For the next few days and well into the long, cold nights, there was a flurry of activity in and around the small cottage. In order for them to make enough presents for everyone in the northlands, the first thing Chricrin did was make mirror images of all the elves. Where before there had been five elves, there were now fifty, all of them working away like busy little bees making all sorts of gifts for the many children of the north.

Chricrin was busy, as well, preparing himself and making his travel arrangements. He figured that it would take much too long attempting to make all of the deliveries overland, so he decided to fly, instead. The large sleigh was too heavy to get up in the air, as it was, so the wizard cast a spell over it, making the sleigh light as a feather, no matter how much weight was put into it. Finding animals to pull the sleigh might prove a problem, however, he thought. Even if the sleigh weighed next to nothing, when filled with presents and myself, it would still have quite a bit of actual 'mass' that will need to be lugged around.

He would have liked to use Chargers to pull the sleigh; those large, extremely strong horses that armored knights rode upon into battle, but they were not available up here in the north. The only animals used to pull wagons and sleighs up here were reindeer, but he would need quite a few more than just the two beasts the elves owned.

"Ah, well," Chricrin thought. "If I can magic up extra elves to aid in this endeavor, why not extra reindeer?" So, he conjured up an extra couple of reindeer, but decided that wouldn't be enough, so made a couple more. Then, just to be on the safe side, added two more. "Eight should be sufficient, I believe," he said, stroking the fur of one of the animals.

The only thing left for him to do was augment his wardrobe, so he would be protected from the cold winter night. He found himself some red wool and made a long robe to wear over his outer garments and made a long, pointed cap as well (he was a wizard, after all), to keep his head nice and warm. To keep the cold wind from sneaking in, he added thick white fleece along the edges of the robe and around the rim of his cap.

On the evening of the Winter Solstice, everything was finally ready and Chricrin stood brushing the tangles from his long, white beard as the elves brought forth bag after bag of hand-made gifts, along with fruit, fresh and dried herbs and the occasional sweet treat, piling them all next to the sleigh.