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Every year we like to try to give our blog page a seasonal theme and in the past we have allowed our authors to give you their take on the Christmas season (with varying degrees of success). This year, however, we thought we should get some contribution from the people that really make Christmas happen, the ones that live at the North Pole. So we emailed Santa and asked for a contribution from himself and maybe one from the reindeer and the elves. Much to our surprise we got all three, though from Mrs Santa, rather than from the man himself. Up until 16th December we are posting the replies. They look a bit like a conversation was taking place, because when we got the emails they prompted a lot of questions, which we asked and for which we got answers. So, we edited them all together to make them easier to read. So far we have heard from Vixen the Reindeer and Nobby the Elf and now it's the turn of Mrs Santa Claus.  OK, you asked for an email from Santa but you’ve got one from me, Mrs Santa, instead. Or Mrs Claus if you prefer. I don’t mind. Anything except Nellie, which is my real first name. That got ruined for me back in 1956 by that singer Mandy Miller. But I digress. Santa would have replied in person, but you have to understand that this is his busy time of year. Ha, gotcha! Don’t make me laugh – Santa? Busy? Oh no, he’s got it all worked out. There’s half a million elves next door doing all the work for minimum wage and I do all the work in here for no wages at all. Even the reindeer do more work than he does. He a lazy fat (expletive deleted), but I still love him. I shouldn’t complain, I suppose. I knew what I was letting myself in for when I married him all those epochs ago. Oh, you think he was a 3rd century Greek who was canonised, somewhat belatedly, in 1446. No. The Greek gets the credit (for the usual reasons regarding cultural misappropriation) but Santa is far, far older. As am I, of course. No, a lady never reveals her age and a gentleman never asks. Let’s just say that I’m as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth. Actually, a lot older than these teeth, because I only got them this year. Very nice dentist in Birmingham. Lovely soft hands. Sorry, I’m digressing again. Where was I? Oh yes. No, nothing to do with Greek saints. We’re what the archaeologists call primeval, or is that primordial? I can never tell those two apart. Let’s just say that the day before the big meteor struck, there were a lot of happy dinosaurs unwrapping presents. Not T-Rex’s of course. their arms aren’t long enough to pick them up. Most of what you think you know about us comes from Victorian times. The actual celebration of Christmas is the misappropriation of many different pagan rituals to mark mid-winter, but you already know that because the “We don’t celebrate Christmas, we celebrate saturnalia” posts are all over social media. Jerks! But not as big as the jerks that say “winterval”. They are total (multiple expletives deleted). It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s an excuse for a party and that’s never a bad thing. Not that we ever go to parties. We don’t even go to Longyearbyen for the annual “decorating the dead whale” festival, and that’s only 650 miles away. Do you think dinosaurs had Christmas? They didn’t even have calendars. We gave them their presents whenever they deserved a treat. Which, to be fair, wasn’t all that often. Giant carnivorous lizards are often naughty. Mind you, we didn’t leave them coal back then either, because it hadn’t been made. It was still standing upright covered in leaves. This year we’d like to tell you that there are a lot of people out there who won’t be getting presents, because they’re sat on the naughty step. I won’t name names. You read the news so you can guess who some of them are. All we can say is that if you behave like a (expletive deleted) we’ll treat you like a (expletive deleted). So, if you find a present from Santa under your Christmas tree (or whatever culturally misappropriated pagan ritual symbol you have in your home) then you know that you have been judged to be nice this year. I know some of you will be quite disappointed when you don’t find yours. Why is Santa so judgemental? Well, unlike most people who are judgemental, it is actually in his job description. By what authority is he allowed to be judgemental? That’s a much harder one. You’d have to go all the way back to the Big Bang for the answer to that one and even then it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Let’s just say that the universe knows the difference between right and wrong and leave it at that. How does the universe know? Sorry, but to answer that would take several Christmases. Try asking a scientist. They’re getting closer to finding out. I’ve got mince pies and mulled wine to make for half a million elves or there will be no end of trouble next door.  I blame that Nobby. Right little rabble rouser that one. I’ll be glad when he retires and so will Santa. He told you I charge for the food? Oooh, I’ll have him, see if I don’t. Let me explain. I make the food, out of the goodness of my own heart. But food costs money, so I have to make a nominal charge, just to cover expenses. It isn’t my fault that I have to travel the world to buy it all every day. The mini-market in Longyearbyen never has anything other than frozen pizza with whale meat topping and only a couple of those at any time. You can’t feed half a million hungry elves on that! And as for the First Class flights and the 5 star hotels, well Santa insists. He says he can’t have me slumming it in Business Class. I need a wide seat and a comfy bed at my advanced age. No, I couldn’t take the sleigh. I’m allergic to reindeer. So yes, that does increase the costs a little bit, but never more than the elves can afford to pay. It’s not my fault that they want money left over to go drinking whisky in Longyearbyen at £25 a shot. How do I get on an aeroplane if I live at the North Pole? My, you are a nosey beggar aren’t you? Let’s just say that I have abilities that you will never understand and one of them is to turn up in the First Class lounge at any international airport in the world (avoiding the queue for Security in the process). So, why do I need airports at all? Why not go straight to the supermarket? Because the supermarket doesn’t have a breakfast buffet cooked by a Michelin starred chef. Now stop being so (expletive deleted) nosey. Oh, now you want to know how old Christmas really is? Well, way back a couple of billion years ago, a lightning bolt struck the primordial soup and caused some chemical changes which resulted in the creation of a single cell life form. No, that wasn’t us. We were already there. But we did give the single celled life form a birthday present and that’s how it all started. You could call that the first Christmas if you want. We got more organised as things went along, of course. We hired the elves, roped the reindeer in (literally) to provide the power for the sleigh, and that sort of thing. Where do elves come from? Now you’re asking! No one really knows. They sort of turned up, unannounced. For several millennia we regarded them as a sort of infestation, then we found they could be trained and that eased Santa’s workload a lot.  They eased it so much the fat lump doesn’t do anything but drive the sleigh nowadays. And for that he gets all the credit. Bit like politicians I suppose. Now politicians, well, they're definitely on the naughty list so you’ll find they’re all getting coal again this year. That's 5,000 years in a row, since you’re asking. It’s been so long since we gave a politician anything but coal for Christmas that we’d have to look it up in the archive to find the exact date. We did think about not giving them anything even before they became politicians, but we decided against that. There’s judgemental and there’s judgemental. There’s always a chance that one of them will do something useful. We won’t hold our breath while we wait, but we have to believe that in an infinite universe, anything is possible. No, we’re not going to answer that one. I refer you to what I said about infinite universes. You believe what you want to. It won’t make the slightest bit of difference to the way things really work. Some of you lot think you know the answers, but in reality you haven’t even worked out the questions yet. Anyway, back to mince pies and mulled wine for me, 'cos I can hear the elves starting to pack away their tools. They need some cheering up before they start to load up the sleigh. Santa’s starting to check the “naughty or nice list”, so it too late to change your behaviour now. But if you don’t get your present from Santa, ask yourself why. Then take a look at your world and start to think how you could make it a better place instead of a worse one. And if, after you’ve looked, you’re thinking “that’s someone else’s job”, you’re wrong. Merry Christmas from The North Pole! Selfishgenie Publishing is closing up for the holidays now, but our blog will be back in January when we have some interesting things to say about how Indie authors can use Pinterest for marketing their book. So don't forget to check back on 6th January.
In the meantime we wish you all a Merry Christmas and if you don't celebrate that holiday, we wish you all the very best wishes for the season. We also wish you all a very happy New Year. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then make sure you don’t miss future editions. Just click on the button below to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so. Every year we like to try to give our blog page a seasonal theme and in the past we have allowed our authors to give you their take on the Christmas season (with varying degrees of success). This year, however, we thought we should get some contribution from the people that really make Christmas happen, the ones that live at the North Pole. So we emailed Santa and asked for a contribution from himself and maybe one from the reindeer and the elves. Much to our surprise we got all three, though from Mrs Santa, rather than from Santa himself. Up until 16th December we are posting the replies. They look a bit like a conversation was taking place, because when we got the emails they prompted a lot of questions, which we asked and for which we got answers. So, we edited them all together to make them easier to read. Last week we heard from Nobby the Elf and this week it's the turn of Vixen the reindeer.  Hi ya, Vixen here. I’ve been elected to send this email on behalf of all of Santa’s reindeer. Well, elected may be putting it a bit too strongly. It makes it sound like I had a choice. As the only female in the outfit, I tend to get given all the jobs the other reindeer don’t want to do. Which turns out to be most of them. And for 20% less pay! Yes, even up here! Cupid? No, he’s not female. Let’s just say “10% of the population” and you’ll get the picture. Now, the stories and movies all tell you that Rudolf is the one who doesn’t get the breaks, you know because of the … Actually, we don’t talk about that anymore. We call him “differently nasalled” and leave it at that. But no. because of all the stories, Rudolf is the top reindeer these days, even though he has done very little to deserve it. No, he never used his differently nasalled state to guide the sleigh. Are you kidding me? I know it’s bri… no, I better let it go. I’m actually lead reindeer. There are reasons for this that all the females reading this email will understand. If you want a male to do your bidding, just make sure he gets a good look at you from behind, which is why Santa puts me at the front. It’s the only way he can get those lazy b******s to move at all. Not that I’m bitter you understand. But it would be nice to be appreciated for my intellect for a change, rather than for my superb butt. And it is superb, even though I say it myself. But I’ve also got a PhD in comparative philosophies and nobody seems to take any notice of that. OK, philosophy isn’t such a big deal these days, not like it was back in the old days in Greece. You know the names of all the greats from back then: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates. Even batty old Diogenes in his barrel gets a mention from time to time. But name one philosopher from the 21st century! I bet you can’t. And maudlin, drunken introspection doesn’t count as philosophy. But that’s enough about me. What it is it really like being one of Santa’s reindeer? Actually, aside from the casual sexism, it isn’t too bad. We only work one night of the year unless some of the elves fancy a night out in Longyearbyen. We all have our own stalls, with hot and cold running hay, a TV set that gets Disney+ and Netflix, Santa keeps the heating on all winter and most of the summer (it never really gets warm up here) so I guess as far as being a reindeer is concerned life isn’t too bad. Let’s just say that it’s a lot more fun than living in Lapland, foraging for moss and being milked by Sami with cold hands. That’s just the females that get milked, by the way. See, more casual sexism. Mind you, Cupid probably wouldn’t mind too much if the Sami tried to milk him. So, for 364 days a year we get to stay in our nice warm barn and on the 365th day we fly around the world as Santa and the elves drop off all the presents. Yes, I know that scientists say that this isn’t possible. Well, scientists can go and f… have a real good think about it for a while. We’ve been doing this from the dawn of time (No, nothing to do with him, we’re far older than that). So, we know we can do it. Something to do with the Big Bang apparently. Some things started to slow down afterwards, but we kept the ability to move really fast if we want to. Or if Santa wants to which, apparently, is what we really want as well. As a female I really appreciate it when males tell me what I want (yes, you’re right, that is sarcasm). All reindeer have this ability, by the way. But the rest of them haven’t got a fat bloke cracking a whip over their heads to encourage them. How come we can fly when we aren’t very aero dynamic? Let me tell you, when you can travel the speed we do, you don’t need to be aerodynamic to be able to fly. The hard part is slowing down enough to land on a roof without sliding off the end! How do you think Rudolf got his red nose? Just our little joke. Actually, we don’t tell it anymore. Where do you think the term “snowflake” was invented? We got our inspiration for it locally, of course. So, that’s what being one of Santa’s reindeer is all about. 364 days of munching on hay and making sure Santa doesn’t forget to lock the door to my stall, and one day of moving so fast my antlers glow. Yes, I know female reindeer don’t have antlers (more sexism). But I’m one of Santa’s reindeer and he gets what he wants and he wants all his reindeer to have antlers, so antlers it is. I think I carry them off quite well. Our relationship with the elves? Cordial, I would call it. We don’t see a lot of them apart from Christmas Eve. Unless they want a night out in Longyearbyen. Fortunately, they don’t earn enough to get drunk, so they aren’t bad passengers. There’s no vomit to clean off the seats of the sleigh unless they’ve eaten a dodgy bit of whale meat. There’s one I don’t like. Grumpy little sod by the name of Nobby but he retires straight after this Christmas. Not a day to soon if you ask me. I won’t be sorry to see the back of him, I can tell you. You know what he once asked me to do? The filthy little sod. He crept into my stall one night and he …. (Editor’s apology. Once again the end of the email seems to have become corrupted and we have been unable to get it resent in time for inclusion on our blog page.) The last in this trilogy will be posted next week, when we hear from Mrs Santa Claus (Santa was too busy to reply, apparently). If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then make sure you don’t miss future editions. Just click on the button below to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so.
Every year we like to try to give our blog page a seasonal theme and in the past we have allowed our authors to give you their take on the Christmas season (with varying degrees of success). This year, however, we thought we should get some contribution from the people that really make Christmas happen, the ones that live at the North Pole. So we emailed Santa and asked for a contribution from himself and maybe one from the reindeer and the elves. Much to our surprise we got all three, though from Mrs Santa, rather than from Santa himself. From now until the Saturday 16th December we’ll be posting the replies. They look a bit like a conversation was taking place, because when we got the emails they prompted a lot of questions, which we asked and for which we got answers. So, we edited them all together to make them easier to read. First up is the reply we got from Nobby The Elf.  Being one of Santa’s Elves is not as great as you might imagine. Will Ferrell has a lot to answer for! (Look out Will, we’re coming for ya) You just have to look at the shape of Santa to know that flatulence is going to be a major issue, right? But it isn’t just that. Let’s take it from the top – literally. Here we are, up at the North Pole, with sod all to do once we knock off for the day. The nearest restaurant is in Longyearbyen (yes it’s a real place – Google it if you don’t believe me). Now, if you haven’t heard of that place before then don’t beat yourself up over it. No one who isn’t from Longyearbyen has ever heard of it either. It’s in Svalbard, which is the largest island in a group of islands owned by Norway. Even other Norwegians haven’t heard of Longyearbyen. Now, there are a couple of things you need to know about Longyearbyen, Svalbard and Norway in general. Trust me, it isn’t all fjords and woolly hats. The main industries up there in Svalbard are fishing and whaling, along with their associated pastimes of fish gutting and blubber rendering. So, in the nearest restaurant to the North Pole there is a lot of fish and whale meat on the menu and not very much else. If you are looking for fresh fruit or veggies, go somewhere else. If you are lucky there might be a bit of reindeer meat available from time to time, but we don’t go too much on that because, well, you know … It’s a bit close to family you might say. The second thing you have to know is that no country in Europe charges more for alcohol than the Norwegians. You have to be a millionaire to even attempt to get drunk. Us elves, paid what we are by himself, stand no chance. One beer and that’s month’s wages down the toboggan run without a bobsleigh! At least visitors are spared the smell of rotting fish and dead whales for most of the year, because nothing rots in a country that is basically one giant deep freeze. So, us elves don’t get out much, even when Santa lets us use the sleigh. Now, you’d think that making toys for all the ickle children of the world would be a great job. So much job satisfaction to be had, thinking about all those happy smiling faces waking up on Christmas morning to find what Santa has left under the tree for them. Not a chance. It is monotonous, fiddly work and any self-respecting slave labourer in a third world sweat shop would refuse to do it. I once spent a year putting the eyes into teddy bears. I almost went blind in the process. Now, that would have been ironic. Of course, teddy bears are a thing of the past. These days it’s all Playstations, X-Boxes and robots. At least Barbie is back in fashion this year. We get a lot of fun out them. Don’t judge! You try getting thousands of pairs of plastic boobs to stay the right shape and see what it does to your mental health. Without a little bit of a distraction there would be no Barbies for Christmas, so just think on that when you’re looking into the loving eyes of your little girl (or little boy – unlike you, we don’t judge). And for our Australian readers, Barbies have nothing to do with outdoor cooking. At least, these ones don’t. If it doesn’t come served by a butler on a silver platter, she isn’t interested, not since the movie. I suppose that working long hours for 364 days of the year has its compensations. We have so little time off that the fact the nearest restaurant is 650 miles away (about 1,100 kms) isn’t as bad as it might be. Then there is Christmas Eve. You think Santa slides down the chimney to leave all the presents, don’t you. Well, he doesn’t. That fat lump could never get down a chimney. So, we go down it for him And, of course, it isn’t all chimneys, not anymore. We’ve got log burners, gas boilers, oil furnaces and houses with no chimneys at all to deal with. How do you deal with a house that has underfloor electric heating, for goodness sake? And don’t get me started on heat pumps! I have to say we’ve adapted well. We can wriggle through the holes in an air brick if we have to. It’s pretty tough getting a Playstation through too, but that’s what magic is for. But kids, if you really want to help, leave a window open. Not it your room, of course. We wouldn’t want you to get cold. No, leave the window open in mummy and daddy’s room. But I have to tell you a secret now, so I hope the children won’t be too disappointed to find this out. It isn’t us that eats the mince pies or drinks the sherry. And the reindeer don’t get the carrots. We’ve no time for all that. No, It’s mummy or daddy who scoffs all that stuff. But not the whisky. We may be elves, but we’re not stupid and a tot of whisky keeps us going. Besides, even if we don’t have time to drink it we can always take it back to the North Pole with us and flog it to the Norwegians on the black market next time we go to Longyearbyen. Have you ever travelled on the back of a sleigh in the middle of winter? It’s no picnic, believe me. Santa’s OK, he’s got that big red coat on with all the fur trimmings, but not us. We just wear our normal clothes and a set of stripy socks doesn’t do a good job of keeping the cold out. And pointy ears get frost bitten very easily. You’d think evolution would have done a better job with us, considering where we live, but no. Even nature gave us elves a raw deal. Are there any up sides to being one of Santa’s elves? Just the one. Mrs Clause is a great cook (which is why Santa is the shape he is). She does all the cooking for the toy factory and the meals are great. She doesn’t even charge us too much for them, which is nice of her. I’m one of the lucky ones though. I come up for retirement this year. After 400 years of slaving at toy making and sliding down chimneys, I’m off to Spain to live in a little house I bought there. I picked it up for a song after the last banking crisis. There’s a lovely restaurant at the end of the street with not a bit of whale meat in sight. Ot's right next to a bar that sells cheap beer and shows all the football on Sky Sports. And Santa can go f…. (Editor’s apology. The end of the email seems to have been corrupted and Nobby is now too busy to resend it. We think it might have said “And Santa can go for a walk in the snow and not worry about me”. But we can’t be sure.) Next week we hear from Vixen the reindeer. If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then make sure you don’t miss future editions. Just click on the button below to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so.
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