Santa's Blog

Hello, Friends! Santa here, popping in one last time before Mrs. Claus and I head for the islands! Our bags are packed and my dear wife has our whole itinerary planned out for when we get to Maui: (Ready?) Get up late, lie on the beach, go swimming, and come home for dinner. The next day, do it all over again. Perfect!

This has been such a great Christmas -- 2007 was one of the best I can remember in a long time. I've had such a wonderful experience blogging, keeping in touch with you kids and your parents this way! Thanks for all your lists, your videos, your great suggestions about topics and questions for my blog! I felt more in touch with everyone than ever before.

While Mrs. Claus and I are gone, Thessaly Tinselcom will be upgrading the North Pole Network, so neither the reindeer nor Mipps, our resident house mouse, will be posting. But we'll be thinking about you and hoping to talk to you again later in the year! I know you may not be thinking about Christmas, but your old friend Santa will be...and 2008's will be here before we know it!

I think my favorite addition to this year's activities was the arrival of William K. Beakman -- a.k.a. our sweet penguin pal, Bill -- who made us all laugh a lot and understand that the holidays were all about friendship and being nice to other folks. I'll never forget when he arrived, and the good news is he's planning to stay with us an extra three months, until summer! Hooray, Bill!

In the meantime, Candice and Canin will be replanting the Candy Cane Ranch, and Thessaly, once she finishes the tech overhaul, can concentrate on new kinds of presents at her R&D lab. And Bear Bryan will be making plans for next Christmas training.

As for you, I hope your year is wonderful, filled with good cheer in every season, loads of friends and fun, and presents for every occasion! Think of us, starting tomorrow, eating pineapple, watching sunsets, and dancing the hula! All my love to each one of you, THANKS for reading my blog, and we'll talk to you later!

Ho, ho, ho! Merrrrrrry....er, I mean ALOHA!

Love,

Santa

Hi Everyone! After the holidays are done, we do a thorough inventory of everything at the factory, and take a final count of the orders we had from everyone's Christmas lists. The final numbers aren't in yet, but Wiis and iPods are clearly near the top of the list. We also had a huge call for stuffed reindeer, penguins, and polar bears! I'll bet you can guess who was excited by that!

Once the inventory is done -- hopefully later today -- Mrs. Claus and I will pack up our suitcases and take a nice, long, vacation. As you can imagine, we love taking a break from all this cold and snow, so we've lately been going to places that have great beaches! This year, we're flying to Hawaii! We're going to Maui, to a quiet little town on the opposite side of the island from all the tourists. Mrs. Claus has about ten books already packed up to read, and I'm going to catch up with my magazines, which have been piling up for a couple of months now.

And yes, we're bringing plenty of sunscreen! o<|;^D Thanks for asking.

I know that with kids going back to school, and the holidays turning into memories as they slip from everyone's mind, that your old pal Santa will do the same. Truth is, except for those "Christmas in July" sales you see every now and then, folks don't think much about me during the rest of the year. Honestly? I don't mind; years ago that used to hurt my feelings, but not anymore. I'll be thinking of you, though, and hoping the year is prosperous for you in every way. And when the year rolls around again, I'll be here again, same as ever.

One thing that always makes me happy is the idea that no matter what time of year it is, to act like it's Christmas: being nice to people, giving gifts, taking time to be thankful for whatever I have. I always think about how good it makes me feel to be generous and loving -- for any reason at all! It doesn't have to be Christmas to treat people well.

Okay, that's enough philosophy for now -- there are Hawaiian bags to pack.

I'll blog once more tomorrow, before we head for the islands, but in the meantime, have a wonderful day!

Love,

Santa

Hi, Everyone! Well, the power is back on, the snow is shoveled, and the Pole is hopping with activity again! I asked everyone what their New Year's Resolutions were, and I got some pretty interesting responses:

Thessaly Tinselcom: create a GPS device that increases the efficiency of my Christmas Eve deliveries by 48%. (I'm not sure how she came up with 48%!)

Rob Ronderbaunt: rebuild the original SledGT, my original classic sleigh he's been keeping in the back of the garage. Cherry!

Coach Bear Bryan: wants to learn to water-ski! This might be an impossible dream, but Mrs. Claus and I told him we'd try to fly him somewhere he could do this.

William K. Beakman, III: Bill wants to extend his stay! He's supposed to return to the South Pole the middle of this month, but his resolution is to stay through spring. We'd love to have him stay!

Kevin the elf: eat a little more.

Sally Ann resolved to start donating her hair (remember she has to get a haircut once a DAY) to a wig company, for kids who lose their hair because they're fighting cancer! I thought that was pretty considerate.

Spooky has resolved to audition for the Met, the New York Metropolitan Opera. How excellent is that?!

Related to this, Snoop "Puppy" Dogg wants to send his mix tape to a producer in Hollywood to see if he can get a rap deal. Where did all these talented musicians come from? o<|;^D

And finally, Rufus Instubble, our animal keeper, wants to become fluent in Spanish. He loves learning languages! He knows French, Icelandic, and and Pig Latin! He doesn't know any Spanish right now -- when I heard his resolution, I said, "Feliz Navidad!" and he thought I said "fleas are evident." He has a lot to learn.

What a great year so far!

More soon...

Love,

Santa

Hi Everybody! So sorry I haven't blogged for a few days, but we had a major storm and a power outage! It's funny to call them "snow days," since every day here at the North Pole is a snow day, but a howling winter blizzard shut everything down for a little while. I asked Thessaly to help me get my Internet connection up and running, but most of the rest of the Pole is still in the dark.

When bad weather hits, the elves have a special team, the Showshovelers, that swings into action, clearing paths and sidewalks and the sleigh's landing strip, repairing electrical lines, and fixing things that get damaged with the snow. We got nearly ten feet this time! We're lucky that it didn't happen right before Christmas because although we have generators and plenty of backup supplies, the factory is put under a tremendous strain.

The only thing under a strain today are the candles. Mrs. Claus outfitted our house with dozens of them in every room, and the rest of the Pole took the blizzard as a sign to hibernate for a while. I saw Kevin the elf fixing himself a sandwich in the elves' kitchen a while ago, but all the other elves are snoozing.

The reindeer are a little restless, I think -- they never sleep as much as the elves -- and I think they're getting tired of playing their Reindeer Games over and over and over. But I saw Comet and Cupid reading books, and Blitzen even offered to help the Snowshovelers with some road-clearing!

When it's necessary, Rob Ronderbaunt can outfit the Sled3000-GT with some gnarly, extra-wide snow runners and a snow-plow, but even the garage was snowed in with this storm. So the Snowshovelers had to do everything! Afterwards, Mrs. Claus and I made them a heaping tray of grilled cheese sandwiches and some potato soup, and that seemed to cheer everybody up.

I just saw Bill zoom past on a tobaggan!

More soon!

Love,

Santa

Happy New Year, everybody! I can't believe it's 2008 already -- I was just getting used to 2007! Oh well, another December 31 passed, and I just wanted to wish everyone the happiest of New Year's, with good health and success and everything you hope for in '08!.

It was a wonderful New Year's Eve here at the Pole. As always, the decorating crew outdid themselves: This year it was the garage team's turn, and Rob Bonderaunt got some help from Thessaly Tinselcom to create spluglers -- Hand-held Sled3000-GT spark plugs, modified (Thessaly called it "hacked") with special batteries to shower sparks non-stop! They were great! The elves woke up from their four-day nap in time to catch the festivities, and loved the spluglers -- writing their names in the air, racing downhill with different-colored spluglers tied to their sleds and toboggans. They really lit up the night!

Then, last night, Mrs. Claus and I watched the Aurora Borealis -- the Northern Lights! Up here they're pretty spectacular most of the year (although they peak in fall and spring) but last night we took our folding lounge chairs along on a long walk to a clearing in the forest where we could sit and watch them. They were beautiful -- incredible changing patterns of rainbow-colored lights, like the most amazing silent, full-color thunderstorm you ever saw! Serpentine colored rivers, curtains of gold, slow explosions of red and green, the whole sky in constant motion. It was an amazing New Year's Day present! Sometimes there's not much to look at up here except ice and snow, so we love to sit and watch the Aurora when we can.

Earlier in the day Mrs. Claus and I had talked about New Year's Resolutions. I resolved to "eat less and exercise more" and Mrs. Claus resolved to learn how to surf! I think that's pretty awesome... and a lot more fun than mine! I'll let you know how it goes. What are your resolutions? Did you make any?

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Santa