Fritzgerald,
Christmas Elf-in-Chief
Everyone knows who Santa Claus
is. He’s the jolly old elf who lives in
the North Pole and delivers toys to children all over the world. Someone you may not know, however, is one of
Santa’s top elves: Fritzgerald Figgypudding.
Fritzgerald, or “Fritz” to his friends, looks just like any old elf with
pointed ears, a short stature, and a high-pitched voice, but unlike the other
elves, Fritzgerald is the oldest and most trusted of Santa’s agents. The following tale is about how Fritzgerald
helped Santa save Christmas.
November
25th. 5:30 a.m. Santa’s House.
Santa woke up one late autumn
morning that seemed like any other day.
After eating his oatmeal breakfast and donning his traditional red and
white suit, he sat down in his study to check e-mail messages. Among his routine correspondence were updates
from toy production managers, retail store presidents, and other advisors who
informed Santa about market trends and product availability.
Suddenly,
without warning, Santa’s elf phone rang.
“Santa, it’s Fritzgerald,” Santa’s
elf-in-chief announced.
“Good morning, Fritzgerald!” Santa
exuberantly proclaimed. “How are
things?”
“Bad news from North America, I’m
afraid” Fritzgerald lamented. “The
United States Postal Service has gone on strike. That means no mail delivery.”
“Oh ho ho no!” St. Nick
blubbered. “What’s the meaning of all
this striking when Christmas is just a month away! The three weeks after Thanksgiving are when I
receive most of my Christmas lists from children around the world!”
“I know, Santa,” Fritzgerald
sighed. “The United States Congress has
cut spending across the board to reduce its national debt. Unfortunately, the Postal Service was one of
the departments hardest hit by the cuts.
To protest the cuts, the Postal Service has closed post offices across
the country until further notice. This
has never happened before in American history.”
Santa stroked his snow-white beard
in anxious contemplation.
“Oh dear,” the unjolly old elf
puzzled. “Almost half of the world’s
mail comes from the US. If mail delivery
doesn’t continue soon, I won’t be getting many Christmas lists, and that will
make for millions of unhappy children who will wake up Christmas morning with
nothing under their Christmas trees. I
can’t bear the thought of Christmas being ruined because of pointless political
games.”
Santa sighed and paused. Indeed, nothing like this had ever happened
before. Santa had faithfully delivered
toys to children around the world for over 1,600 years. Many events occurred throughout the centuries
to stymie his good work, though nothing on the magnitude of a strike by the United
States’ entire postal service. With over
500 million pieces of mail processed each day at over 31,000 offices across the
country, the US Postal Service was a global parcel juggernaut that Santa had come
to rely on since its founding in 1775.
Santa worked closely with the Service’s first Postmaster General,
Benjamin Franklin, to ensure the speedy delivery of children’s Christmas lists
to the North Pole from 1775 onward.
“Fritzgerald, what should we
do? If I don’t start receiving lists by
December 1st, it will be impossible for our elves to prepare the
toys necessary for all the children of the world. Every day we don’t receive lists we fall
behind by hundreds of thousands of orders.”
Fritzgerald scratched his bald head
as he sucked on a candy cane. The old
elf-in-chief had reduced his candy cane habit from three boxes a day to just
one. However, after today, he was almost
certain that his candy cane consumption would dramatically increase until the
post office crisis, or Christmas, ended, whichever came first.
“Well, Santa, I think the first
thing we should do is inform the entire workshop of this dilemma. An informed workforce is an empowered
workforce. Second, I think I should go
to Washington, DC and personally address the President and congressional
leaders. Third, if diplomacy fails, I
think we should seriously consider deploying the Elf Emergency Postal Response
Team that we planned in the 1860s during the American Civil War.”
“Oh!” Santa perked up. “I had totally forgotten about EEPRT. Ho ho ho!
That was your idea, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir!” Fritzgerald smiled. “Of course, we never had to deploy the plan,
so the details are rusty, but I will have my assistant find the old manuals
right away. In the meantime, I will
assemble all the elves at 0700 hours so you can address them.”
“Thank you, Fritzgerald,” Santa
sighed with some relief. “You’re spot
on, as always!”
“My pleasure, Santa. Fritzgerald over and out.”
November
25th. 7:00 a.m. Santa’s Workshop – Auditorium.
100,000 elves convened in the
spacious gathering hall of Santa’s Workshop after hearing Fritzgerald’s loudspeaker
announcement about an important address from Santa. The elves took their seats and patiently
awaited their boss’s arrival. At 7:01
a.m., Santa came huffing onto the auditorium stage and stood before a podium
with a microphone.
“My fellow elves, I have some news
that concerns us all. Do not be upset
right now, because what I am about to say will not immediately impact us. However, if the problem continues beyond this
week, then we will have to start worrying.
The United States Postal Service has gone on strike. None of its offices will be processing or
delivering mail.”
A deafening sea of gasps and chatter
arose like a clatter. Santa threw up his
arms to calm the multitude.
“Please, everyone! Be calm.
As we speak, Elf-In-Chief Fritzgerald is on his way to the United States
to speak with the President and congressional leaders. I have high hopes that Fritzgerald will talk
some sense into America’s politicians.
If that doesn’t work, however, I will have no choice but to deploy our
Elf Emergency Postal Response Team, or EEPRT.
EEPRT has never been used before, but if we do have to deploy it, I
expect that each and every one of you will do what you can to ensure the safe
and timely delivery of Christmas lists to the North Pole so that we can make
and gather Christmas toys for every child!”
The elves broke out in cheer and
applause. Many of them had never heard
of EEPRT because it was a top secret emergency project that Santa and
Fritzgerald hatched some 150 years ago but never had to use. In fact, Santa and Fritzgerald never had to
train a single elf on EEPRT because no matter what crises befell the United
States, the Postal Service was always able to deliver the mail.
After the announcement, Santa dismissed
his energized workers, who returned to their workshop stations and labored as
busily as ever, though they were now a bit fearful of the future. As Santa watched the green-garbed crowd
filter out the exits, he thought of Fritzgerald and hoped that diplomacy would
work. There was no guarantee that
deploying EEPRT with Christmas one month away would be a success. If anything, it would be tremendously risky
and would deprive Santa’s workshop of many workers who were needed to replenish
the backlogged toy demand.
“Good luck, Fritzgerald,” Santa said
to himself. “We’re all counting on you.”
November
25th. 9:15 a.m. The White House.
Thanks to Rudolph’s steady sense of
direction and a little help from quantum mechanics, Fritzgerald arrived at The
White House shortly after his call with Santa that morning. However, Fritzgerald had to wait several hours
before he could meet with the President, who was naturally a busy man. While he waited to meet the President,
Fritzgerald reviewed the EEPRT manuals he brought with him. By the time the old elf had refreshed his
memory with all the plan’s details, the President was ready to see him. A White House aide brought Fritzgerald into
the Oval Office where the President stood staring out the large window behind
his desk.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Fritzgerald
said to the Commander-In-Chief.
“Good morning, Fritzgerald,” the
President warmly replied to the Elf-In-Chief.
“How are you?”
“I wish I could say well, sir, but I
am deeply concerned about the postal strike.
My fellow elves, especially Santa, are worried that we won’t receive all
the children’s Christmas lists in time for the big day.”
“I understand, Fritzgerald. House Speaker Bender and Senate Majority Leader
Rod are waiting outside. Allow me to
bring them in,” the President said.
The wise elf nodded and awaited the
other guests.
Speaker Bender and Leader Rod
entered the Oval Office with gusto.
Bender barely acknowledged the President, his sworn political enemy,
while Rod warmly pressed the President’s hand before greeting Fritzgerald.
The four leaders sat down around the President’s desk.
“Gentlemen,” the President said to
his congressional colleagues, “Fritzgerald has graciously joined us from the
North Pole to address the catastrophic effect that the postal strike will have
on Christmas if we do not come to an agreement on government funding within the
next week. What can we do to ensure our
North Pole friends that Santa will get every Christmas list that he needs?”
“Well,” Speaker Bender spoke, “thank
you for coming all the way from the North Pole, Fritz. The work Santa and his elves provide to the
world is priceless, and we are truly grateful for your services. Unfortunately, this postal strike is part of
a larger political conundrum that has stalemated the government for several
years. The post office has been losing
money and recently defaulted on its debt, but Congress refuses to take
action. Government spending is out of
control. Neither Republicans led by
myself nor Democrats led by Leader Rod can agree on how to cut government
spending in a sensible manner. We cut a
deal two years ago that required the government’s budget to automatically be
slashed across the board if no new spending compromises emerged until
then. Naturally, no such compromises
worked out, so the automatic budget cuts went into effect.”
“I understand the nature of the
problem, Speaker Bender,” Fritzgerald politely responded. “My question is: How
do we solve the problem today so that the North Pole can receive every child’s
list in time for the toys to be ready on Christmas?”
The politicians silently sat and
brooded upon Fritzgerald’s simple question.
Unfortunately, the old elf was an outsider to the American political
system. His naïve hope for a new government
budget within a week’s time left the other leaders unsure of what to say. Earlier in October, a government shut down lasted
for two weeks and furloughed hundreds of thousands of workers. Sixteen days passed before Congress reopened
the government and agreed to fund it for another three months.
“Fritzgerald,” Leader Rod broke the
silence, “the fact of the matter is Congress and the President are at a
stalement. Speaker Bender’s party
refuses to consider any revenue increases to go along with spending cuts. My party and the President want a mixture of
spending cuts and revenue incr …”
“Now, wait just a minute!” Speaker
Bender erupted. “You can’t blame this
whole thing on Republicans like you have the last four years! I went as far as offering numerous tax code
loopholes that we were willing to close…”
“Which wouldn’t have been enough to
make up for this year’s deficit alone!” Leader Rod interrupted. “Raising taxes on the wealthy a small amount
would go much further to balance the budget, but you refuse to consider…”
“Gentlemen!” the President chimed
in. “Please. If Fritzgerald wanted to hear partisan
bickering, he would have gone to our budget meeting yesterday afternoon.”
The
President then turned to Fritzgerald. “I’m
afraid there’s no chance of this crisis being averted either today or within a
week’s time, Fritzgerald. As you can
see, both sides are too entrenched to give any leeway to reach a compromise
that benefits not only the American people, but also the children of the
world. I’m very sorry.”
Fritzgerald looked into the President’s
eyes and sensed his shame. Speaker
Bender and Leader Rod looked at the floor, lost in their thoughts.
“Before I return to the North Pole,
I want the three of you to think about how disappointed and upset millions of
children will be on Christmas morning when they see nothing under their
Christmas trees because of this political nonsense. I know the three of you enjoyed many
childhood Christmases because of selfless leaders who put the interests of
their people above their own egos. Thank
you for your time.”
November
25th. 9:30 a.m. The North Pole.
Fritzgerald waited outside of
Santa’s office a few minutes before finally breaking the bad news.
“Well, how was Washington?” Santa
optimistically inquired.
“Not good, Santa. The politicians couldn’t even agree to save
Christmas. It’s no wonder they can’t
agree on anything else.”
“I see,” Santa mourned. “That gives us no choice but to deploy EEPRT.”
Fritzgerald nodded as he sucked down
another candy cane. It was his one and
only vice, but it helped him think clearly in times of distress. He had to explain how the emergency postal
response system would work.
“EEPRT requires daily surveillance
sweeps on homes across the world,” Fritzgerald explained to Santa. “However, we can minimize our work by asking
children to make lists and leave them out for us. We then have to obtain the lists while the
children sleep.”
Santa listened thoughtfully but was
troubled. “I am concerned that we might
end up abusing our surveillance privilege by monitoring children more often
they we usually do. What can we do to
balance individual privacy with our need for information?”
“Quite right,” Fritzgerald
nodded. “My hope is that our notice to
children about leaving their lists out will reduce the number of houses we have
to spy on. Our database will keep track
of the children we receive lists from and those we don’t. Our main focus will be on children who haven’t
yet submitted Christmas lists. Given the
limited elfpower and time we have for this operation, we can’t make more than
two or three sweeps of each household anyway.”
“So there’s a real risk that some
children might not receive presents even if we monitor them?” Santa asked.
The elf-in-chief nodded. “I’m afraid so. Most children still mail in their Christmas
lists, despite the prevalence of e-mail.
We can send regular reminders to children who don’t respond, but we can
only do so much.”
Santa stroked his gloriously bushy white
beard and nodded. “Even our mall Santa
agents can’t collect every Christmas list in the world. There is nothing else we can do unless the
Postal Service reopens before December 21st.
How will EEPRT function logistically?”
“EEPRT
is labor-intensive because it requires thousands of elves to circle the globe
in shifts every day while avoiding satellite detection,” Fritzgerald explained. “The List Department will observe the non-responding
children and update our database of children who do submit Christmas
lists. Based on home assignments that
the List group will create, Production Department elves will go out to homes
and retrieve the lists. Production elves
will make sure that good children’s lists result in toy procurement. We should start immediately if we want to
make sure that toys are ready by Christmas.
Even then, there’s no guarantee that we will obtain every child’s list
and have every request ready by Christmas.
EEPRT will stretch us thin, but it’s all we have.”
Santa nodded and considered
Fritzgerald’s plan. He looked at his map
of the world and glided his coarse hand across its smooth surface. Tears welled up in Santa’s eyes as he thought
of all the boys and girls who relied on him for their happiness.
“Do it, Fritzgerald. We haven’t a moment to lose!”
November
25th – December 21st.
Throughout the following month,
Santa’s elves furiously raced to collect children’s Christmas lists from all
over the world and produce the toys they requested. EEPRT worked as well as it could. Children were delighted to learn that elves
would visit their homes to collect Christmas lists. Most important, however, was the cooperation
that children and families across the world provided to Santa, Fritzgerald, and
his other helpers to make sure that Christmas was as merry and bright for as
many people as possible. Despite the
North Pole’s daily progress with obtaining lists, they still couldn’t reach
everyone. Some children created their
Christmas lists just days before Christmas.
For those kids, Santa could only guess what they wanted. He didn’t want any child to be left behind, but
just four days before Christmas, a miracle happened.
December
21st. 9:30 p.m. Santa’s Office.
“Well, Fritzgerald,” Santa asked his
elf-in-chief. “How is Christmas
looking?”
“Not bad, Santa.
Current estimates show that using EEPRT our elves have obtained Christmas
lists from 95% of the world’s children.”
“That’s
fantastic!” Santa boomed. “Our elves worked
around the clock to make it happen.”
“Yes,
Santa, but there is some bad news. Of
the world’s 1 billion children who celebrate Christmas, over 50 million
children did not have their lists ready.
All of our elves are now fully involved in production, so we can’t spare
any personnel to retrieve additional lists.
If the postal system were functioning, those letters could be expedited
to us overnight and we would have them in time for Christmas. Right now, 50 million children will be
unhappy on Christmas morning, Santa.”
Santa sighed and twirled his
ponderous beard. Fritzgerald polished
off another candy cane. The North Pole’s
top two elves had reached an impasse four days before Christmas. There was nothing else they could do to help
millions of children who would wake up to barren Christmas trees on December 25th. And then, the miracle arrived.
“Santa!” A voice outside the room
cried. Santa and Fritzgerald swiveled
toward the door to see Bremlo, a production manager, huffing and puffing after
a marathon run to the office. “Turn on
your TV!”
Santa’s TV instantaneously switched
on to a news channel.
“To repeat, the U.S. Congress has
finally passed an eleventh-hour bill to end the Postal Service strike. Cuts to Saturday service and the revocation
of a 2006 requirement to prefund employees’ health benefits breathed new life
into the struggling service.”
Santa and Fritzgerald burst with
joy. They jumped up and hugged each
other. Then they hugged Bremlo before
the three elves danced in a circle around Santa’s office. They also caught the news anchor say one more
thing.
“Congressional leaders Rod and
Bender said their parties finally came together because of Santa’s top elf,
Fritzgerald Figgypudding, who pled for their assistance last month at the White
House. Although the initial meeting with
Santa’s elf-in-chief went nowhere, frustrated parents and children from around
the world put enough pressure on Capitol Hill to finally take much-needed
action. Way to go, Fritzgerald!”
Santa beamed when he heard the
news. He spontaneously scooped up his
oldest assistance and carried him out of the office and onto the production
floor where all 100,000 elves were furiously building, sorting, and packaging
toys.
“My friends!” Santa boomed to his
employees. “It looks like all the
children will have a Merry Christmas after all!
Thanks to Fritzgerald’s leadership, the US Postal Service has reopened
and we will finally get those missing lists!
Christmas is saved!”
The eruption of applause, cheering,
and whistling was deafening and furious.
For so long the elves had fretted over the millions of children who
would not enjoy Christmas because their lists would not arrive at the North
Pole on time. Now their fears were laid
to rest.
December
24th. 11:45 p.m.
Santa donned his warm red suit and checked
his loaded sleigh. Rudolf stood at the
front of the reindeer pack testing his nose to make sure his red light was
bright and clear. Fritzgerald and Mrs.
Claus looked on as Santa boarded his gigantic sleigh.
“How did we do, Fritzgerald?” Santa
inquired. “Will every child be accounted
for tonight?”
“Yes, sir!” the old elf jubilantly
replied. “We quickly sorted through the
backlog of mail and pulled out the Christmas lists we hadn’t yet received. Toys were prepared for those children and now
they are ready to go. We just barely
made the deadline, but this year’s Christmas will be bright for children
everywhere.”
Santa looked at Fritzgerald and
smiled. Tears welled up in his eyes as
he thought of all the children whose Christmas would be happier thanks to
Fritzgerald’s efforts.
“What would I do without you,
Fritzgerald?” Santa asked.
“Have a safe trip, Santa,” the
modest elf-in-chief replied. “I’ll be on
the Santa Com if you need me.”
Santa wiped away the tears from his
eyes as he grabbed the reins. A
spontaneous laugh ushered forth from the joy old elf as his sleigh lifted off
into the night.
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all
a good night!”
~The
End~
