It’s only 8 months until Christmas!

I send you greetings from Alaska, where I’m on vacation right now. It’s a working vacation of sorts. Santa has me here on a little project having to do with a tracking station we’re putting in.

I’m doing a little observation of seals, if you can believe that. Yeah, like ocean seals.

There is a man here who is a big believer in Santa and he wanted to help by giving Santa a place to set up this tracking station.

Tracking stations are pretty important, especially in this part of Alaska. Santa flies right over the area several times on his flight. Not every tracking station is the same. Some are more important than others. This is a very important location.

So what is a news elf like me working on this for?

Well, we got a call from a lady who lives local to this man’s property. She’s very concerned about the seals and whether or not there needs to be a tracking center on that property.

She contacted a local newspaper and they called us for comment. Santa told me to take some time off, do a little fishing and to talk to everyone here involved in this project.

I can tell you the lady is very nice. And she was quite surprised to see a reporter elf like me show up on her doorstep.

She’s a believer in Santa and an animal lover – the kind of person Santa just adores.

Anyway, I think we have it worked out. We don’t have to disturb the seals. I checked the area out and she’s right – that’s an important area for the seals and we don’t want to mess with that. I called Santa and he agreed.

So I told the lady and she’s really happy. And she’s glad to know that this is the only place this story will appear.

By the way, we worked out the tracking station deal, too. We’re going to put it in her back yard. You see, she has a tree house. She showed it to me and it’s really cool. High in the trees is a perfect place for a tracking station.

Santa really tries to work things out with people.

He cannot know all the concerns of every city, town and village in the world, though he tries. We are really grateful for this lady saying something – and for being so helpful. It helps us do our job better.

I think everyone is going to have a merry Christmas this year. Even those seals!