Santa's Workshop Falling Behind 1 I stopped by the workshop today to find it in chaos. Elf Bernard looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

I asked him what was going on and he said they were majorly behind schedule. “It all started when one of the plastic molding machines broke down. It took our maintenance staff 3 days to get it fixed. No one had the part we needed in stock so we had to wait for the factory to make it for us. Then we had a massive paint spill that cost us a day.” Bernard said. “We are working as hard as we can but we just can’t seem to get caught up. In fact we are falling even farther behind. I’ve asked Santa to send me all the extra staff he can and even then I don’t know if we can make it.”

Elsewhere around the North Pole Elf Hugo is reporting that record amounts of mail are still being received each day. “I don’t know what we are going to do. I have bags of mail stacked everywhere.” Elf Hugo said. “I can’t even get into my office because it is full of mail bags. If this volume keeps up, we will have to start setting up tents outside to store the mail coming in.”

I couldn’t get hold of Santa but I did talk to Mrs. Claus. She just laughed and said she would have to make the elves more sugar cookies. “Oh those boys and girls work really hard for Santa,” Mrs. Claus said. “But they worry too much. I’ve never seen them NOT be ready for Christmas when Santa needs them.”

— Elf Ernest