Santa's Blog

Hi Everybody,

Santa here, with excellent news!! The Present Compressor is up and running again! Hooray! Yesterday Mrs. Claus and I took a sleigh ride down to Candy Cane Ranch, and while we were gone, Thessaly got it working again. The poor elf, she was mystified -- she said she'd been up very late the night before, tinkering with the software, and when she came back to her desk the next morning, she tried it again and everything worked like a charm.

(Thessaly told me she had the strange feeling something was watching her that night; it made us both wonder if that had anything to do with it.)

Anyway, the trip to the Ranch was exciting. Mrs. Claus and I left after breakfast, and invited Comet and Cupid to pull the sleigh (it's much lighter without the big toy bag). They made excellent time, whisking us down to the Ranch in just 45 minutes. (Usually it takes an hour.)

Once there, we met Candice and Canin, the elves who run the Ranch, who took us out into the cane fields. The tour was amazing! The two of them are experimenting with dozens of variations of canes, which start from the normal, red-and-white, hook-shaped kind and go from there.

There were a whole bunch of strange colors (blue and white, red and green, purple and pink, and black and red), weird shapes (straight, spiral, zig-zag, pretzel, Möbius, and even double-ended hooks), and odd flavors (grape, cherry, peanut butter, soy sauce, and even stinky cheese, which made both Mrs. Claus and me feel a little sick when we tried it). I'm old-fashioned, I guess, and prefer the traditional canes myself, but I know folks seem to appreciate some variety.

Candice and Canin had harvested several big baskets of the standard canes, which they helped us load them into the sleigh. They said the harvest was late this year because Canin had been working so hard on his experimental canes, he'd fallen asleep...and slept for two weeks! Candice said she didn't have the heart to wake him up.

I said to Mrs. Claus on the way home: "I've been tired in my life, but never that tired."

Before we left, we showed Comet and Cupid the cane slicer, which is the one machine in the world that makes peppermint candies -- you know, the individually-wrapped ones restaurants sometimes hand out after a meal. The slicer takes the fat, broomstick-sized canes and uses a special laser to slice them perpendicularly -- Voila! -- into disk-shaped peppermints. It's pretty cool.

Comet and Cupid flew a little slower on the way back; Mrs. Claus whispered in my ear that she suspected a sugar crash.

And then, when we got home, the Present Compressor was fixed. Could we have asked for a better day?

More soon!

Love,

Santa

Hi Everyone!

Mrs. Claus just told me another Christmas joke. This one goes like this: How do sheep in Mexico say "Merry Christmas"?

...Give up?

Fleece Navidad!

Ho, ho, ho! I love those corny jokes!

Lots going on around here! With less than a month before the Big Day, things are humming at the Toy Factory. Yesterday I took a walk-through, and it was incredible: room after room of machines and elves cranking out toys of every kind! Dolls and toy trucks and games and books and cool clothes and stuffed animals and sleds and telescopes and Rubik's Cubes and video games and watches and slinkys and harmonicas and bicycles and...it always feels like the place goes on forever!

Stan Levertink, the elf who runs the plant (we call him "Gizmo") explained that this year for the first time he's using a device called a Match-O-Matic®, which more efficiently connects items on a child's Christmas list to the inventory here at the factory. I didn't really understand it -- the Match-O-Matic® seems to be something like an automatic text reader crossed with a GPS.

Gizmo said the Match-O-Matic® works with all kinds of lists -- email, written, even verbal, in every language, so kids who can write aren't at any advantage over kids who can't yet. Basically, if a particular boy or girl wants, say, a Wii or a basketball, the MOM® automatically builds (or makes) one and reserves it...automatically! It's a pretty cool device!

I'm thinking about using the MOM® to find my keys when they disappear.

What else is happening? The reindeer have started Swim Training, I haven't forgotten about Blitzen's candy problem, and Thessaly Tinselcom is still trying to figure out the broken Present Compressor (yesterday: a dog dish into a swimming pool). Tomorrow, Mrs. Claus and I are taking a quick sleigh-ride down to Candy Cane Ranch, where the canes are now a perfect size for hanging on trees and inside stockings!

I'll give you a full report when we get back.

Love,

Santa

o<|:^D

Hi Everyone,

Santa here, feeling preoccupied with everything that's going on. We're heading straight into Christmas now, and my brain is full.

But first, before I forget, Thanksgiving was a delight! I ran the kitchen, and Mrs. Claus set everything up for the feast. We had guests from all over the Arctic, plus parent-reindeers and a hilarious Talent Show hosted by the elves. The best moment in it was when Snoop Puppy Dogg, the chief gift-wrapper, did a spectacular break dance with Coach Bryan. Picture it -- a foot-tall elf spinning and flipping and moonwalking with a 1,000-pound polar bear! Bill, our exchange student, laughed so hard he spit mashed potatoes out his beak!

I wish the whole week could have been that much fun. On Tuesday, someone sneaked Coach Bryan an anonymous note informing him that Blitzen has explicitly broken one of the central rules of Reindeer Training: he's been hoarding -- and EATING, of course -- Halloween candy in his stall. I asked the animal keeper, Rufus, to investigate, and sure enough, he found a cache of M&M's, SweetTarts, and Butterfingers hidden under the straw.

Coach Bryan and I had a meeting about it, and we had a long talk with Blitzen, who apologized, of course, but we're not sure yet what to do to get him back in integrity with the other reindeer. Blitzen is our varsity leader, and needs to set a good example; if *he* can cheat, his teammates will figure that cheating is okay!

I feel sad because I love Blitzen, but he needs to follow the rules like everybody else. He should be MORE of a leader than one who sneaks around. I'm not sure what to do. I AM impressed by the other deers, however: Cupid in particular has been working incredibly hard and showed the highest improvement of anyone in her Flight Performance times. We'll see what happens.

Adding to my worries is the fact that the Present Compressor remains on the fritz! (This morning it turned a toy plane into a 747.) I tell you, when it snows, it blizzards around here! I think Mrs. Claus and I need to take a trip down to Candy Cane Ranch, get away from it all for an afternoon and recharge our jolly juju. Hope we can swing it soon.

Okay, I'm off to grab a little leftover stuffing and get back to work. I have a million letters to read!

Love,

Santa

Hello Everyone!

Santa here. I've been so preoccupied with Thanksgiving, and the broken Present Compressor, that I've forgotten to tell you the great news: We have a guest for the holidays! He's an exchange student from (literally) the other side of the world -- a penguin! His name is William Beakman, III., but he's asked us just to call him Bill.

Bill comes from Antarctica and is an excellent swimmer. He's two feet tall, and partly because of this, has already made close friends with the elves, whom he's staying with in the elf dorms. He'll be with us through Christmas. Mrs. Claus and I almost forgot he was coming!

Bill caused quite a stir when he arrived last week, because he'd brought a suitcase full of krill -- tiny, shrimp-like creatures that are evidently some sort of penguin delicacy. I think he was hoping to share them with everyone as a goodwill gesture, but after the week-long journey to get up here (long story: his plane broke down in Miami) the krill had basically turned into a terrible-smelling mess.

That didn't bother Bill, at first, but when he presented them to the elves, they were pretty shocked, and a couple almost got sick! Everybody knows elves eat candy and peanut butter and macaroni and cheese! Bill seemed sad that his gift was received so badly, but his gesture wasn't forgotten -- later the elves made him a Welcome cake filled with sardines. He seemed very touched and ate most of it in one sitting.

It'll be wonderful to have Bill here for Thanksgiving, and great to have his help around the North Pole as we head into Christmas. I think Coach Bryan is planning ask him to assist the reindeer with the swimming part of their training, which starts pretty soon.

Regardless, we're all happy to have Bill here with us. Thanksgiving should be spectacular this year, with guests from all over the Arctic and enough food to fatten everyone for the coming month! Mrs. Claus even said she's going to make a special krill pâté for Bill. Maybe I'll try some myself!

(Maybe not.)

Happy Thanksgiving! Talk to you in a couple of days.

Love,

Santa

Hello Everyone,

Santa here, and I have a problem on my hands. A BIG problem.

Yesterday I got a call from Thessaly Tinselcom, the elf who runs the research and development lab. Thessaly said she was noticing some glitches with the software that runs the Present Compressor, which is a magical tool that (just like it sounds) squeezes the millions of toys and presents I carry into my bag on Christmas Eve. She asked me to stop by.

Well, it turns out the "glitches" were far more serious than she had indicated. Turns out the whole Present Compressor program is haywire, and rather than shrinking presents, it EXPANDS them, which means a matchbox-sized toy car turns into a full-sized one, and a three-inch tall refrigerator for a dollhouse (and even the house itself!) inflates into the REAL THING. Toy pony, REAL pony. Toy fire engine, REAL fire engine. You get the idea.

An additional part of the problem these days is that everything seems to come ridiculously overpackaged with extra cardboard and plastic, so even the simplest gift -- an ink cartridge for a PC printer, say -- requires about four times as much space as it used to. It's crazy. That's why I've relied more and more on the Compressor, and now it appears the Compressor is on the blink.

Without it, I can't do my job, and if I can't do my job -- well everybody knows what THAT means.

I'm genuinely flummoxed with this one. Thessaly is brilliant, and I trust her to come up with a solution between now and Christmas Eve, less than a month away. But still, I'm worried; I had a similar problem two or three hundred years ago, and we didn't fix it until December 23. I think I lost about 100 pounds that year from worry, and I don't feel like going through that again.

Speaking of which, I'm trying to distract myself by remembering that Thanksgiving is just a few days away. It's gonna be a great one this year, with lots of reindeer parents and dignitaries coming from all over the Arctic, and the elves' talent show is coming together smoothly, from what I hear.

I hope the Compressor is fixed long before then!

Love,

Santa