Short Story Time

Trouble at the North Pole

  –A Christmas Story With a Happy Ending

Santa Claus by his nature is not given to despair or even sadness, but events of late have taken a lot of ho out of his ho-ho-ho. The neighborhood at the North Pole, it seems, is going downhill–quite literally in fact. Santa’s elves report the ice is melting under Santa’s workshop, which has sat undisturbed astride the North Pole for thousands of years. Sometime many years from now they will have to move the shop and village to a new ZIP code, and the reason for it is not what anyone would have expected.

Not the least of Santa’s worries is how little children will send their Christmas wish lists–Santa Claus, North Pole, won’t work after the move. Then, too, the warmer temperature and melting ice have from time to time created thick fogs over this part of the Arctic, making travel by Santa’s flying sleigh riskier. Rudolph’s getting on in years hasn’t helped. His red nose just isn’t as bright as it used to be. And because of the mild temperatures–mild for the North Pole, anyway–Santa’s elves now take off their shirts in the workshop on warmer days, a development Mrs. Claus finds disturbing and in bad taste.

You might think that Santa’s woes are just another symptom of global warming. But as it happens they are the doing of a conniving, mega-billionaire computer mogul, one Cornelius Q. Griffin, the man who decided to build a huge computer server farm next door to Santa’s village. Griffin’s idea behind this seemingly unlikely state of affairs is that he’d have to spend less money for cooling his computer equipment at the North Pole. The heat generated by his huge, electricity gobbling computers is a well known side effect of their operation. So Griffin’s server farm, a division of his Mega Cyberspace Computing Company, and fields of his solar panels as far as the eye can see now surround the North Pole. (During the long winter nights Griffin imports electricity by buried cables running from electric grids far to the south.)

That Griffin was making a fortune from this facility was indisputable. And as Santa found out to his dismay, the server farm represented only the first step in Griffin’s dastardly plan to totally disrupt the status quo. And to make a fortune doing it.

Griffin began Phase Two early in December by blocking Santa’s email account, which kids the world over use to send their Christmas wish lists to the North Pole. That dark day had been enough to knock all the ho-ho out of Santa. His computer screen suddenly went all blue, and then Griffin’s list of diabolical demands popped up, written with pulsating white letters, presumably for added effect:

Your account is hereby SUSPENDED until all of the following demands are met:

1. Henceforth your sleigh will be emblazoned with LED advertising for Mega Cyberspace Computing and shall have a hundred-foot-long, lighted banner attached at the back carrying the same message.

2. You and your elves shall manufacture only digital toys and games, with first priority to those licensed by Mega Cyberspace.

3. You shall cease and desist from delivering toys and games to children for free and for their sole possession. Instead you shall only offer toys and games on a free 30-day trial, after which recipients must pay an annual subscription to Mega Cyberspace.

On reading this, Santa felt like he’d been sucker punched in his bowl full of jelly. “How will I know what the children want for Christmas!” he roared. Angry and dismayed in equal parts, he searched futilely for a little “x” to close the screen, and then hoped against hope for one of those little messages saying “Skip this” or “This ad will end in fifteen seconds.” But they were not to be found. So he tried turning off his computer and restarting. Alas, the malodorous message always returned. He did not want to even think it, but in his large and generous heart he knew: “Unless we do something, Christmas is doomed!”

When he broached the idea of meeting with Griffin to Mrs. Claus, she replied sharply, “You cannot negotiate with a cad, especially one who holds all the cards. It won’t work!”

But Santa put in the call, and Griffin readily agreed to meet at Santa’s workshop. The cad arrived later that day in a huge, lumbering Snowcat emblazoned with outsized, boldly colored images of action heroes sponsored by Mega Cyberspace. Once inside Santa’s workshop and relieved of his bulky, heavily insulated coat, Cornelius Q. Griffin proved to be a slight man in a black turtleneck shirt and green cord pants. Endowed with an oversized head, jet black hair, and green eyes that sometimes flashed yellow, he strode into the shop brimming with confidence and, strangely, a hand mike that seemed permanently attached to his left palm. All the elves in the shop suddenly stopped working and a tense silence reigned. Griffin gave Santa a weak, clammy handshake with his right hand.

“Mr. Griffin,” Santa said with none of his usual mirth, “what you want will disappoint all the little children. It will ruin Christmas!”

“Mr. Claus, you exaggerate,” he replied, speaking into the mike. “But first let me say that this conversation will be recorded for training and quality assurance purposes. Now, to address your concern: The children will still get their presents. More of them will be Mega Cyberspace toys and games, and their parents will just have to cough up more dough if they want to keep them. Why should parents only have to pay at Christmas? Mega Cyberspace needs billions of dollars to expand its digital network, to connect with everyone and have them dependent on our servers!”

“Mr. Griffin,” Santa insisted, “What about the children?”

“Mr. Claus, I have to act on behalf of my stockholders and our customers.” Bragging now, he exclaimed, “With Wi-Fi our internet ads can go into any room now. People can shop from anywhere in their house.” He grinned. “Even sitting on the can!”

Santa’s face reddened. “You must know that the heat from your computers is melting the ice beneath our feet. Your computers will sink just like the rest of us.”

“Yes, I know that, Mr. Claus, but why should I care? I’ll be very rich–and probably long gone–before that day.”

Santa pulled at his snowy white beard thoughtfully. This is going to be a hard nut to crack, he thought. “Think of the world you are creating,” Santa bellowed, then took a breath to calm himself. “Even now children spend half their life playing war and candy crush fantasies with your games, and texting, friending, tweeting, liking, and disliking–not playing together or talking to each other in person. Bombarded by your constant barrage of ads, their parents are obsessed with shopping, with always wanting to have more. Don’t you see, your kind of be-all connectedness comes at the expense of family, hearth and home, feelings of love, and personal contact between children, parents, and friends.”

“Hah! Hearth and home? Shows how out of date you are, Mr. Claus. Houses these days don’t even have fireplaces any more. Haven’t you heard? They contribute to global warming! And you couldn’t get into a modern, smart house even if they wanted you to. No chimney!”

Santa recoiled at the dare and struggled to maintain some semblance of mirth, straining every fiber of his being in the effort. Then finally he decided the only way to deal with this man was to show him the power of Christmas, of generosity and good cheer. Griffin had thrown down the gauntlet. Santa had no choice but to pick it up and meet the challenge. “All right, Mr. Griffin. Give me the address of a smart home, and I’ll bring them Christmas mirth whether they want it or not! And if I succeed, you agree to reinstate my email and drop your demands.”

Griffin’s mouth curled into an evil grin. He’d expected this and had searched Mega Cyberspace’s message traffic far and wide for a likely candidate. Cackling to himself, he thought, the old buzzard won’t even be able to get into that house, much less spread any Christmas malarkey around. At that moment he regretted not having a mustache to twirl. “Gary and Ellen Mickelson, 24 Alderson Way, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.”

That had come too easily so far as Santa was concerned. He realized it could well be a setup, but it was too late to back out now. They shook hands on the bet, and as Griffin donned his hat and coat, Santa said bravely, “I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve cheered them up.”

“You forget, Mr. Claus. I read their message traffic and–” he hesitated a moment and lowered his voice. “…and listen in to Alice-Ah, their personal assistant. I’ll know as soon as you do!” With that he laughed boisterously and departed. Going out the door he left behind a cold blast of Arctic air that made Santa shiver momentarily, oddly enough for a man so used to these frozen wastes.

Finding Mrs. Claus at the stove in her kitchen, he told her all. Unlike Santa, she could be jolly or not, and without a moment’s hesitation, she raged that Griffin was an utter scoundrel and that he’d tricked Santa into an impossible bet. Waving the wooden spoon she’d been using to stir a pot of bubbling stew, she pointed out in no uncertain terms that, “While you are off somewhere tending to this foolishness, the ice will still be melting. If you don’t do something soon, the workshop will sink to the bottom of the sea!”

“Yes, dear. I understand, dear,” he droned, as he always did when she had made a good point but he had to answer to a different problem. The ice wasn’t going to melt through for a long time. With Christmas just a few days away, the children’s lists had to take priority.

Night had descended on Wisconsin by the time Santa’s sleigh arrived unnoticed on the roof of 24 Alderson Way in Madison. Heavy snow had earlier blanketed the city and now a light snow, sparkling in the street lights, was still falling. A chill breeze ruffled Santa’s beard. Just my kind of weather, Santa thought happily. He handed over the reins his elf,  Wunorse Openslae, and cautioned, “Mind the reindeer don’t get restless while I’m gone. Don’t let them start stomping their hooves on the roof.” Almost lost among the folds of a thick blanket, little Wunorse nodded and wished Santa good luck.

Santa got out of the sleigh and stood for a moment contemplating the house. Griffin had picked well, he thought. This house was an angular ultramodern design with few windows and definitely no chimney. Probably one of those supertight, ultra-green jobs, Santa thought. There had to be a way in, a window open just a crack, a door ajar, an open damper on a kitchen or bathroom vent. That’s all Santa would need. Griffin, of course, would not know that Santa only had to think about it to change from his corporeal self to his spirit form. Wunorse knew though, and he smiled at the feeling of joy and mirth that always suffused the air around Santa when he was in spirit mode.

Santa’s spirit circled the entire house vainly searching for a way in. He was beginning to think it had been hermetically sealed and wondered, how can they breathe in there? Heading back to where the house’s heat pump churned away, Santa would have cried out, if he could have while in spirit mode. Instead he thought joyfully, there it is! and some extra mirth suffused the air around him. The recovery air damper is open, he cheered. I’m as good as in!

If you could have seen his spirit self, you’d have noticed his red cheeks brighten with joy. But Santa had not had much experience with these newfangled smart houses that are so airtight that they need mechanical blowers to pull bad air out and feed fresh air in to the house. He succeeded in getting inside an intake blower duct, but a little too late in the cycle. Santa’s spirit was merrily riding the airstream in when the blower suddenly shut down and the dampers closed. Trapped in the duct now, he would have groaned out loud–if it could have!

Sooner or later the blower will come back on, he reassured himself, so I might as well get comfortable. That, of course, didn’t take much for a spirit. And since he could hear conversations inside the house echoing in the ductwork, he decided this would be a chance to learn more about the Mickelsons and to decide how he might bring them his Christmas cheer. Moving closer to the inner damper, Santa heard Gary and Ellen arguing heatedly.

“We have to El,” Gary said angrily. “There’s no way around it. Unless we do something now, it’ll be too late! And we’ll be the cause of it.” Gary half reclined and half sat up on the large, blockish, black sofa. Their Alice-Ah personal assistant played Christmas carols, piped to speakers throughout the house, mainly for the children’s sake. Same with the sparsely decorated, artificial tree relegated to a far corner of the room. Gary and Ellen barely paid any attention to such things because, as they always said sourly, “Christmas is so commercial.” But make no mistake. The Anderson’s took their social responsibilities very seriously, perhaps too seriously. Wore them on their sleeves, so to speak. And the interior of the living room, which soared dramatically to the vaulted ceiling, was a statement as well. Walls and windows met at sharp, unusual angles and the room’s spare, minimalist furnishings gave the place a feel of contrived industrial chic, where dramatic design trumps warmth. 

“How can you say that?” she hissed. “Your priorities are all screwed up. Sometimes I wonder why I married you.”

“That’s right. Go the hateful route again,” he shot back. “What makes you think dissing me will stop global warming?”

“We’ve already spent a fortune making this house sustainable. And that Tesla cost fifty grand. Somebody else will have to do the rest. The whales are dying right now. We have to help them!” Ellen struck a self-righteous pose. This was going to be a knock down, drag out fight. The whales were her issue, and she didn’t care if Gary walked out again. Let his brother put up with him for  few days and listen to his B.S. about carbon loading. The poor whales!

This is not good, Santa thought. Moving back from the damper a bit, he discovered he could hear the voices of the Mickelson’s two children, Virginia, age eight, and Ricky, age six. The two were having a hushed conference in Ricky’s room, far from the argument raging in the living room. They sat opposite one another on Ricky’s bed, looking very worried.

“Why are they fighting again?” Ricky asked sadly.

“The whales,” Virginia answered with dismay.

“Is Dad going away again? I don’t want him to. It’s Christmas.”

“I hope not.”

“Ginny, do you think he meant it? What he said today–that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus?”

“Maybe he was just mad at Mom. I don’t know.”

Just then the damper opened and lickety-split Santa’s spirit flowed inside the house. So far as Santa was concerned, it was not a moment too soon. Heading straight to Ricky’s room, he knew what had to be done. And in that instant, Ricky brightened and exclaimed, “I know what we can do. I’ll Google, Is there a Santa Claus?” Out came his smart phone and he quickly typed in the words. Rachel watched him, impressed at how expert with the internet her little brother already was.

“Look! Here, I found something. It has your name, Ginny. It must be for you. Read it, will you?”

Virginia took the phone. “It’s an old letter, to somebody else named Virginia.”

“Oh. Is it about Santa?”

“Quiet, Ricky. I’m reading. ‘A thousand years from now…he will con-, continue to make glad the hearts of child-hood.’”

“Who?”

“Santa, stupid. Here! It says ‘Santa exists as certainly as love, gen-er-osity, dev-o-tion exist.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“Shush. There’s more. ‘How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus.’”

“Dreary? Is that bad, like what global warming will do to the world? Like Dad says?”

She struggled through the next sentences and then started reading aloud again with “‘Nobody sees Santa, but that doesn’t prove Santa doesn’t exist. You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil over the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance can push aside that curtain and view and picture the super–,’ super something. I don’t know that word.

“‘Is it all real?’” she continued reading. “‘Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.’ Here, Ricky, he says it right out: ‘No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten thousand times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.’” 

“Presents make me glad,” Ricky said happily. “But I still don’t know what Santa is.”

“I don’t understand this either. We’d better ask Mom.”

Ellen and Gary by that time had retreated to neutral corners, she in the kitchen and he to his workbench in the basement. Saving the whales was important to her sense of self-worth, she had decided, and at this moment she didn’t care if Gary went to live with his brother permanently. The sound of her two children running down the steps intruded on these thoughts. She scowled and thought, I’ve told them a thousand times, no running!  Moments later they stood before her talking over each other with plaintive cries for her attention. Her emotional compass swung suddenly from the whales to her children. She could not see Santa’s spirit follow them into the kitchen, but Ricky’s smartphone made her smile when her son showed her what he’d found.

Oh yes, Ellen remembered that famous old newspaper editorial answering a little girl named Virginia, who had asked whether Santa Claus really existed. Ellen’s father had read it to her when she was a child, and she had all but forgotten it now, though years ago she had named her own daughter Virginia partly because of it. She thought for a moment and then said, “I think we should show this to daddy. Let him explain it to you.”

Ellen went to the intercom–the whole house was wired, for convenience’s sake–and informed Gary that he needed to clear something up for his children.

His “Tell them I’m in the middle of something here. Can’t it wait?” came out harshly on the intercom.

Little Virginia and Ricky heard the irritation in his voice through the electronic static. Worried that they might get into trouble, they looked up at their mother expectantly. “No, this is pretty important,” she said. “You’d better come up to the kitchen right away.”

Responding to his still-irritated “What is it?” when he arrived at the kitchen, Ellen handed him Ricky’s smartphone. “He found this on the internet. They need you to explain it…in light of what you said this morning.” She couldn’t resist adding, “You were the one who said it was okay for him to have a smartphone.”

Gary didn’t say a word until he finished reading that old editorial column about Santa Claus, printed in the New York Sun newspaper in the late 1800s. Ellen was surprised to see him begin to smile midway through the column. His son had just brought him up short, yet he’s grinning like a Cheshire cat. What’s going on here? she wondered, feeling a bit giddy now. Santa’s spirit was smiling now.

“Ricky,” Gary said as he handed the phone back to his son, “I shouldn’t have told you Santa doesn’t exist this morning. It was wrong, I see that now. I just didn’t think and this old column you found put me straight.”

“You mean Santa does exist?”

“In a very important way, yes, son. The Santas you see in stores and on TV aren’t the real Santa. That’s what I was talking about. They only represent what Santa really is, that’s what this column you found is talking about. It’s hard to explain, but in a way it’s like your toy fire truck. Your toy only represents a real fire truck. It isn’t an actual truck.” Ricky looked confused and waited expectantly for his father to continue.

“It’s the same with feelings. When you are happy, that’s a feeling. So is being generous, like when you share your candy with your sister. And the love your mother and I feel for you. You can’t see the feeling but it’s there.” Ellen smiled warmly at that. Their fight was over and a feeling of gladness came over her. She wanted desperately to hug Gary.

“That’s what the story meant about poems, romance, love, faith,” Gary continued. “They are ways we can see the feelings, even make us have them. You’ll understand this more as you get older. But for now, you can know that Santa Claus is that happy feeling of believing good things will happen, that you are loved….” He stopped and took in the wide-eyed innocence of his two children. His smile suddenly broadened and he couldn’t resist adding “…and that you will get what you want for Christmas!”

Ricky and Virginia jumped up and down, yelling “Yay!” and “Santa is coming!” and felt certain now that they would get all they wanted for Christmas. While the youngsters rejoiced, their mother and father ended their feud with a lingering hug, so perhaps the children did. The Mickelson’s couldn’t see Santa’s spirit smiling as he disappeared into the open vent.

Santa returned to his corporeal form for the joyous sleigh ride back to the North Pole. He went directly home and told all to a greatly relieved Mrs. Claus, who had some news of her own. Santa then called Griffin with the cheerful news. “I know,” Griffin answered sourly.

“Well,” said Santa cryptically. “There is something else you should know about. Why don’t you come right over. Mrs. Claus and I will fill you in.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“No, you need to be here.”

Griffin appeared soon after in his SnowCat and, relieved of his overcoat, stood in front of Santa’s fireplace, warming himself and that microphone still attached to his left hand. “I don’t know how you did it, Mr. Claus, but you won our bet.” The microphone came up to his chin now. “I’m a man of my word and you’ll find your computer is back to normal.”

“That’s wonderful news! Children will have a very happy Christmas because of it. But I have a few things to say to you, Mr. Griffin.” Santa struck a determined pose and spoke in deliberate tones. “There are a great many wonders coming out of the digital world, but squeezing the human experience into a wire and plastering it on a flat screen is not one of them. You’ve been so busy with that, you’ve forgotten the real importance of people talking with each other face-to-face. People need that. You are so busy disrupting the world that you’ve forgotten your own humanity, and that of your victims.”

Griffin brought the microphone to his lips, responding haughtily with a deep-throated “That’s what you say.”

“There’s more, Mr. Griffin. Mrs. Claus took it upon herself to make some calls about the ice melting beneath our very feet, sir, and the Arctic Council has decided that your facility is nothing more than a bad case of greenwashing. It’s not sustainable and is contributing to global warming. You are being ordered to pack up and leave, Mr. Griffin. The North Pole is not to be your personal refrigerator any longer.”

So angry that he didn’t even bother with the microphone, Griffin sneered, “That’s a dirty trick. My computers are the future! You can’t stop us.”

“I am the past, Mr. Griffin, and at least for now, it’s caught up with you.”

Griffin grabbed his coat and angrily stomped out of Santa’s shop, never to darken that door again. Freed from Griffin’s evil clutches, Santa and his elves merrily worked long hours over the next few days to finish all the children’s Christmas lists. Christmas Eve saw a jovial Santa take off as usual from the North Pole, his sleigh loaded with toys–yes, even lots of digital toys. As always, Rudolph led the way, his nose bright as ever now. Downing a course of Super Beets supplements had restored the blood flow to that famous orb. And Santa’s ho-ho-ho! was as loud and joyful as it had ever been.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

                                                 –Bruce Wetterau