Here’s a short story you’ve never read before.
I sipped a hot cup of cocoa, reclined in my chair near a fire, on Christmas Eve. Christmas dinner was in the works with the wife and father-in-law busy around the sink and stove. Between the first sip and last sip of my cocoa, I wrote an idea with only my phone.
Premise: What is Santa Clause up to in September?
Though Santa’s busy hours happen at the North Pole, not much is known in the myth about how he spends the whole year leading up to Christmas Eve. How does he spend his time between January and November? Is there something that occupies his attention?
Well, yes. Santa has to know who’s naughty and nice. To know that, he must be among us. He can’t just know it magically. I don’t buy it. He’s on the ground, in our midst.
And he’s not alone. He’s checking in on the extra naughty and the extra nice, but the elves, his little workers, are covering more ground than he can alone. It’s a special elf division, the elite – Alpha Squad. The rest are at the North Pole, syncing the data collected from Alpha with the gifting department, readying materials for the Gift Wrap department.
So, while Alpha Squad covers the cities, streets, neighborhoods, and farmland across the world in logistical fashion in keeping with thousands of years of experience, Santa moves methodically and carefully to specific areas around the world where the extra naughty and the extra nice live.
Santa and Alpha Squad have done this before, many times, so it’s all mostly routine, with the exception of Santa’s route. Thankfully, Elf Command, located in the North Pole, can anticipate the route for Santa months in advance with the Joy Reader, an advanced scanner that tracks the pulse of the Christmas Spirit. To the untrained eye, the scanner looks like a bunch of colored lines weaving in and out of an intricate thread pattern waving up and down with the day. But the elves, they’ve got the trained eye and the spectacles to prove it, which exaggerate the size of their eyes, as they jot notes on silver wrapping paper, covering it in rigorous notes. They’ve proven the accuracy of their skilled analysis, year over year, century over century.
The only thing that makes their eyes bug out a little is when Santa brings home the data from his trip, a neat, red-leather-bound booklet of finely written notes colored in gold about the many extra naughty and extra nice children he encountered. The elves can only project Santa’s path based on hot spots; they can’t assess each child – the data Santa collected from being up close and personal frustrates the elves only a little, as the numbers require big adjustments in sections where they must zoom in ten times and find the right child to adjust their naughty-nice profile. It’s tedious but necessary. Some elves think if all children could just fall into the Average Naughty Nice metric, it’d make their jobs much easier. But these elves made a club, “The Elves of Analysis.” They take their tasks seriously, no matter the demands. Have faith, Santa! There’s nothing analysis can’t clear up. The annual report that Santa doesn’t just check once but twice will be ready before Christmas Eve, or they’re not pointy-eared and drunk with cocoa.
So, that’s how the year generally looks for Santa, broadly speaking. But what about up close? What if we could see what Santa does in September, specifically?
When Santa leaves the North Pole, having done his mythical Christmas Eve run, he’s kissed Mrs. Clause goodbye and sets off on his journey, which requires a descent from the immortal snowy land of the North Pole to the wet, dry, hot, rainy, and misty lands of the mortals.
It’s not that he doesn’t like to travel. It’s just that he’s naturally a homebody. But he craves adventure nonetheless. He can relate to celebrities wearing sunglasses when on the streets of LA. His slay stays behind. Instead, he boards a special elvish transport bound for one of a dozen remote locations around the globe, each selected on a different year to avoid being followed by locals.
To ease himself into the noise and hyperactivity of man’s busy society, he’s dropped off on the outskirts where it’s slow and quiet, wearing rugged attire and a sack hung over his shoulder. To any onlookers, he’s no different than a white-bearded hitchhiker with a surprisingly warm smile and a stride supported by a humble walking stick.
A red velvet pouch jingles with each step he takes. It contains both gold and silver, minted by the magic of the elves. Each coin has the engraving of the North Pole Christmas Tree symbol, with the initials SC enlarged in the background. Santa initially objected to such an overt hint to his identity when he’s incognito, but the Mint elves thought it’d be funny to put something so obvious onto the coin, confident no human would ever figure it out. Besides, they say, there’s an entire minting industry on Earth that makes different designs all the time. Santa’s minted coins would just blend right in.
Santa doesn’t carry paper money on his travels. The North Pole has always leaned on gold and silver for currency, whether it’s for Santa’s journey to the mortal world or to run the Workshop economy, which spans thousands of elf-sized homes and workshops stretching for hundreds of miles. Santa’s never had to worry about such a large operation being found by humans. Air traffic is rare, almost non-existent, and the magical atmosphere only shows up on their scanners like a red blob. Plains can’t land to investigate, and the human intelligence and military operations apparatus doesn’t have enough intel to justify a multi-billion-dollar operation to investigate. But the Elf Intelligence Center (or EIC) is always one step ahead of human intelligence agencies.
Basically, ever since the US presidents started operating on fiat currency, Santa has been able to enjoy his love of gold and silver by customizing the inventory of his purse based on the changing spot price of the two metals. He likes the sound and feel of the coins. And he likes to share it with those who’d benefit from his generousity, even though the nice list isn’t yet printed. Gold and silver have been the staples of Santa’s legacy since he took over from his predecessor around the planting of the American colonies.
He’s lived a lot of human history, and he’s observed many lifetimes of it, which is why on his travels he’s not out of element. Just the opposite, he knows the streets, the towns, the roads, having seen their previous iterations through time. Some places never change, while other places change radically. Thankfully, the digital age hasn’t taken hold yet; it’s still in its infant stage.
Which means children can still manage. Being nice in an increasingly digital age will only become more difficult, which will mean a disproportionit shift to the naughty list. But that’s not something he can control. He’s here to remind the children why they shouldn’t shout, pout or cry, why treating each week like Christmas is essential to get on the nice list.
Christmas comes but once a year. That’s a long time for a child to be nice.
So, Santa strolls through their neighborhood with a skip in his step and cheeks full of jolly cheer, wearing festive jeans and a shirt, maybe a hat and a jacket. Any time he’s “in need of directions” – any time he might need a hand changing a tire – the nearest kid who is almost naughty has a chance to show Santa they have the good to be a little more nice. Sometimes, he’s so inspired by a spark of Christmas spirit, he tosses them a silver coin as a visual reminder of the brightness they’ve shown him.
He doesn’t just gift silver to children. Sometimes it’s adults, too. The rare ones who have protected the Christmas spirit, despite the transition to adulthood. They are few, but they are out there. For those who have just a shred of Christmas spirit in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond, the ounces of silver and gold remind them that the generosity of a stranger is still alive and beauty shines through this dark world. This combination of the two, by Santa’s estimates, boosts the Christmas spirit in hard-working adults.
Santa needs time to rest after walking, driving, and flying around the world, the weight of this hard world heavy on his Christmas spirit. Binging movies on Netflix isn’t his idea of rest, especially Christmas movies. They never get it right. He doesn’t nap either. His exhaustion needs a deeper remedy. Millions of the naughty weigh on him.
To rest, he sings songs, eats sweet and sour chicken, while sitting by a fire with his sore soles warming up, on four Saturdays in September, made possible by magic.
Depending on how well he covered his tracks, Santa can relax. But not every year is he not visited by an unwelcome guest. Sometimes, the unwanted visitor is a repeat offender on the naughty list with lifetime status and not someone he’d ever give any silver, for their hearts are more than naughty. They’re malicious.
To be continued by Santa in September Part II.