You Can Call Me Sandy! Santa Claws, The Christmas Crab by Priscilla Cummings

NO, THIS CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY

WAS NOT GOING TO PASS IN THE USUAL WAY.

Spud the insomniac crab finds it boring to sleep all winter in the mud at the bottom of the Bay. He rouses the snoozing crabs and eels for some midwinter fun.

Up on shore, the children are snug in their beds, trying to snooze so that they won't lose the chance for Santa's drop-in visit. The carols are sung, the stockings are hung, and now it's time for .... that visit from St. Nick.

But under the bay, there's a bit of a St. Nick imposter!

A CRAB DRESSED AS SANTA--A SANTA WITH CLAWS!
IT YOU MET THIS SANTA, WOULD YOU KNOW WHO IT WAS?

HE WINKED AND HE CHUCKLED. HIS PINCERS WENT CLICK!

WHY, NO ONE WOULD GUESS THIS CRAB WASN'T ST. NICK!

Spud improvises a Santa suit of a sort, a soggy red sock lost by some fisherman folds into a cap, some lost waterman's gloves bulk up his legs, along with waterlogged waders lost by some oystering watermen, and with a cherry for a nose (don't ask!), he rounds up the Bay Bottom Band and soon the denizens of the sea are decking the deep and following Santa Claws in merry measure for a cool Yule party.

But up on the shore the expected visit from Saint Nicholas is not going by the book!

REAL SANTA CALLED "HELP!" AS HIS SLEIGH CIRCLED TWICE.
BEFORE TRYING TO LAND ONCE AGAIN ON THE ICE.

Real Santa's GPS must be out of whack and he's grounded and off course. Oh, what to do?

Santa Claws rises to the occasion (and the surface of the Bay) with an offer Santa can't refuse!

"I CAN SHOW YOU THE WAY!
I KNOW EVERY INCH OF THE CHESAPEAKE BAY."

REAL SANTA SAID, "FINE! MISTER CRAB, HAVE A SEAT!
PLEASE SHOW US THE WAY. I'VE A DEADLINE TO MEET!"

Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer has nothing on this sandy Santa Claws, as the Christmas Crab directs the sleigh to its midnight destinations, and St. Nick arrives right on time to make the season merry and bright for the Chesapeakean children. It's a pun with a mission, in Priscilla Cummings' Santa Claws: The Christmas Crab (Schiffer Publishing). Cummings' clever couplets with rollicking rhymes dress up the familiar storyline of Santa's impromptu helper, and Marcy Dunn Ramsey's blackline drawings of her Santa Claws is pure punny fun.