Halloween for Elves at the North Pole

Halloween is a lot like Christmas at the North Pole. There is a buzz here this week as Halloween approaches. Everyone is happy. Everyone is excited.

Elves love Halloween.

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love Halloween.

Elves in general are really creative people. We have to be. All we do is create.

Santa teaches us in elf class that the most important thing we can ever have is an imagination and as elves we’re good at that.

Elves, for example, create toys. Then we create ways to get toys to you.

So when it comes to Halloween I think it is a day that just brings out the best in an elf: creativity.

Right now, as I write this, elves everywhere here are creating something of magic: their Halloween costume.

A lot goes into this. Some start months ahead of time. But all are very highly creative by the time the day is done.

Halloween is a day off here at the North Pole. Imagine that. No toy making. No cookie eating. No shuffling letters to Santa, no buzzing saws in the workshop, no sticky tape in the wrapping department and no one at the world map in the Tracking Department. We’re all off.

And we hide. We don’t want anyone to see us before it is time.

Then, right around noon our time, the chime goes off on the big clock in the North Pole town square and we come out of our homes – in costumes – many on their trikes – for the annual Halloween parade.

We have two big parades here at the North Pole. One at Halloween and one at Thanksgiving. And while elves ride their trikes in both of them they are very different parades. And that is because of the costumes.

Elves love Halloween for the costumes alone. There is a contest, as I am certain Elf Ernest has told you in the past, to recognize the best costume at the North Pole. Elves go all out for it.
I’ll never forget the year Elf Yogi came as an Exploding Grape. It was awesome. He looked just like a real grape. He came out of his house big and juicy and round in a purple rubber suit that had to be heavier than a ton of bricks.

His face and any exposed skin was all painted a sparkly deep purple and he had a little stem growing out of his head. It was a simple costume, striking because of its color alone.

It was so simple, in fact, that nobody noticed him.

He stood next to the guy in the “world’s largest candy cane” costume. On the other side of him was “Christmas light girl”, an elf decked out in synchronized Christmas lights. There was no flash to Elf Yogi and he just told everyone he was a grape.

Nobody thought he would win the big prize.

But when the elves crowded around the town square as Santa got ready to declare another elf the winner, Yogi stepped forward and yelled, “Everyone cover your eyes!” – and just like that he EXPLODED! And grape juice went flying everywhere.

A deep reddish/purple liquid cloud erupted from him that covered the “world’s largest candy cane” and Christmas light girl. Anyone within 30 feet of Yogi was just plastered with grape.

At first everyone gasped and then there was silence – as Santa, his red suit splattered here and there, looked down at Yogi and said, “What are you supposed to be now?”

Yogi smiled. “A raisin,” he said.

And then Santa laughed – laughed as hard as I ever heard him laugh.

In fact, Yogi got everyone laughing, even though many of them were a mess. And Santa gave him the big prize.

Halloween is messy for other reasons. It is, as you know, the time for the annual Elf Food Fight. I’ll let Ernest explain that to you. It is a mystery to me.

But not Halloween. It brings out the best in us and we have a great time.

I hope you have a great time too.