In one magical forest lived a family — Mother Bear, Father Bear and little bear cubs. The eldest was called Buttercup, the middle one — Goodheart, and the youngest girl cub was called Taily-Paws. They all lived in a beautiful big house, where the walls and staircases were made of fragrant wood.
The boy cubs lived in their own room. Each had his own wooden bed, and on the shelves lay many, many different toys — big tanks, almost like real ones, toy pistols, bulldozers and even enormous construction sets from which you could build a large house.
You could tell straight away that boys lived here. But in Paws's room everything was pink, both the bedspread on the bed and the curtains on the windows, and the dresses, of which there were very many in the pink wardrobe.
All the bears, both adults and children, worked all summer and all autumn to store up as much food as possible for winter. After all, in winter there's no food in the forest, fluffy snow lies everywhere, and there isn't a single shop where you could buy various treats.
Therefore, in the enormous pantry room against the walls stood barrels of honey, large wooden boxes with raspberries, apples, apricots, plums, pears and lingonberries. And there was much, much more different food here.
Actually, the bears should have gone into hibernation ages ago, because bears sleep in winter. But our bears couldn't sleep, because the most important holiday was about to arrive — Christmas. And for such an occasion, one could even miss a bit of winter sleep. And they also had to prepare presents for each other and all their forest friends.
Before this bright, lovely holiday, all the bears tidied the house, put away toys, books, things, they decorated the house with beautiful drawings, baubles, garlands, paper crafts made with their own paws, shiny tinsel.
Little Paws watered all the flowers in the house, she and Mother had grown many beautiful flowers in pots, and throughout the whole house there was a pleasant floral aroma. In the largest room they set up a big table, covered it with a beautiful white tablecloth, placed many, many plates with different delicious dishes.
And suddenly there was a knock at the door, not even a knock, but a barely audible tap. All the bears looked at each other, who could this be at such a time? Paws ran to open it and saw on the doorstep two little hedgehogs, a brother and sister — Taily and Tiny. They had come to ask the bears for help.
Hello, bears. We really need your help! Our mother has fallen ill, Father has gone for the doctor — the wild boar, and has probably got lost. And we have no firewood at all at home, it's such a frost outside that icicles will soon appear in our rooms. And we have no food at all either.
The hedgehogs greeted them.
The poor hedgehogs were trembling like leaves in the wind, from cold, from hunger, they were very unhappy. Mother Bear rushed to the little ones, quickly changed them into warm dry clothes, gave them hot tea with raspberry jam, fed them delicious pies with honey and put them to sleep in Paws's little pink bed, whilst the girl herself had to lie down in her brothers' room.
At first the little bear cubs were cross with their parents, but then they thought about how frightening it is when you're hungry, cold, and most importantly, when Mother is ill, and they too felt sorry for the poor hedgehogs.
The next day, when everyone woke up, the whole bear family set off to the hedgehogs' house, taking with them lots of different food, fruit, medicine for the poorly mother, firewood to heat the little house, presents for the little hedgehogs, and many, many different toys and gifts.
It was very jolly and good to help the poor little hedgehogs, it was so pleasant for everyone to have fun together, to jump about, to play with the young hedgehogs, to watch as the poorly hedgehog mother took the medicine and immediately recovered. And then Father Hedgehog returned home, alive and well. It turned out he had fallen into an enormous snowdrift and couldn't get out. But now everything was fine, and all the mothers, fathers and children gathered together.
And so the bear cub family celebrated Christmas, without presents and special treats. But they felt so pleased to help their forest friends, because it's very important to have many such close companions.
