It was a tough year all around.  The economy was in a downward spiral, and health care reform looked more and more like it would be just a dream after all.  To top it all off, there was almost no Christmas, either.  See, Santa started preparations for his annual flight, but around the second week of December the trouble began in earnest.

First, a good number of elves were unexpectedly reassigned to cover for some angels that got laid off during the budget crunch.  Then Rudolph, who could always be counted on to lead the team through the worst snows and storms, came down with H1R2 (that’s the reindeer version of the swine flu).  Now, normally that would not be a big problem.  But Santa had just recently downloaded an upgrade to his Garmin GPS and of course you know what that means.

Somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle, it simply started telling him he was over the English Channel, and then it just stopped working altogether.  With no working navigation system (and no Rudolph to help light the way) Santa found himself flying in circles (he figured it was circles because he kept passing the same lonely albatross.  See, the albatross was a bit lost himself, and he was following Santa, who was following the albatross.  It was sort of the blind leading the blind).

When Santa didn’t show up on time at Fort Lauderdale, and he wouldn’t answer the radio calls, the word went out via e-mail (that’s ELF-mail, by the way) that Christmas was in danger of being cancelled for all of North America.

Now, someone as experienced as Santa knows you always have a plan “B”.  Once the elf-mail went out, it set in motion a chain of events that would insure Christmas would arrive on time for all the kids in North America who were on the NL (that’s the Nice List, of course).  The elf-mail arrived at the SEC (that’s the Strategic Elf Command, located - yup, you guessed it - at the North Pole) and was immediately delivered to the vice elf in charge.  Really (no, that’s the vice elf in charge’s name - Really.  Yes, Really.  I mean, actually.  No, his name wasn’t Actually, it was actually Really.  No, Really was his first name.  Never mind.) finished reading that elf-mail and sent an immediate broadcast over CNN (that’s the Claus Northern Network) to activate the Substitute Claus.

Yes, even Santa needs a backup plan because anything can go wrong at any time.  Just like this time.  So, once the Substitute Claus is activated, all the parents in the affected region are notified that they have to step in and put out the presents for Santa.  They are delivered through NORAD (that’s the North American Aerospace Defense.  They track Santa wherever he is, and they were able to transfer the undelivered gifts from the Christmas warehouses to the proper parents).

Now go on up to bed.

Rachel went back up the stairs, and once she was safely snugged back in, he came back downstairs to Carol’s disapproving look.

“Well, what the hell was I supposed to tell her?  She caught me putting stuff out.  Where were you, you were supposed to be keeping watch?”
“I had to use the bathroom, and you should know better than to put stuff out an hour after she goes to bed.”
He laughed.  “Well, she bought it.  Don’t you think?”
She laughed too.  “Let’s hope so, or you’ll have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow.”

Merry Christmas everyone. :-D

Photos and story copyright 2009  by Bill Schwartz All Rights Reserved.

Once again, NORAD will be tracking Santa.  You can find it here, for those with kids who are interested:

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html#utm_campaign=en_US&utm_medium=ha&utm_source=en_US-ha-na-us-bk-gm&utm_term=norad

Almost forgot!  I have to include my thanks to my daughter, who gave me the idea for this story.  :-D