Santa Alfie

Santa’s Blog.
It twas a month before Christmas.

Ho, ho, ho and joyful seasons greetings from me: Saint Nick, Sinterklaas, Santa Claus, whoever you know me by; to all the worlds wonderful children, as well as those of you who are still children at heart.
The recent weather well south of my home in the North Pole has been, shall we say, ‘strange.’ At first, it’s unusually warm; making me very uncomfortable in my heavy suit. Then it gets extremely cold; which is just how I like it. Then it snows, which is even better; only to be followed by rain, not at all appropriate for this time of the year.

Up here in the North Pole, it’s always dark now and constantly cold, just as it should be for this time of year. Why for the rest of the week our local elf weather station says, it’ll be a comfortable minus 25 Celsius.
This week, I had the wonderful pleasure of being accompanied by Mrs. Claus as we attended a happy event in Woodbridge Ontario. Here’s a picture of the two of us. We both agreed on our way back to the North Pole that this families home was wonderful, festively decorated, making us feel right at home.

Some of you have been asking me what Mrs. Claus and I do after Christmas. Well, we go on vacation like so many of you, and your families do. Even our elves go on vacation. Why, last winter, we thought we’d go to Florida in the United States of America. I do love swimming; which is difficult to do up here in the North Pole, even during the summer months.

I also started exercising on my elf-doctors advice. He told me if I wanted to live past two-thousand years, I had to start eating healthier – fewer cookies, candies, eggnog – as well as get more exercise. At least he didn’t forbid me from having milk and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (my favourite) during my Christmas night delivery run.

Anyway, the elves and I put up a small gym at the back of the workshop so during breaks we can all take the opportunity to get some additional exercise. Magic is a wonderful thing, but it can only do so much. We all still have to take responsibility for our health, if possible; I can’t merely wish myself to be fit and healthy or smart and rich.
Below is a couple of pictures of me at a pool in Florida and on the treadmill…lots of walking but going nowhere! And as you can see, my favourite colour is always red, ho, ho, ho.

Now, have any of you seen the new Christmas movie yet that’s on a channel called Netflix? It’s titled The Christmas Chronicles, and it stars a wonderful actor named Kurt Russel. Mrs. Claus and I watched it the other night. She was quite amused by how the elves were depicted in the movie, but regrettably, some of our real elves were not!

They thought the movies elves more resembled Gnomes or Gremlins than actually resembling them. I had to reassure our elves that Hollywood always takes ‘license’ with stories and characters to make a story more entertaining. But I do see these elf figurines’ being manufactured in our workshop in the not too distant future. They were adorable when they weren’t angry. Now that I think about it, they did resemble gremlins.

As for Mr. Kurt Russel, I can still remember, so many years ago, when he was a young boy on Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club. He was a Mouseketeer. My oh my, he’s come a long way. Now he’s portraying me, Santa Claus; only different, ho, ho, as I would’ve looked and dressed perhaps one-hundred and fifty years ago.

I think I still have that style of clothing and furry coat in one of our many wardrobe closets. When you’ve been around for as long as I have, you do tend to collect a lot of stuff, especially Santa suits.

Now I liked how the movie people designed the sleigh. It resembles a classic model Muskoka boat with sleigh-runners. Not exactly my style, but I wouldn’t say no to a ride in it, ho, ho, ho. Most of you will be too young to know what a Muskoka boat looks like, so Elfie; my chief elf suggests you look it up on GOOGLE.

That’s it, for now, girls and boys and everyone in-between. I have to get back to the workshop and maybe even do another mile on the treadmill, ho, ho, ho — fat chance.
So be good, kind and respectful of other boys and girls and keep praying for the spirit of Christmas to cover the whole world. It needs it!

P.S. We have a new member in our crew now. He can be bashful, but most of you already know him. It’s Olaf from Frozen.

Glad tidings and happy wishes
from Santa.