For as long as anyone could remember, the elves had been afraid of the people in the valley. Interestingly, the people in the valley were equally afraid of the elves. Go figure. Mary (as she was then known) thought it was all pretty silly. She decided to make friends between the elves and their neighbors by preparing sugarplum treats and leaving them on the doorsteps of the huts in the valley below.
Soon, Mary's irresistible sugarplum pudding, sugarplum cookies and sugarplum fudge began to warm the hearts of the valley people. The people started leaving plates on their doorsteps in hopes that Mary would leave treats for them. And then the elves started leaving out their little plates, too. It seemed that the valley people and the elves shared a love of Mary's sugarplum treats, and it wasn't long before they all became friends. From this point on, Mary was known as Sugarplum Mary.
As the years passed, Sugarplum Mary heard stories about other elves who lived all around the world. She longed to see them and to learn of their cultures and especially their recipes. So, she did. Sugarplum Mary learned to make all kinds of new candies, cookies, pies and desserts. And, of course, she taught everyone to make her famous sugarplum treats.
One day, like so many other elves around the world, Sugarplum Mary heard the call put out by Shinny Upatree to come to the North Pole to help Santa Claus. Off she went to the top of the world. When she arrived, she found elves of every kind working as hard as they could to create a toy workshop for Santa. It was almost lunchtime, so she started her cooking coals and prepared a tasty elfin buffet of sugarplum treats. The elves said it was the yummiest lunch they had ever tasted, and, from then on, Sugarplum took on the big job of feeding all the little elves in the North Pole Village.
And what an operation she created! Today, anyone who peeks in the kitchen can see that it takes dozens and dozens of elfin chefs, cooks and bottle washers just to keep the Village going on three meals a day, not to mention snacks twenty four hours a day. Snacks for the elves. Snacks for Santa. Even snacks for the reindeer!
In order to keep everything organized, Sugarplum Mary wears an apron covered with a list of everything she's making that day. She also likes to sling a dish towel over one shoulder to help her keep things sparkling clean and to swat at young elves who like to snatch cookies just out of the oven. Actually, she probably swats at one old elf more than all the young ones combined. It's old Shinny Upatree himself. He's a sucker for her double-crunch, chocolate-peanut butter, sugarplum cookies with itty bitty marshmallows on top!
