I would like to join those voices who have grown louder about massive government coverups. It is as if at some point, leaders who cannot agree on borders or human rights or the environment got together and agreed to hide all evidence they have on a phenomenon they have decided (or have been told, by a stronger Power) to leave alone. Only a few of us dare speak our suspicions out loud, largely because we know we will be laughed at for our credulity.
But there HAVE to be pictures which show a residential industrial-agricultural complex as big as the one Santa has at the North Pole. THINK about it: give it serious thought. Do you read books, go to movies, watch television? Santa Claus not only has to feed and house an army of Elves, but he has also, through the years, taken on any number of other dependents, who must also take up space.
Consider reindeer. We know, because we have been told, that the Varsity squad is made up of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner (sometimes Donder) and Blitzen (occasionally Blixen.) But we have also been told, over th years, about Rudolph, and (best of all Christmas wordplay) Olive the Other Reindeer. Songs and books have brought us the news about the brown-nosed reindeer (Bradley, who is the type who speaks sweetly to the boss and gets the easy jobs, and Randolph, who flies right behind Rudolph, who is inclined to make sudden stops…not all Christmas lore is tasteful), And Twinkle Toes, a young reindeer who gets a ride in the sleigh and wreaks havoc, explaining why presents are sometimes wrong, or delayed. I am not counting Leroy the Redneck Reindeer, who simply visits when needed, preferring to live in warmer climes, or Nervous, who is given credit on a record as one of Santa’s reindeer, since he is clearly asked on the record: “Are you Nervous?” and replies “Nope.” I have ALSO seen Clyde credited as one of Santa’s team, even though Ray Stevens clearly explains to us that Clyde is the camel from Ahab the Arab, just joining the team out of a feeling of pitching in. The documentation in some of these cases does NOT help us bring this story to the public.
Too many elves have been named in stories for us to cover even a majority of them, and, anyway, we EXPECT elves. I will pause just to mention Sandy Sleighfoot, whose story Jimmy Dean brought us, who takes the Rudolph story one step further, so to speak, by noting that the big feet which made the other elves laugh at him were part of God’s plan, so he could save the reindeer barn when it caught fire (see, he could move faster on snow than the other elves because his feet were so long he could use them as skis. Look it up.) And we mustn’t lose sight of Joe, part of the three-elf team of Hardrock, Coco, and Joe. J oe serves no purpose in the sleigh, but Santa likes to have him around.
It is a little sad that the only people really bringing us the truth about the extent of Santa’s operation are the songwriters and screenplay artists desperate to bring us some new story for Christmas. It is only thanks to them that we are aware of Boofo (a dog who not only keeps Santa’s feet warm by sleeping on them, but whines in distress when the sleigh goes over a naughty kid’s house), Earl the Christas Squirrel (responsible for picking out the nuts you find in your stocking), Dominick the Donkey (who gets the sleigh over the steep hills in Italy), and Frosty the Snowman, who apparently now lives fulltime at the North Pole except when he goes home for a visit in December.
You can see we must be discussing an operation large enough to put most governments to shame (which may be why it’s being covered up.) And we have not yet discussed Santa’s extended family. Mrs. Claus has had her own television specials and songs, and every now and then we hear about his evil twins (he must be the only good one out of octuplets, by now), that brother of his who convinced him to dump the reindeer and use a high tech solar-powered sleigh (spoiler alert: Santa travels at night), and the numerous sons and daughters who have been featured in stories and cartoons (I have lost track, but, just as a group, his daughters seem to be more interesting than his sons…as well as occasionally even less tasteful than Randolph.) His list-making assistants have been featured, and he has a large Help Desk to handle visits by, say, the Bell That Couldn’t Jingle and others in holiday distress. AND this list does not even begin on those characters—some visiting and some fulltime residents–who Save Christmas. (Because by now EVERYONE has Saved Christmas. Still trying to find a buyer for my own screenplay about a Man Who Saved Christmas because he cut the word “Christmas” out of every ad and magazine cover he found, and saved these in a scrapbook.)
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