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It was the night before Christmas when all through the house the curtains were billowing in the breeze as Santa prepared for another busy night.  After all the trouble with the administrators and receivership and the court hearings the previous year he was now back in charge.

The new headquarters with the reindeer landing pad on the roof where a little less inconspicuous than the former Santa headquarters.  The new building had a nine star green rating, the most impressive on the whole planet.  It would have been ten stars but Santa drew a line at recycling reindeer pee.

Not that there was anything wrong with deer pee, but generally reindeer tended to pee in the woods so attaching pee bags to eight frisky reindeer, not to mention Rudolph, would have been a little too much.

So Santa chose to forego the tenth star and settled for nine stars and peace of mind, not to mention the additional expense of deer-panties.  Santa stood on the top floor of the building’s atrium and surveyed the scene below.  Hundreds of elves were scurrying back and forth putting the finishing touches to toys.

Many other elves were engaged in all sorts of semi-managerial activities like raising working capital, investing in futures and chasing up debtors.  Things had changed.  A lot.

Ms Elle Vish walked out of the private elevator carrying a stack of papers breezing past the guard who acknowledged her with a nod.  No need to check the security tag, she was well known to everyone on the executive floor.

Which unfortunately was a mistake. Santa turned and greeted her with a hearty smile that was not reciprocated.  A frown creased his brow as the head production elf stepped from behind Ms Vish closely followed by the head of the treasury and the head of marketing.  The three elves stood sheepishly by their attention seemingly focused on the goings on some distance behind Santa's left shoulder.  None of them met his gaze.

'Hmmm that's quite a delegation' remarked Santa. 'To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?'

'I'm afraid I may have some bad news.' replied Ms Vish. 'I was recently approached by a delegation from the board of elves. They are here to ask you to hand over the reins...'

'And if one may ask, why are you here?'

'They've asked me to assume day to day control.'

'Well, the tide has turned. Twelve months ago you were asking me to rescue the whole operation and now you are asking me to step down.  Remember what happened the last time we tried that?'

'Yes, well...' tried to respond one of the elves. Santa's cold stare stopped him short. Santa's undivided attention returned to Ms Vish.

'So, when does this coup take effect?'

'How about now?'

'Very well, if that’s how it’s going to be.' said Santa emphatically.

'Here you go,' said the other elf handing him a big sack full to the brim. 'We thought we'd help you pack.'

'How thoughtful!' remarked Santa with a hint of sarcasm grabbing the bag. 'I'll be off then.'

‘Have a good trip.’

‘Wait a minute! This sack is full of toys where’s my stuff?’

‘Stuff?’

‘Yes, where’s the picture of Ms Claus from my desk and my favorite pen and the little paperweight with the spinning deer. All that stuff is personal and I plan to take them home with me.’

‘Oh, I think you may have misunderstood our intentions Santa.’ Interjected the third elf that to this point in time had remained silent. ‘We’re not firing you.  We wouldn’t dream of doing that. This is just an operational re-alignment.’

‘What the...?’

‘Let me explain,’ started Ms Vish. ‘It’s become obvious that you have way too much on your plate.  So things get missed.  So the board and I got together and decided to leave you with the stuff you really enjoy doing, and let me and the elves take care of all the other stuff.’

‘What other stuff?’

‘Well, there is day to day operational stuff like mailboxes getting clogged with requests, and production lines getting slowed down because parts are not available on time, and tracking down suppliers or putting the hard word on debtors. There’s a lot of stuff that takes away from the stuff you really should be doing, like keeping track of who’s been good and who’s been bad – by the way, we now gone live with a new CRM (Christmas Relationship Management) system and keeping track of mail and toy distribution is now going to be a breeze.’

‘So, what do I do, and why did you take away my sled keys?’

‘Ok, that’s also something we need to tell you about. We’ve got a brand new sled for you.  It’s got the latest green engine that will help us keep down our carbon footprint.’

‘Eh?’

‘You know, what with the world’s attention on greenhouse emissions, we have implemented a new hybrid engine to keep emissions nice and low.  The upside is that the whole shebang is turbocharged and there is an afterburner to keep you moving almost at the speed of light.’

‘What about the deer?’

‘Deer, smeer.  They’re not getting any younger and they could do with some help.  They get to stand on this neat see-through platform so it looks like they are doing all the work but in reality they are only there for show.  It’ll be much easier on their hoofs.  And we’ll keep the deer emissions to a minimum too.’

‘Right, so what do you need me for?’

‘You’re the brand Santa.  We need you to maintain our marketing integrity.’

‘Huh...??’

‘You’re the face of Christmas.  We can’t go sacking you like an Australian Prime Minister and expect to maintain our image.  If you go, the whole branding is going to fall apart.  Christmas and a jolly fat man in a red suit are inseparable’

‘Watch the ‘fat’ references young lady.’

‘Sorry, sensibly proportioned perhaps?

‘Ok, we’ll go with that. Does that mean I only have to work one night a year?’

‘Oh, pretty much.  It’s a long night mind you.  Goes for twenty-four hours round the globe.’

‘I think I can live with that.  There’s a new surf-ski I’ve wanted to try out.  I think I’ll head for the tropics after Boxing day’.

‘Sounds like a plan to me Santa.’

So Santa gave each of the three elves a high-five, hugged Ms Vish and sauntered off to the deer-pad with the new set of sled keys.  The new sled shimmered in the moonlight as he stepped up to it.  It hovered a few centimetres from the ground emitting a low hum. The sled was an iridescent red with a white go-fast stripe down the side. The chrome glistened in a brand new shiny kind of way.

Rudolph was already in the lead position, his red nose aglow. The rest of the deer were also strapped in their usual positions and ready to go. All the toys were already loaded as Santa jumped on-board with a spring in his step. 

‘Alright boys, let’s see what she’ll do.’

Santa eased out the clutch and the sled lifted off the pad. A blink later Santa, deer and sled were gone, leaving behind a trail of greenhouse-friendly emissions.

Ho, Ho, Ho!

 © A.C. Alexander 1999-2011