number of entries.

Close to 200 stories were submitted in the under-18 category, with a quarter as many efforts received in the Adult category.

The winners and runners-up, together with a number of entries considered noteworthy by the panel of the judges, is published in this supplement.

In the Adult Category , the basic short story format of difficulties overcome was augmented by several `slice of Bermudian life' essays.

Reminiscences of Christmas past and science fiction tales of Christmas to come were represented, as were pastiche and modern interpretations of historical fiction.

The overwhelmingly popular topic in this category was human relations, either with one another, or, given the season, the divinity.

More than two-thirds of the adult submissions were written by women, who swept the prizes in the category.

Computers, office parties and cats were as likely to take centre stage as Santa Claus or Ebeneezer Scrooge. Current issues were not stressed, although the HIV virus and drug addiction were referred to in a handful of entries.

It was in the Under-18 Category that social problems were most acutely and frequently addressed.

Santa Claus and animals appeared in more than half the entries in this category, with mice far and away the most popular animals. Tales centring on Santa's sleigh, combining both the man and the creatures, were the single most apparent story element.

Sleigh crashes were a recurrent theme, the most spectacular happening when Santa took his eyes off the highway in the sky and crashed into the North Shore incinerator.

The mass burn facility appeared in several stories, as did dysfunctional families, unemployment, disease, alcoholism and drug abuse, in approximately that order of frequency.

The young authors who sent their fictional creations shopping dispatched them to Trimingham's perhaps ten times more often than anywhere else, with Pic-A-Pet and the Annex coming a very distant second and third.

The Washington Mall and the Hospital were common backgrounds to stories in the under-18 category, and a number of tales unfolded on American Airlines flights to New York City.

The young authors who submitted entries plainly trust the Police; Policemen and women appeared as often as elves, and traffic greeter Johnny Barnes appeared much more vividly in the young imagination than Premier Sir John Swan.

Portraits of fathers away on extended business trips or receiving treatment for addiction were too well-observed to be wholly fictional, and the plight of the homeless and the divorced appear to trouble younger writers in equal measure.

In their inventive world, Santa Claus was a "chubby ol' freak,'' a hang-gliding enthusiast, or "the father of all happiness,'' while snow, and the true meaning of Christmas both proved elusive.

Many English teachers encouraged classes to submit entries, swelling the numbers. The requirement for typewritten manuscripts -- crucial for judges required to read and assess hundreds of entries -- appeared to involve much parental assistance, which the judges ignored in forming their conclusions.

The Royal Gazette congratulates the winners and runners-up, and thanks and encourages all those who entered the Island's most significant writing competition.