climbing chimneys) with all his heart, he still needed a catapult, to get off to a good start ! There was a balcony on the sixth floor, where Santa decided to take a rest. It would take all afternoon, at least (though he really was trying his best and hurry to Mrs. Christmas's feast !). With a large hammer, a few nails and a screw - Santa fixed the ladder where it had broken into two. Between the seventh and eighth floors, Santa was so slow climbing, that if he didn't hurry up, he'd get a parking ticket from a traffic warden ! His Winter boots made Santa two inches taller - pity he didn't have a grow bag (like the one the gnomes used in the garden). Although, Santa's journey was difficult, since the wind blew rather strong. He just about managed to keep onto his hat, so it didn't matter that his ladder wasn't so long ! Finally, thanks to his rocket launch, Santa made it ! With only a three feet ladder, but perhaps he could trade it ! On the rooftop, the snow was three inches thick. When he looked around, Santa found he could hardly see the ground ... so he gave his spectacles a wipe. He edged over the drainpipe, and for the last leg of the journey, a parachute did the trick ! Fortunately, Santa had never been afraid of heights - probably since he only for the rest of the year, in Summer climbed using steps (not that useful on cold, icy nights !). He'd managed to mountaineer the highest spire in the town ... now all that remained was to find an easy way to get down ! Santa huffed and puffed with all his might, heaved and stretched but the chimney pot was too tight ! He only wished he hadn't had that extra mince pie to make him considerably more light ! Life as Santa Claus, is sometimes really not that fun, at all, it doesn't help if you're small, and even wearing your highest hat, you still only reach a third of the way up the wall !

How Many More Floors To Go ? There were 50 floors in the house that Santa has to deliver presents to. The following numbers represent how many Santa has already climbed. If Santa has climbed so far, and the ladder has reached upto this number of floors, how many more floors are there to go ?

Write a similar line of numbers beneath this line, subtracting ladder heights from the total distance to be climbed (i.e. 50 floors). The first example is complete as a subtraction "sum". 50 (total floors to climb) - 3 (number of floors climbed already) __ 47 (floors to go) 49 8 12 15 35 7 16 22 32 41 25 45 9 13 27 4 14 17

© Jacqueline Richards 2008 * Teacher's note - this Maths game can be used as a kind of "Snakes and Ladders" to show how equations work, using additions and subtractions. Answers : 1; 42 ; 38 ; 35 ; 43 ; 34 ; 28 ; 18 ; 9 ; 25 ; 5 ; 41 ; 37 ; 23 ; 46 ; 36 ; 33