How Rudolph Saved Christmas and Became Dictator of the North Pole

**Trigger warning: Death of Santa. Suggestive humor. Not intended for children.**

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Mrs. Santa Claus, Widow of the Decedent

Everybody thinks they know the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but all they know is the sanitized version of a fairy tale promoted by Hollywood and Wall Street to sell toys and such.

Now I’m not saying Rudolph didn’t have a shiny nose. Good Lord, you could see him coming from miles away what with that lighthouse beacon flashing like the light on the nose of a steam locomotive coming at you.

I suppose I could have chosen those words better considering everything that happened that night.

I just need to tell this.

Let’s just say everybody knows that Rudolph has a very shiny nose and that it glows. We all know that story. We hear it every Christmas because there’s big money riding on that version of Rudolph’s life. 

The song is the official anthem up here now — the Gene Autry version. We hear it every morning when the work begins, and when it blares through Christmas village everyone stops what they’re doing and stands still. Creepy I call it.

Look. This place. I don’t know about it. They call it assisted living; I call it house arrest. Shh. Whisper. Rudy has people listening. And tells people I don’t have Alzheimers and that there is no way I’m going to commit suicide. Can you read Morse Code? Look at my eyes blinking. No? No matter. Just whisper.

It’s true that the other reindeer made Rudolph’s life hell. Pardon my French; my mother always said that when she let something slip. How that woman could cuss. Learned it when she was a dancer in Chi-town as she always called it, but that’s another story.

The long and the short of it is Rudy — that’s what we called him back then — was born with a birth defect and was tormented about it. 

They call it Apasis. It rarely happens, maybe once in every 900 million reindeer. They tell me it happens when two passive genes get together and then two other passive genes get together. 

That was another cause for the reindeer to tease Rudy. They said his parents were brother and sister and so were his grandparents.

Frankly, I always wondered about those two myself, always going off into the snow drifts together. One day they up and left, said they were going where their love was appreciated and abandoned little Rudy. He had it rough growing up.

I want to make this clear. I’m all for accommodating folks with unique needs. They can’t help it, bless their hearts. But, by jinky, some things can’t be ignored. That nose. It would not stop flashing. It gave some elf kids epileptic fits.

Rudy would come strolling through Christmas village and little kids would drop to the ground having seizures. That can be dangerous.

Of course, some of them were just faking it for a little fun, part of the teasing you see. They’d go shouting, “Run everybody! Rudy’s coming!” You can imagine how that made him feel. 

It got to where even the adult elves shooed their kids away and ran. They weren’t shunning him like he was a leper walking down the road with a bell around his neck; they were protecting their children.

But the story spread that people were shunning Rudolph because of his disability. You know how people are. Always willing to believe the worst about anybody. Makes for a better story. 

Still. His nose was a nuisance.

I recall the time when old Grunter died — must have been 200 years old if he was a day. Never cared for that elf, always grunting. Wouldn’t say much. If he wanted something he’d just point at it like you needed to read his mind. If you weren’t looking at him when he was pointing he’d grunt to get your attention.

Santa said to humor him because he was so old, but is it too much to ask that someone show a little common courtesy?

Anyway, Grunter finally up and died and because of his standing here in the village, everybody turned out for the funeral. Old Isaac, who died not long after, preached the funeral service.

At the end of every paragraph of the sermon, there would be a flash which lit up the room like a lightning strike. Red, too. People were turning their heads or pretending not to notice. One kid had an epileptic fit.

And what about “reindeer games”? Reindeer love to play hide and seek. Doesn’t every youngster love to play?

Rudolph never won. Not once. He was always found first. And then to make matters worse ,he would whine about it. Kids don’t like a whiner. He kept saying it wasn’t fair — which I guess it wasn’t. But life isn’t fair, is it? We just have to deal with it.

Sometimes, the reindeer pretended that they didn’t see his nose flash, but Rudolph knew they were doing that, and it seemed to make him more resentful.

Eventually he just quit playing with them. I’m no psychologist, but consider how the bullying affected Rudolph. He became withdrawn, lonely, sad, sullen, antisocial.

He resented everyone calling him “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”. Isn’t Rudolph enough without adding all of that? Why make a person’s birth defect so prominent? Would you call a man born with one arm “Joe the one-armed man”? Or “Bob the crippled guy”?

I’m not saying that Santa and I could not have done more. We should have. I can see that.

But I do know this: Fate intervened. That Christmas Eve, Rudy had his chance. But he missed it. He missed the chance to change his life in a good way and Santa and all the reindeer on the A-team lost their lives.

Say, next time you visit, could you bring me a carton of cigarettes — Virginia Slims if they got ‘em? Rudolph makes me roll my own; cheaper he says.

Elmo Smithers: Elf Yeoman First Class

I was Santa’s personal secretary; where he went I went with a pad of paper and a stubby pencil with an unused eraser because that’s the kind of guy I am. I probably wouldn’t be alive today if I made mistakes.

I know things and, more importantly, I know how to keep my mouth shut about the things I know. 

For one, I wasn’t foolish enough to hop into that sleigh Christmas Eve and charge off into a winter storm dropping snowflakes so heavy with ice you could hear them hit the ground. See what I mean? I’m smart that way. 

I knew Santa all right. When the Big Man would give that little almost-cough of his I knew that he wanted a glass of water. When he cleared his throat, but didn’t say anything, I knew to get my steno pad. He was going to dictate somebody a letter.

When— Heck, let’s just put it this way, I knew where he kept his special list of bad girls like that beautician in Peoria — Gretchen — or that stripper in Reno, Tiffany.

Oh yeah, I know everything and everybody knows I know it. See that’s the problem. Everybody knew I was smart — real smart — even Rudolph or Rudy as we called him back then. So I can tell you this, after all hell broke loose I was smart enough to hop on the first freight sleigh outta’ there. 

I got the goods on the whole situation up there at the North Pole and why everything happened like it did because I was there when Rudy got the chance to make his big play.

The first thing you have to do is get over the reality that I’m an elf. If you can believe in flying reindeer this shouldn’t be a problem for you. If it is a problem, I don’t have the time to explain it, nor the patience. Like I said, I got to keep moving at least until Rudy forgets about me.

You know what the first words Rudolph spoke when Santa asked him for help that night? “Kiss my ass Santa!” You heard me — first words out of his mouth.

The old man didn’t say anything. Surprised, I guess. Just like me. I was standing just outside Rudy’s igloo having a smoke; I could hear them fine.

“Yeah, big man,” this is Rudy talking now, “when you need some help you come to see old Rudy. Where were you when I was being subjected to years of abuse and bullying?”

Why the attitude? I’ll tell you. Anger at the other reindeer for their treatment of him obviously, but it was more than that; it was anger anchored in the years of Santa’s neglect, his failure to protect Rudy from all the other reindeer who I must confess were a bunch of malignant a-holes.

“Without us, there is no Christmas! Period,” Dasher told me once when I asked him to lay off nibbling on people’s shrubs while Santa was inside delivering the goods. There’d been complaints, and Blitzen ratted on him. Of course, Santa did nothing about it. The man never chewed out anyone. Conflict avoidance personality if you ask me. 

All those reindeer were arrogant. Bring anything up to them and each one of them would retort with how important they were and how everything relied on them like the North Pole didn’t have 10,000 souls working all year long to make gifts for the world’s children. — And something dainty or sparkling for the bad girls on Santa’s naughty list.

Yeah, they were important, but this is what happens when some people get too fired up about themselves. You can see how they would mistreat Rudy.

They assigned him all the dirty jobs. KP, hoof pedicures, and latrine duty. It was bad enough that Rudy got all the undesirable jobs, but these jerks had to taunt him about it.

“We do the flying and heavy lifting; it’s only fair that you pull your weight around here! Weight in manure! Har! Har! Har!” And they sounded just like that when they laughed. Real jerks.

More than once I’d seen them accidently kick over Rudy’s wash pail and then laugh about it.

Remember Fredo in The Godfather? That’s how they treated Rudy. “Rudy, bring me a grape. Rudy, scratch my back. Rudy, go away until we call for you.”

Anyway, when Rudy told Santa to kiss his ass, I eased over to listen closer outside the door. 

“You knew about it. You knew how they were treating me,” Rudy said. “You had to know. How could you have missed it?” Rudy coughed out every one of those bile-laden words. 

The boy was right. Santa had to have seen something. All of us could see that there was something wrong with the boy.

“Rudy, I’ve been busy with Christmas and all the world’s children,” Santa said.  I—”

Rudy cut him off. “Don’t give me that. You know who’s been naughty or nice. You even keep a list.”

“But Rudy—” Santa was behind schedule and needed to get airborne. An argument was the last thing he needed right then.

“Don’t ‘but’ me Santa. You know who the bad kids are out of the billions on earth, and you’re trying to tell me you don’t know what’s happening in your own backyard?” Rudy’s shouting now, words spilling out of him. “I’ve been on KP duty and latrine detail for all the years I’ve been in service, abused and bullied and tormented by the Big Boys, and never, never would you bother to talk to me.”

Santa knew Rudy was right. He had been too busy. “We can take you off those duties—”

“Yeah? I guess you can. You could have all along. You could have told your precious reindeer to stop persecuting me. You could have done a lot of things, but you didn’t Santa. You chose not to!”

“Let me try to make it up to you. Things’ll be different. You’ll see.” I could tell Santa was feeling the Christmas clock ticking.

Rudy hesitated but he couldn’t give in. The hurt was too deep. Santa was asking for something the boy would only be able to give after a boatload of counseling from a professional, maybe even an anger management course. That would take months, maybe years.

“But—”

“Piss off Santa!”

“I was just thinking that maybe we could pay for you to have counseling.”

That did it. Rudy exploded in a string of curses I can’t even repeat. Then silence. Santa, no doubt, was stunned. The old man was not only surprised, he was tired. I knew him well enough that I could imagine him removing his cap and running his fingers through his hair the way he did when he was confronted with a frustrating problem. Santa tried again.

“Rudy. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Sit on it Santa!”

“Be reasonable Rudy—”

“Stop calling me Rudy. My name’s Rudolph. The guy with the shiny nose whose help you need so you’ve come here to ask me to guide you even though you never bothered to notice me before.”

“Is there nothing I can do or say to entice you to change your mind?”

“A team of mules couldn’t drag me out of my igloo.”

“Where is your Christmas spirit?”

“Get out!” Rudy shouted. “I hope you all freakin’ die.”

Portentous words. Portentous.

I heard Santa coming to the door, so I rushed over to a wall across the alley and pretended to be taking a leak.

The old man came out and stood at the door a moment and ran his fingers through his hair; I could tell he was worried. He didn’t even look for me. Maybe he forgot that I was even there.

With just about everything built out of ice and few trees around, thousands of men relieving themselves against ice walls could cause some serious structural damage. We’d been discouraging the practice. Of course, the reindeer, the males anyway, didn’t think the rules applied to them. 

I spoke up like I didn’t just overhear anything. “Sorry Santa, I really had to go.”

I don’t know if Santa was just overcome or mad that my urine stream had damaged the foundation of the igloo. We returned to headquarters without a word spoken. 

Then, when everything started unfolding like it did, I slipped out of Dodge to save my you-know-what, and I never went back.

I never stay in one place too long now, and I always look over my shoulder for trouble. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jumped in fright at the silhouette of a garden gnome at night. Remember what happened to Trotsky? Literally got the axe or ice pick in his head, I can’t remember, and I don’t want to find out.

Otis Briggs: Elf Air Traffic Control First Class

See these stripes? I didn’t get them because I don’t know what I’m talking about.

This was my 75th Christmas launch, and I was senior air traffic controller — a post I got after my mentor retired years ago. I was senior for sure, but I also was very good at handling the launching of the sleigh every time Santa returned for a load of toys and a new flight path briefing to another continent. Merit meant something back then.

There was only that one launch that night, at least with Santa. I heard the last words Santa spoke.

I was there on the launch pad and watched him take up the reins, turn and smile at everybody like he was taking in the scene for the last time. Up, up they went, Santa, sleigh and flying reindeer, straight up like a helicopter. They never used a runway, which makes sense when you think about it since they usually landed on roof tops. 

Fifty feet up and you couldn’t see them, but I heard Santa shout: “Onward Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen!” And they were gone all silent-like with us just standing there with our faces to the sky and snowflakes the size of Maple leaves coming down like rain with that deadening cold stinging our toes and fingers like bees.

Santa made surprisingly good progress out of the North Pole despite the weather conditions. I tracked his course on a big board in the office. Not me personally; there’s about 20 of us up there with headphones and visors and the trainees putting these little red cutouts up on a big-ass map.

Things went bad over Canada. Those big thunderheads coming out of the Midwest are bastards, but you know how it is. Christmas arrives on a specific date. You can’t just call it off when the weather’s bad like they do airplane flights.

“Can’t see a thing,” Santa reported over the radio. “Snow is thick as fog — covering us like a blanket.” Over the Great Lakes, the winds were howling now so he had to shout: “Tarnation! Snow’s hitting us like birdshot now. Sideways!”

He said something about sensing anxiety and hesitation from the reindeer through the reins. Me and the boys could hear him shouting: “Onward Blitzen! Onward Comet!”

Afterwards, the guys said they could tell that he was trying to get in the mood, the spirit of the occasion, but after decades of listening to Santa over the radio, I could tell the old man was scared.

Santa’s luck ran out over Michigan. God dropped the hammer on him.

A Boeing 747 on its way to Vancouver collided with Santa and his reindeer. We believe the wing decapitated the first six reindeer in their harnesses.

“Blitzen is— Headless!” Santa shrieked.

Blitzen was number six in the line-up that night, so we figure the first six reindeer were toast.

The sleigh and flight crew would have shot forward in a relatively straight flight because of their supersonic momentum. 

There is a reason Santa has twelve reindeer to pull his sleigh full of the world’s toys through the night. It’s heavy. With six headless reindeer adding their deadweight to the mix — I guess that’s a pun, but I didn’t mean that — well, that extra weight proved too much for the rest of the flight team.

Considering what we saw later at the crash site, we believe the front of the thing dropped down, pulling the nose straight down. The craft most likely went into an uncontrollable dive. We could hear it over the radio whining like in those war movies when the wind whistles over a fighter plane’s wings as it dives.

Santa’s last words were: “Shitfire!” 

Then nothing. That’s all we knew.

Elmo Smithers, Elf Yeoman First Class, Again

Flight control interrupted the Christmas carols playing over the speakers positioned throughout the North Pole complex: “We interrupt—” I can’t recall ever hearing a thing like that before. I’ll never forget where I was: in the cantina having a couple of Old Fashioneds.

Things are real relaxed on Christmas Eve after the toys are all done. Just the logistical engineers, the payload guys, loadmasters, and such are busy.

Everybody else is starting to party. If you don’t get laid the rest of the year, you will on Christmas Eve at the North Pole.

A couple of elves named Buelah and Lurleen were eyeing me from down the bar. I was doing my best to ignore them. After everything that happened that day, I just wanted to brood about it all, get on a good drunk. Besides, let’s say I already knew Lurleen and I didn’t want to know her any better. 

And that’s when we got the news about the crash. I was stunned of course. I sat there with my mouth open until someone spoke to me over my shoulder. Rudy.

“Good thing you didn’t accompany Santa on the trip,” Rudy said to me. “You’re always with him.” He said it in a way that sounded sorta’ menacing, and it gave me the chills. I think he was wondering whether I overheard his argument with Santa, trying to figure out if I was a witness who would tell everybody that he could have prevented this disaster with his shiny nose.

And his nose glowed right then and I flinched. Who wouldn’t when that thing goes off in your face like a camera flash?

I said “yeah” and tried to look away but Rudy had such a fix on my eyes. Right about that time Rudolph’s nose blinks on again and breaks the spell. So I jammed my hands in my pocket and slid off the stool like I was going to leave, but Rudy stepped in front of me.

Now that I look back and think about it, maybe putting my hands in my pocket was symbolic of me stowing away what I knew, you know, keeping it to myself, at least for now. I’m smart enough to know when to play it cool. Rudy was one crazy bastard and I did not want him focusing on me.

Then behind me someone said, “Too bad he didn’t ask Rudolph to lead them safely through the fog.”

“It’s a shame isn’t it, Elmo?” Rudy said, but he really didn’t expect me to answer.

Nobody ever said anything about Santa’s visit to Rudy’s igloo earlier in the evening. Santa must have been so troubled by the interview that he kept it to himself. Maybe Santa didn’t have time to mention it or he wanted to study about it. Or maybe, Santa knew he had done Rudy wrong and didn’t want people to think about that.

This big, burly elf rushes in and shouts, “Rudolph! Will you lead our rescue mission?”

“Hear! Hear!” someone shouts and another says: “Hoorah for Rudolph!”

Everybody turns to Rudolph who is smiling like nobody’s business.

“If I can be of service, of course I’ll go,” he said like he was happy to make a beer run or something. Real cool-like.

They had a rescue mission formed up in minutes; you know how productive elves can be when they get down to business. A spare sleigh and some back-up flying reindeer were soon in harness and ready to go.

I call those back-up reindeer the B-string because they are always available to step up when somebody on the A-team gets sick or injured like that time Blitzen got the clap. They called it mononucleosis, but I knew better because I handle the paperwork for all insurance claims.

“I want you to take care of this personally, Elmo,” Santa would say and wink at me. I’m thinking about that when Rudolph said, “You coming, Elmo? Somebody needs to keep a record of everything they’ve seen — and ever heard.” I’m thinking he wanted to keep me near. I figured I was safe enough since I’d be in the sleigh, so I went.

We found the crash site easy enough. With Rudolph’s nose ablaze we saw everything we needed to see: twelve reindeer butts and hind legs sticking out of the ground, lifeless of course; bits and pieces of the sleigh, nothing bigger than a matchbook cover; ribbons hanging from scraggly trees; and paper scattered around an area the size of one of your football fields, all curled up like potato chips.

We just stood there absorbing the horror.

“Worst disaster I’ve ever seen Frank,” this one elf with a beard stained with tobacco juice says to the old guy next to him. This second guy pulls a small piece of cedar out of his pocket, opens a small knife and begins to shave off tiny curls of wood which drop to the ground.

“They hit hard,” the whittler says, nodding at the reindeer butts sticking out of the ground. “Augured in, looks like.” 

“If they’d drove in a little further, there wouldn’t be no need to bury ‘em,” another elf says. “I say we heap dirt over their rear-ends in a mound and call it a burial.”

And Santa?

We never found him — and then we sorta’ did. Nobody wanted to say it. They figure the sleigh  — with Santa in it — broke away on impact and dashed itself to pieces. Disintegrated.

We collected all of the scraps of red velvet, the tufts of white beard, and other particulates we could find in a big plastic bag, called it Santa and returned to base at the North Pole.

That was a long flight back, longer than the flight out. All the adrenaline was gone and replaced with dread. Nobody said anything. Meanwhile, I’m watching the back of Rudolph’s head and ever so often he turns and looks at me over his shoulder.

Bernie Pardue, Chief Elf Loadmaster

I’m a chief loadmaster; got forty guys and ten interns working for me on the launch pad, crane operators, forklift specialists — you name it — and all of ‘em wearing tunics with colors for their particular crews. They move around the launch pad like them history people in white wigs dancing a waltz or whatever. It’s beautiful to watch.

We can load a sleigh in less than one minute. I’d like to see my guys go up against one of those NASCAR pit crews. I got six sleighs ready by the time Santa returns, all of them correctly loaded and precisely scheduled for the next round of delivery. We work fast.

But everything broke down after we heard the news. There was mass confusion at the pad that night for the first time I can remember.

Everybody turned out for the return of the rescue sleigh, spilling onto the pad and yelling questions like a lynch mob trying to figure out who was to be lynched and where they could be found.

“Where’s Santa?!” and “What happened?!”

They look over to where these three guys are dragging this huge garbage bag with a big red and green bow on it, which they must have picked up at the site of the crash. They were really straining so there must have been a lot of Santa in there.

The wailing started with that.

Then someone shouts: “What about Christmas?!”, breaking the spell. 

“Thank God this was just the first load,” someone else says.

“We can replace that while the other loads are being delivered,” another guy pops off.

Everybody just looks at him like they’re asking: “We could?”

You’ve got to give credit to elves for our sense of purpose, our capacity to organize and prioritize. It’s like OCD or something.

“Let’s do it for Santa!” they shouted. “Hoorah!”

And the guy who shouted the loudest? Rudolph. 

“Thank goodness we have someone to lead the B-team, to make sure they can see their way safely through the foggy night,” someone shouts.

Everybody, I mean everybody, looks at Rudolph.

“I exist to be of service to the North Pole, to Santa’s memory, and to all the world’s children,” Rudolph says. 

Everybody starts cheering Rudolph again. Maybe no one else noticed it, but I did. Rudy looked at Elmo and nodded.

“Let’s go! Is my team ready?” Rudolph asks like he’s their boss or something.

The team included Wally, the reindeer whose tongue was always hanging out of his mouth, and Norm, the cross-eyed reindeer.

Then Rudolph turns to Elmo. “You coming along tonight?”

“Uh no,” Elmo says. “Got to get to work on the insurance papers.” He turns around and walks away with his hands jammed in his pockets.

Rudolph watches him for a long time. Something going on there. Not sure what. No time to think about all that anyway.

Wally, the Reindeer Whose Tongue Hangs Out of His Mouth

I can’t help it if my tongue just naturally hangs out the side of my mouth. I was born that way. I can tuck it in, but as soon as I stop thinking about it, there it goes, lolling around like a flag on a day with no breeze.

There’s a name for that, but I can’t remember what it is. Genetics, they say. Fortunately, I’m a big guy, and if anybody makes fun of me they’re likely to get a hoof upside the head faster than you can say “Kris Kringle”.

I was on the reindeer B team on account of that tongue situation. So is Norm, the cross-eyed reindeer — and that Billie-Jo who says her goldfish talks to her when no one else is around. And Trudy, a real looker, that one.

That does seem odd to me since Trudy is never called upon to do any work except entertain Dasher, Blitzen, or Comet all night…

Anyway, Rudolph did his part that Christmas Eve — maybe more than his part — seven missions, one to each continent. He was unstoppable. We’d finish a continent and return for another load, all of us reindeer snorting and stamping our hooves, dragging in great gusts of air, our muzzles lathered with foam which fell to the ground in great gouts.

Except for our gasping and the creaking whine of our harnesses, the reloading was done in silence, everybody still in shock over Santa’s accident. The Big Man wasn’t there to shout, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” and get everybody all worked up with the spirit.

I thought I might have a chance with Trudy after proving myself like I done that night, but she looked all hung up on Rudolph, sidling up to him every chance she got and cooing: “Rudolph you’re so strong. How do you pull all of those heavy loads through the air?” He’s looking like “Aw shucks.”

And, I’m thinking, ‘Well first of all, he doesn’t do it by himself Trudy. I’m standing right here doing it too.’ Honestly, I don’t look so bad when I remember to tuck my tongue back into my head. And Rudolph has a red nose. For goodness’ sake, how do you sleep with that beacon going off every few minutes right in front of your eyes?

The next morning we collapsed in our igloos.

There was fresh snow everywhere; this is important. 

When I woke up each one of my legs was splayed in a different direction. I don’t think I ever moved all night which was a problem for me because my tongue froze to the floor of my stall. It took me 30 minutes to get it loose without tearing off skin.

I went around to Trudy’s igloo with a strong cup of her favorite coffee. You know, just a friendly, Merry Christmas ‘how-ya-doin’ call. When I looked at the snow in front of her doorway there was a trail of hoofprints leading one-way to another igloo, an igloo that kept lighting up like a giant flashing red light bulb laying on the ground.

Suitable color if you ask me. I spilled that coffee right there in the snow, and it melted a big hole which gave me an idea, so I went over to Trudy’s igloo and hiked a leg.

Edward Baxter, Chief Financial Officer

The Executive Committee of which I’m a member held an emergency session on Christmas Day. There’re five members, and we usually meet once a year to discuss things except when there’s a crisis to deal with.

The executive committee appointed Rudolph as Acting Director of the North Pole since someone had to replace Santa. He’d served as a benevolent dictator for as long as anyone could remember. 

And someone had to be the supreme leader, at least temporarily, and everybody agreed that Rudolph had earned it. Didn’t any of us see anything wrong with that at the time. We should have remembered who else in history had been “acting director”, a certain person who went by the name of Napoleon. 

“Rudolph feels awful about not being asked to lead Santa and the other reindeer,” says Ethel Miller, Trudy the reindeer’s aunt.  

“It wasn’t his fault. Everybody knows the other reindeer treated him like crap,” says Willie Gaines. He’s always agreeing with Ethel like that’s never going to do him any good with her. 

“Rudy is a victim as much as anybody,” says Ethel.

Of course, Willie had to shout “Here! Here!” 

That’s how this started out and you can imagine everybody had something nice to say about Rudy, him being a hero and all. I guess that was only natural since Santa had turned in his dinner pail.

Ethel says, “If it hadn’t been for Rudolph, Christmas would have been lost to the world forever.”

“Yeah, you can’t just skip a year and expect no one to notice,” Willie says.

In the end, the committee named Rudolph as Acting Director. 

“We can keep everything going like before and we’ll just pretend that Santa is still alive,” Ethel says.

And that’s what happened. Rudy was ensconced in Santa’s office before I even checked in the next morning. So was Trudy the reindeer.

I walk in, and Trudy is curled up on the couch painting her hooves. Rudy’s got his head down over a sheaf of papers on the desk. Never looks up. Even when I stood there a full 30 seconds and said “Ahem” twice.

“Someone to see you boss,” Trudy says. She doesn’t look up either. 

Rudy sees me looking at Trudy and says: “Trudy has volunteered to help me get a handle on this paperwork.”

“How do you like this color? I hope it compliments my appearance,” Trudy says and holds her hooves out for me to see.

“Very nice,” I say as sincerely as I can. Obviously, I was going to have to get used to the new dynamic.

“Where’s Gert?” I ask. She’d been Santa’s office manager for as long as I remember.

“Gone. She decided to retire,” Rudy says.

“I just came to see if you needed any help crunching the numbers this morning.”

“I think it would sound better to call me King Rudolph,” he says. “Easier to say than acting director, and it’s more fitting for such a prestigious office.”

What do you say to that? Nothing. Under the circumstances, it isn’t worth the botheration — or maybe you need to at least mention it to other people before you bring it up for discussion.

“Have you seen Elmo Smithers?” King Rudolph says.

“Not recently.”

“If you see him, bring him to the office. I need a chat with him.”

“Sure.” That didn’t sound like a question, not a “will you” or “if you please”.

“One thing,” he says, kind of like an afterthought. “We have anybody on the payroll who can handle a disciplinary problem? Somebody big and loyal? I was thinking about some of the guys down at the warehouse for example.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll take a look.”

He returned to his papers, and I guess I was dismissed.

Things were never what you thought they were up there at the North Pole. I’m not saying Santa was a bad guy. He did deliver toys to kids which was a fine thing, but he had his peculiarities. I kept the unofficial books. Someone had to keep up with Santa’s real estate and stock investments, his massive petty cash account, the gifts he made to special political friends

And he had that naughty list with all the names of the bad girls who got lumps of coal all right — coal in the form of compressed cubic zirconium. You think all these elves up here spent their time making plastic ‘Little Princess’ jewelry?

The reindeer had a running joke. When Santa landed on the roofs of some girls’ houses and shouted “Ho! Ho! Ho!” he meant it, and they were going to be having a little rest break, stamping their feet and what not to keep warm while Santa took care of business below. 

I can’t say that I blame Santa. Igloos weren’t the only thing frozen up there in the North Pole, if you know what I mean.

I wish I had 10 percent of the gold and ice that passed through Santa’s off-the-books workshop.

Still there is an old saying: Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered.

I just need to be satisfied with the cash that made its way to a trust fund under my dear mother’s name down in Miami.

Oink. Oink

King Rudolph The First

You know why a small operation way up in the frozen north can provide the world’s billions with gifts? Think about it. Toys, skateboards, jewelry, grilling tools for dad, some sucker’s socks, and underwear — whatever.

Extreme efficiency. Not just on Christmas Eve but twenty-four-seven — all year long.

You don’t get that kind of efficiency with committees and legislatures. You need one voice at the top to tell everybody what to do and how to do it. And you need a bunch of big, loyal guys from the warehouse gang to make sure people understand the importance of doing what you tell them to do.

With Santa and the so-called A-team gone, it just made sense that somebody had to step up and run things. With my background and everything I’ve endured, I was tough enough to handle the stress that comes with this job. I think everyone realized that I was practically a natural.

And since I grew up with a lot of “me time” thanks to being shunned, I passed the time reading. And, I retain what I read. See? I know things nobody knows if they ever knew them at all.

So I took the job when they begged me to be their leader. Of course, loyalty is fickle isn’t it? In the past few months, I’ve worked some deals with the big box stores and spread the green around where it mattered. Lots of people are pretty loyal to me now. 

Things will be different around here; we’re going to expand. I just got off the phone with the big guy at the biggest shipper in the world — other than us, of course. Our reindeer are going to start delivering gifts for birthdays, baby showers, celebrations of every kind. No need to let those guys sit idle for 364 days a year.

Don’t take this wrong, but with essentially slave labor in the North Pole we could manufacture all manner of products, and with flying reindeer we can deliver those items overnight right into people’s houses without them knowing it. With practically no overhead, our profit margin will be about 95 percent. 

We’ll offer Mr. Trillionnaire bigger and bigger deals until we’re delivering about 90 percent of his business. At that point I anticipate making him an offer he can’t refuse for ownership of those big shipping centers. I’ll send some of the warehouse gang down to his mansion to deliver my proposal. 

All we need is for people to get along up here. Loyalty is what we need, not dissension, which reminds me. Heard anything from Elmo Smithers? I sure miss him.

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If you’re looking for more Christmas stories and fun, check out these tales.

• Twas the Night Before Christmas at the Black Orb – Narrative Poetry
• Man in the Shadows – Christmas Eve Fiction
• Chorus of the Waiting – Christmas Eve Speculative Fiction
• Nochebuena – Christmas Eve Essay
• Flury: Journey Of A Snowman – Book Review
• Ronin: The Last Reindeer – Book Review
• Claus, the Legend of the Fat Man – Book Review
• Humbug, The Unwinding Of Ebenezer Scrooge – Book Review
• Reindeer – Christmas Flash Fiction