I’m not sure that I should be telling you this story but…well here goes! Santa likes to have a little fun now and again and one year, right around Thanksgiving Santa went down into the Southworld, (that’s what he calls everything south of the north pole, which of course EVERYTHING is.)
Anyhow, he saw that a “Santa Look-alike” contest was being held at a shopping mall in Minnesota.
He chuckled as he saw the men lining up to enter. While some looked amazingly like him many looked more like Ernest Hemingway, at least according to Santa.
Well, he had to “Ho Ho Ho” and sit kids on his lap and stand with Left then Right then Back profiles and finally after all the dozens of contestants were evaluated by the audience and judges, he was asked to come up onto the stage with two other Santa Wannabes.
After a long and loud drum roll the winner was announced and Santa came in third!
Archive for category Holiday
It was October the fifth as I recall…or maybe it was the sixth, anyhow it was a Tuesday and I got a call from Santa. He was on vacation at his island house in the warm Pacific.
Oh…sorry I forgot to tell you…I’m The Easter Bunny, Eastern Cottontail specifically, but since the kids…I love kids….call me the Easter Bunny…well…I love it.
Anyhow, Santa called me. I thought it was some prankster at first…like Sammy the Squirrel, or Squeeky The Mouse, but after asking some questions I accepted that my caller was the genuine, authentic REAL Santa.
He said that he was calling a meeting of all the icons of kiddom (are there two D’s in Kiddom?) which of course included me. He wouldn’t tell me which of us he had called first,(just like Santa) and he said that he would send the sled around for me at 12:03 the next morning.
I’m not nocturnal like the Tooth Fairy, or even Santa but I agreed. So I set my alarm clock in the hutch and was showered and ready to go before Midnight.
Well, true to his word at precisely 12:03 there was a clattering of hooves and a crunch- never did find out what went “crunch”- and I popped out of the hutch and climbed aboard the sleigh.
Well…Molar The Tooth Fairy was aboard and we renewed old acquaintances.
I had run into her once at work(yes it’s a she)when Tommy Tucker couldn’t eat his supper after he bit into a roll and lost number 6 tooth (which coinciDENTly is the First Molar) on Easter Eve.
But I digress!
We exchanged stories on the ride down to Santa’s Island vacation house. Actually the Tooth Fairy is very nice even though her dress was a bit strange with all flowing ribbons and lacey trims…but actually when you think about it, the only one of us that kids actually ever see is Santa, so it doesn’t really matter what we look like or wear does it?
We arrived on the sandy beach in-between the palm trees with a perfect thirty-eight point landing. Santa was there all smiles with a cool pink frosty mug of punch in each hand and was wearing a brightly colored sport shirt and Bermuda shorts….neither of them red by the way.
Mrs. Claus was waving to us from the doorway, and we got off the sleigh, took a sip and went inside.
Santa invited us to sit at the big round table where Mrs. Claus had prepared a tropical fruit salad with extra lettuce for me.
“I thought we should have this meeting to discuss how we all might use our abilities to help kids and all folks to be even happier.” Santa said.
“I agree!” I agreed.
“We only get to “Do our Thing” once a year Santa, and Ms. Fairy only visits kids after they’ve lost a tooth.” I added…Santa nodding his beardy head in agreement.
“My point exactly Mr. Bunny!” Santa remarked.
Then Santa added “I’ll tell you a secret that only Mrs. Claus knows. Well…the Elves know too of course, can’t keep any secrets with them around.”
Ms. Fairy and I were all ears awaiting Santa’s confession. Some say I’m all ears ALL the time…but I digress again.
“During the year, when I’m not at the Pole or here on vacation, I put on my grey pinstriped suit and white shirt and navy tie and my black wingtip shoes and go down into the populated cities and towns of the real world and just kinda blend in. Act like a regular citizen don’t cha know.”
“Wow…that sounds like fun!” exclaimed Ms. Fairy.
“Yeah Santa…what a hoot!” I added.
“Anyhow…” Santa continued…”I’ll drop off a secret, very needed donation or put some money on the ground so a poor person can find it…or I’ll secretly fix something broken in the hope of making someone’s life easier and better.”
“What a nice thing to do!” Ms. Fairy and I both replied.
“Well…” Santa continued..”I think…”
But I politely stopped him and said..”I know…why don’t we all do that. Slip into the general citizenry and secretly help out and no one will ever know it was us. Then maybe it will catch on and lots and lots of folks will do good things without wanting to be thanked or rewarded.”
“You’ve got it Mr. Bunny!”
We all voted unanimously that day to start helping wherever and whenever we could without anyone knowing that it was us.
But what I haven’t told you is that the meeting that Santa called was many many years ago and you know…I think our plan is beginning to work better and better every year and…by the way…thank YOU for helping too.
Most of you know Santa Claus is also named Kris Kringle, but I bet few know the real first name of Mrs. Claus. Well when she married our jolly friend (who by the way was quite thin and clean shaven at the time)and became Mrs. Claus or “Mother Christmas” as she is known in the United Kingdom, her first name was said by many to be either Mary…Jessica…Maya…or Carol…but I know the name that Santa calls her and it is none of those.
Almost all of the popular stories about Santa and Christmas hardly even mention Mrs. Claus who is the most important person of all to Santa. He always refers to her as “Dear” but he knows that her real name is….EVELYN. There…now you know.
Evelyn Kringle…AKA Mrs. Claus. And just one thing more before I finish, and it is perhaps the best kept secret of all.
Santa says (and he is THE authority) that Mrs. Claus is the REAL Christmas “EVE”.
Smack dab in the middle of a great green forest
Far beyond where anyone could see
Grew the tiniest smallest but surely the prettiest
Perfectly shaped evergreen tree
The big trees around him just blocked out the sun
And he could scarcely see stars when each day was done
He wanted to grow big and full like the others
He’d be eight feet tall had he had his druthers
A growing tree needs rain, air and sun
But this poor evergreen almost got none
His secret wish was one day to be
A brightly trimmed star-topped Christmas tree
But alak and alas
As the Christmas’ passed
Not one mortal soul came near him to see
What a spectacularly fine
Christmas tree he would be
It was now his third winter and with snow on his boughs
He was starting to hear some loud whooping yowls
As he glanced around, an astonishing sight
Two kids and two parents appeared in the night
“There it is! I told you…
I saw it before!”
“We just couldn’t find it
But we’ll be searching no more!”
The tree tried his best
Not to look at the axe
But if you want them to take you
You have to face facts
When the chopping was over and had NOT hurt a bit
The tree happily found that he perfectly fit…
In the bed of their pickup, an F150
On the ride home he thought “Man…this is nifty!”
What a wonderful Christmas it came to be
For the lucky family and of course, for the tree
So the littlest tree in the forest had his dreams come true
And if you’re good and patient your dreams will too!
Halloween was getting close and Santa hadn’t decided what costume he would choose to wear this year. Last year he dressed up as the Easter Bunny but his eggs froze and the year before he wanted to be the Tooth Fairy but he couldn’t fit into the tights…TOO TIGHT!
He asked Mrs. Claus for her ideas. After all….it was mostly her skill as a seamstress that enabled Santa to have any costume at all. She said that she would think about it but she had to decide what to wear herself. She usually attended the Halloween parties as the wife of whatever character Santa himself was dressed up as but this year decided that she would be someone different…maybe Marie Antoinette. She would design and sew herself a beautiful ball gown and give out cupcakes to all at the party.
It was always kept a secret what everyone was wearing until the actual party. The elves stayed in their workshops creating their costumes and Santa and Mrs. Claus didn’t leave their house until they headed for the actual Halloween party in the barn.
The reindeer, who weren’t very handy since they had no hands just switched nameplates every year and Santa had to guess which reindeer they really were. Rudolph wore makeup on his nose and went as Dasher last year.
Well…finally Santa decided that to both trick all the elves and to honor them too, this year Santa would dress up as an elf. Mrs. Claus painted an old pair of Santa’s workpants green, (no tights remember) and as soon as the cupcakes were cool and frosted she put them on a silver tray and both she and Santa headed for the party Barn on Halloween night.
Mrs. Claus entered first and the elves were surprised and yelled and whistled at Mrs.Claus and her cupcakes and then when Santa came in they were surprised to see the biggest elf EVER!
But the most surprised was Santa himself…because you see all of the elves were dressed ….as SANTA!
WILD HALLOWEEN by Russ McKay
Oct 30
“Is your Dad letting you go this year?”
“Well…he hasn’t said “No” yet!”
“Tell him that all of us are going and you’d be the only one missing from the party!”
“Doesn’t work…tried that last year.”
“Ummmm….I’VE GOT AN IDEA!…tell him and your Mom that we need chaperones and they HAVE to dress up in a costume TOO!”
“Hey…that might work…I’ll try it tonight when Dad comes home from the woods.”
Dusty…the juvenile groundhog waddled back toward the hole which was the North entrance to the family burrow.
Rachael raccoon watched him leave and crossed her paws hoping that Dusty’s parents would let him go to this year’s celebration and EVEN join him there. It’s always fun for the animals to dress up in costumes and pretend they were not who they really were. After all, why should humans have all the fun?
Rachael hadn’t decided exactly what she was going to dress up as this year. Last year she went to the Halloween party as a badger.
All she really had to do was put some makeup over part of the black “bandit” looking eye fur but everybody knew exactly who she really was and recognized her instantly. It wasn’t really much of a costume and was a total flop as a disguise. This year she would fool them all, but she wasn’t sure exactly how just yet.
Dusty didn’t know it but his Mom had been talking to his Dad about the Halloween party this year and had already convinced him to let Dusty go. When Dusty asked his parents about being chaperons he was amazed how fast they agreed to let him go and go with him. Then after his Mom told Dusty they had ALREADY agreed that he could go to the festivities this year, Dusty wondered if he really had to suggest the “chaperone” idea at all! Oh well…he loved his parents and it WOULD be fun to see them in costume too! He wondered what they would dress up as. And he wondered what HE would dress up as too!
Dusty was thinking about his costume in his burrow and Rachael was thinking in her home tree. Dusty thought that it would be great to be a really mean looking animal and Rachael was trying to think of the prettiest animal she could.
Dusty’s Mom and Dad were stumped as to what to be since they had to set a fine example for the young animals at the party.
Finally, the days passed and the night of the Wild Halloween Party arrived. Squeeky the chipmunk was the first to arrive at the old
hollow oak tree and his costume made him look like a mouse with big ears and pink tail. After all, Squeeky couldn’t exactly fool anyone, dressed up as an elephant! Next to arrive was Buster the dog with four coffee cups strapped to his paws and a homemade saddle on his back and a bunch of long grasses tied to his tail. He “whinnied” very convincingly.
Hester the cat believe it or not was dressed up as a poodle and had her fur curled all over her body and said “Meo…I mean…WOOF!”
Then Rachael showed up all dusted with pink powder and a pink bow around her neck…”I’m a teddy bear!”
Well, the groundhog family was right behind her with Mom and Dad in full costumes. Dad groundhog had a striped shirt on and black shorts and a silver whistle around his neck…”I’m gonna referee you kids tonight so you’d better behave!”
“Hurrah…Yeah!” shouted Mom groundhog who was shaking pom-poms while wearing a pleated skirt and tennis shoes and a Tee shirt with a big “G” on it.
Tom Turtle had his shell painted orange with black eyes, nose, and toothy mouth is drawn on and so he was “Jack O Lantern”. He looked very convincing when he drew back his head and legs into his shell.
Dusty was the last to arrive and at first, Rachael didn’t recognize him dressed up as the meanest looking raccoon you ever did see!
Then Rachael and Dusty and Dusty’s Mom and Dad and all the animals there laughed and had a great time at the wildest Halloween party EVER!.
It was a cold and stormy Christmas Eve night at the Crunchwilly’s house on Santa Claus Lane in Guam as Cinder, the official Chimney Pushing assistant to Santa was measuring the VERY tall and Very TIGHT space that Santa would have to traverse to deliver presents to the Chrunchwilly kids Lionel and Babbette.
“TOO TALL TOO TIGHT TOO NIGHT!” complained Cinder after his assessment.
“He’ll NEVER make it down this one! NO NO NO…and …ah….NO!”
Well Santa was growing impatient since he had 1 Billion, Six hundred seventy nine million, Four hundred eighty seven thousand ,three hundred thirteen houses to visit by sunrise .
Oh…we forgot to mention that there was a roaring fire in the Crunchwilly fireplace which added to the challenge of the present present delivery.
As Santa was begging Cinder to…”Please Hurry with a solution” Cinder yelled…… “BUTTER!”
“We’ll slather you up with butter Santa and you’ll just slip your corpulent self right down that chimney like it was 40 years ago.”
Santa ignored the reference to his younger slimmer self (years of cookies and milk) but absolutely refused to resemble “Mrs. Butterworth” on this most auspicious eve. But Cinder persisted and slobbered 37.8 pounds of Land O’ Lakes all over Santa.
Meanwhile Santa was wrapping the Crunchwilly kids presents with aluminum foil to keep them from burning up on the journey down the chimney.
“On the count of three SANTA….One Two THREE!” Cinder pushed and Santa started to slowly slip his way down the tight smoky and rather hot chimney ( but then an unexpected event occurred which truthfully should have been expected ) the butter started to melt, then sizzle, then burn and drip causing the fire below to roar even higher and HOTTER.
“Yipes! Exclaimed Santa as he landed on the hearth with a billow of ashes and yes, ‘Cinders” spraying out and almost catching the Crunchwilly Christmas tree on fire.
“MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!” yelled a rather yellow but ebullient Santa.
But suddenly a huge explosion erupted up the chimney ejecting Cinder along with an amazing array of fireworks into the Guam night sky.
The Guam natives, in response to the display, thought that it just might be the Fourth Of July instead of Christmas Eve.
But about a quarter of a mile away Santa located Cinder lying in the fronds of a palm tree.
Cinder hadn’t hurt anything but his pride but from that moment on Santa always referred to Cinder as “SPARKY”.
“Eve Dear, have you seen this year’s Christmas list? I can’t seem to locate it.” Santa was looking in all the usual places.
“Why no Snookums, I haven’t seen it since last December.”
“Well that was last year’s “Good” list and things may have drastically changed since then.” Santa replied, while overturning the ribbon bin.
“Maybe one of the Elves has it to get a count of how many of a certain gift to make.” Mrs. Claus suggested.
“No…Elphonso would have told me…but I’ll check with him anyway.”
Santa buzzed the workshop on his special phone that was a gift from the CEO of A.T and T who never forgot that Santa had brought him the Southern Pacific train set one Christmas when that CEO’s parents were unemployed.
“Yes Boss…Elphonso here!” answered the head Elf.
Santa asked about the list but got no positive answer from the busy workshop.
“Oh my!” exclaimed Santa. “Without that list even very misbehaving children will be getting top shelf gifts and that would set a very bad precedent.”
“Maybe the children who KNEW that they were not really as good as they could have been during the year will appreciate the kindness and forgiveness if you treat them as “Good List” kids.”…Mrs. Claus suggested.
“Hmmm….well…it may come to that if I can’t locate my list.”
Santa resumed digging through the back of the closet under the red and white trimmed suits stored there.
It was way too late to compile a new list and it wouldn’t be fair to use last year’s list, so Santa just sat in his big easy chair and resigned himself that Mrs. Claus’ suggestion of gifting EVERY kid would be his decision for this Christmas at least.
And Kids…that was yesterday! So…all of you kids out there that were not exactly on your best behavior this year,(and you know who you are)will get a gift from the Jolly Old Elf this year. So my suggestion for you is to enjoy the benefits of a “Good List” kid and do your very best to earn your way onto the list next year. Because we all know that Santa isn’t going to lose next year’s list don’t we?
Mrs. Claus was very concerned that, as Santa, the “Jolly Old Elf” as he is sometimes referred to, needed a bit of assistance as he became more “Old” than “Elf” but still “Jolly”.
Mrs.Claus, (her first name is “Eve” as we mentioned in a previous story) suggested that Santa hire an intern to assist with his annual duties.
Santa at first considered the idea “preposterous” but Eve saw how slowly that he climbed into and out of the sleigh and other small clues that made clear to her that Santa could use a non-Elf hand or two.
But who would be available to help Santa in the cold cold North Pole?
Perhaps a young person from Siberia or Finland or Alaska. She even considered a robot until she remembered that the elves had to keep all robot presents warm until delivery.
Plus the fact that as Santa’s assistant, the work would be a concentrated part time job which made her think of a college student that always had off of classes for the Christmas holidays.
Then there was the problem of advertising the job. There might be thousands of applicants and who would interview them and neither Eve nor Santa would want to disappoint a single one.
What to do?
Maybe the answer wasn’t hiring an intern after all but just to lighten the Christmas Eve load of gifts that Santa had to deliver.
By the way, all of this happened 20 or so years ago and we just heard about it during one of our fireside chats with the Claus’.
You all know what Mrs. Claus did to help Santa and he is still managing to handle his Christmas Eve duties by himself.
What? Oh yes…I didn’t actually remind you of the solution to Santa’s problem…why UPS, FedEX and all of the postal services around the world. Have a Merry Christmas and don’t forget to check your front steps and mailboxes kids.
Hi…you don’t know me because, well…that’s the way we elves like to keep it. I want to tell you a secret that Santa keeps with the utmost care…his actual, real honest to goodness… Birthday.
When we would ask Santa what day his Birthday was, he always told us that it was on November 36th. Well, come to find out, through eons of elf research, Santa wasn’t fibbing to us. His REAL birthday is on December 6th (he won’t say what year but trust me, it was a VERY LONG time ago) and if you count from November 30th to December 6th you’ll see that he’s right.
Well this year we are throwing him a huge surprise party on November 36th and all the current and retired Elves and Ms. Claus and the Caribou (you know them as Reindeer) and a few old friends of Santa’s from when he was a young civilian are coming.
Thinking of the right gift is always difficult you know. Santa never says that he wants anything. Mrs. Claus always knits him something in his favorite color…heliotrope. By the way, he also likes Puce!
We Elves made him an electric muffler last year but it caught his beard on fire. His normally white beard did match his red suit briefly before we managed to find unfrozen water to throw on Santa to extinguish the fire but then Santa had a burnt up beard with icicles hanging down from all over his beard and nose. He got a bit quiet when we all laughed out loud including Mrs. Claus and even the Caribou were snickering.
But this year we are building Santa a helium gift bag to lighten his load of toys (for GOOD little girls and boys)
We could get more done if some of the elves would stop gulping the helium and then speaking in very low bass voices causing everyone to go into hysterics!
We Elves were thinking of inviting a representative from the Good kids out there to Santa’s Birthday Party this year.
If you were chosen to attend, what gift do you think Santa would like?
Those are all good ideas and if you are selected to attend the party we’ll notify you by November 34th (that’s a Tuesday) but no matter what, Santa will be at your place December 24th after you are asleep.
Maybe this year if you leave Santa anything that night you might want to add at the bottom of the card that says “For Santa”…”HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!”