The interview of a lifetime
Someday in the next few days, this story will run in the Guymon Daily Herald, gdherald.com. I hope you enjoy. And for those questioning, not everything on here is rodeo-related.
But when you get a chance to conduct such an interview, you have to make that information public for all to see, not just those in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Merry Christmas, y'all.
By TED HARBIN
Daily Herald Staff Writer
For those who think Santa Claus just makes one trip around the world, the jolly old elf wants everyone to know that is not the case.
"This is a job that keeps me going all year-round" Santa said this week. "First off, the logistics of the Christmas Eve delivery system are a nightmare, but we've got a pretty good system going. Still, many people aren't always at their homes on Christmas Eve, so you've got to come up with another game plan."
It's those travelers that create a dilemma for St. Nick. Billions of people served each year means he must develop contingency plans for each household. What about those special children that might be at their grandparents' homes for the holiday?
"That's sometimes tricky, I'll tell you what," Santa said. "I try to adjust things per child and what that child might want.
"Let's say little Bobby is leaving a couple of days before Christmas to spend the holiday at his grandma's house. We might load up the sleigh with just a few of his presents and drop them off at his home before his family leaves for grandma's, then we'll make sure to stop by his grandma's house on Christmas Eve so that he has something from me then."
Still other children want all their gifts from Santa on Christmas. That's OK. His routine and time frame allows for adjustments to be there for the little ones as they need him.
"OK, let's be honest here," the elf said, his pipe clenched firmly between his teeth as he talked. "There are times I need to be in two places at the same time. I have learned how to make that work."
The other issue, he said, is that many families share very different traditions. For instance, the Joneses might need Santa to show up before the children go to bed on Christmas Eve, while the Smiths need Santa to deliver his goods sometime after the kids are down for the night.
"We have circumstances like that all over the world, and Guymon is no exception," Santa said. "We'll make at least two trips to Guymon this weekend, and there's a better than likely chance it could be more than that."
It takes a team to make each Christmas run smoothly for Santa, and Mrs. Claus is no exception. In fact, she takes on greater duties in the days leading up to the holiday.
"I'm the primary cook and coordinator of all our little helpers, so I've got my hands plenty full," Mrs. Claus said as she held her husband's hand. "And this guy, he eats like a bear. I'd bet he can eat in one day more than seven or eight elves combined.
"But just like a bear that hibernates in the winter, Santa Claus gets plenty of fuel in the months leading up to Christmas to help him stay fueled up, because he'll go three or four days with only cookies and milk to get him by."
And lest those who write to Santa think he doesn't celebrate the holiday named after Jesus Christ, he's here to tell you differently.
"These aren't magical powers I have where I can tell if children are good or bad or whether they're sleeping or awake," Santa said. "These are God-given talents, and I'm thankful He gave them to me.
"The gifts I provide each year are in the name of Jesus Christ, who was born on this day, the only son of God. It is only because of Him that I am given the opportunity to do this. I thank God for the people of earth, and I celebrate Jesus' birth."
But when you get a chance to conduct such an interview, you have to make that information public for all to see, not just those in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Merry Christmas, y'all.
By TED HARBIN
Daily Herald Staff Writer
For those who think Santa Claus just makes one trip around the world, the jolly old elf wants everyone to know that is not the case.
"This is a job that keeps me going all year-round" Santa said this week. "First off, the logistics of the Christmas Eve delivery system are a nightmare, but we've got a pretty good system going. Still, many people aren't always at their homes on Christmas Eve, so you've got to come up with another game plan."
It's those travelers that create a dilemma for St. Nick. Billions of people served each year means he must develop contingency plans for each household. What about those special children that might be at their grandparents' homes for the holiday?
"That's sometimes tricky, I'll tell you what," Santa said. "I try to adjust things per child and what that child might want.
"Let's say little Bobby is leaving a couple of days before Christmas to spend the holiday at his grandma's house. We might load up the sleigh with just a few of his presents and drop them off at his home before his family leaves for grandma's, then we'll make sure to stop by his grandma's house on Christmas Eve so that he has something from me then."
Still other children want all their gifts from Santa on Christmas. That's OK. His routine and time frame allows for adjustments to be there for the little ones as they need him.
"OK, let's be honest here," the elf said, his pipe clenched firmly between his teeth as he talked. "There are times I need to be in two places at the same time. I have learned how to make that work."
The other issue, he said, is that many families share very different traditions. For instance, the Joneses might need Santa to show up before the children go to bed on Christmas Eve, while the Smiths need Santa to deliver his goods sometime after the kids are down for the night.
"We have circumstances like that all over the world, and Guymon is no exception," Santa said. "We'll make at least two trips to Guymon this weekend, and there's a better than likely chance it could be more than that."
It takes a team to make each Christmas run smoothly for Santa, and Mrs. Claus is no exception. In fact, she takes on greater duties in the days leading up to the holiday.
"I'm the primary cook and coordinator of all our little helpers, so I've got my hands plenty full," Mrs. Claus said as she held her husband's hand. "And this guy, he eats like a bear. I'd bet he can eat in one day more than seven or eight elves combined.
"But just like a bear that hibernates in the winter, Santa Claus gets plenty of fuel in the months leading up to Christmas to help him stay fueled up, because he'll go three or four days with only cookies and milk to get him by."
And lest those who write to Santa think he doesn't celebrate the holiday named after Jesus Christ, he's here to tell you differently.
"These aren't magical powers I have where I can tell if children are good or bad or whether they're sleeping or awake," Santa said. "These are God-given talents, and I'm thankful He gave them to me.
"The gifts I provide each year are in the name of Jesus Christ, who was born on this day, the only son of God. It is only because of Him that I am given the opportunity to do this. I thank God for the people of earth, and I celebrate Jesus' birth."
posted by Teditor at 11:32 AM
7 Comments:
I have known for years the true secret of Santa Claus. For the first time ever It will be shared here, with your estemed readers, both of them.
Santa is a retired TIME LORD. Yes that is what I said a TIME LORD. Just like Dr. Who and other TIME LORDs he spent most of his life twiting back forth between eons and centuries and the far reaches of the unknown universe. But even TIME LORDs get the blues. He retired. But with so much time on his hands, he needed something to do. He remembered a tradition on the planet Loafer in the Tendian Gallaxy about a white bearded old gentleman that took gifts to good children all over that world once a year.
So when he moved his TARTUS to Earth for his reirement he decides to copy the legend and elaborate on it just a bit. First he goes back into the middle ages and plants the story of Saint Chris in the culture, and then he toodles up to the 19th Century and inserts the drawings of Nast and the Night Before Christmas poem into existance. Meanwhile he has rearranged his TARTUS from being the exoskeleton of a dead giant crab on Tuttiliariano, to looking like a sliegh from the 18th century Earth. Inside the TARTUS he remodled it into a workshop and shipping system for toys for good little boys and girls. He knows who's good by using an advance data mining system dumb down to Earth's computer standards. To produce the myriad of prodcuts nessecary to fullfill his scheme he hire the smallest and fastest workers acvailable in the Universe from the planet system minielves.com.. These creatures take up little space and work for almost nothing.
Santa the TIME LORD also, intervened in the 1930's to implant the colors and size of his corpulate self into the imagination of the culture by using the Coke company advertising division. He also had Gene Autry provide him with the 9th reindeer in that the population growth caused him to need some extra motive power.
So in that it takes Santa the TIME LORD actually three hundred and nintey seven days to deliver each Christmas cycle (and each cylce it gets longer) and over five years to produce the toys for it, it is a very good thing that he is a TIME LORD and can bend space and time to make it seem like he did it all in one night, otherwise Santa could only come on Christmas once a decade or so.
Oh yes, a footnote of sorts: He doesn't come down the chimney. He suspends time and has a special team of elf burglers open your front door and brings the gifts in that way.
And one more thing about the Reindeer... well that's another story.
OK, OK, OK, I made my story up.
Teditors is real.
OK, drlobojo, I'm not sure I get it. Is Santa a Klingon?
:-)
Wow. Those are BOTH great yarns! :-)
A Klingon, no, TIME LORDs have no religion, they are Galifrians.
http://hadleyblog.blogspot.com/2005/03/mh-doctor-who-and-symbols-of-christ.html
But did you get Santa's mugshot??
No, he prefered to give us an old handout photo, but we have a policy against using those that are more than 100 years old.
So we went without. He really doesn't look like he's aged a bit, but that long hair and beard seem to cover up a lot.
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