A<$z10>fter reading 179 Christmas short stories I have seen the Easter Bunny from every conceivable angle. That’s right — the Easter Bunny! Over the last couple of weeks the Easter Bunny has attempted to take over Christmas, helped Santa to save it, hid out in Crystal Caves and made brief cameos in a few other Christmas scenarios.

It left me banging my head against my keyboard saying: “Please, I implore you, no more Easter Bunnies. This is Christmas!”

With some entries it was obvious that the student was writing under duress, including one little boy who spent an entire page telling us exactly that.

Nevertheless, the short story committee applauds the tremendous creativity we saw in all our entries. Many children included computer graphics, drawings and other artwork to go with their stories. Picking a handful of winners from the large stack of entries was very difficult. In the end, we weren’t just looking for talent, we were also looking for that hopeful, joyous, miraculous spirit that defines Christmas.

The committee was completely different from last year, and we did not look at last year’s winners before making our decisions. However, we were surprised to find, once the judging was done, that many of our winners this year had won prizes in the past for different stories. Talent speaks for itself.

We received 147 entries from students under 18 and 32 entries from adults. The average age of entry was around 11 or 12 years old. The entries were read by Nancy Acton, Rene Hill, Jessie Moniz and Jennifer Hind.