50 Weeks Until Christmas
There are now 50 weeks until Christmas – next week we’ll be in the 40s!
Santa is on the job, friends. Meetings, meetings everywhere.
In many ways I love January. Everyone here gets so excited about making fresh plans for the New Year. I think it is because the energy of a successful Christmas is so contagious.
This past Christmas was kind of a rough one. If you followed us at all you know that it was a hands-on effort that required everyone to work very hard. The benefit of hard work is that when it is over you can see so much good that came from all that effort. And that is what everyone is seeing here at the North Pole right now. And they are anxious to do it all again.
Doing it again means going through a lot of different steps and some steps are easier to deal with than others – like saying goodbye to the reindeer.
I don’t know when the process will begin of the reindeer leaving the North Pole but leave they do, every January. Santa has long told us that the reindeer need to go home out of necessity. It is not good for them to be at the North Pole year round. They must return to their native lands. They must eat foods they grew up with. They need to see family they left behind when they came to the North Pole last fall.
They will be back, of course. But it is hard to say goodbye.
It is also hard to see some other transitions here at the North Pole — like elves who are retiring.
One of the oldest working elves in Santa’s workshop is Elf Myron, a master craftsman who got started in Santa’s workshop by whittling and chiseling toys from wood. That gives you an idea of how old Myron is. Many, many years ago all the toys in Santa’s workshop were made with hand tools. And most toys back then were made of wood.
Wood, of course, is still used for many things but it is not in as many toys as the days of old. As a young elf, Myron mass produced toys. But as he became older his job became one of making custom toys. When a child with special needs had a special toy that needed to be hand made the project almost always went to Myron.
Stories going about the workshop tell of times Santa would come to the workshop to seek Myron’s advice. Santa is a master toymaker himself but he has always said Myron was his teacher when it came to working with woods. Sometimes when Santa would travel he would pick up and bring home all kinds of unusual woods just to see what Myron could make with them and what he would learn about them.
Santa himself attended Myron’s retirement party on New Year’s Day. He presented Elf Myron with a special gift – a handcrafted watch. Now, you might be saying that a watch is not an unusual retirement gift but this was no ordinary watch. In he speech at the party Santa said that he has been working on the watch for six years and that he had, ironically, turned to Myron many times for advice as he built it. The watch works and keeps excellent time. It’s beautiful and it is entirely made of wood. Santa used sixteen different kinds of woods, some of them specially treated to do what needed to be done to make it all work, and he made each piece of it by hand. Talk about a labor or love.
Myron cried when he received it. He knows, better than anyone, what a gift in time and devotion the watch represents.
Myron will not be working in Santa’s workshop any more. But he’ll still be working in his own workshop at home. And I would bet a mountain of sugar cookies that Myron will still do special projects for Santa.
Myron’s well deserved retirement is not the only kind of shuffling going on at the North Pole when it comes to elves and jobs. Many things are going to change over the next few weeks and months as we settle in for a new chapter in Operation Merry Christmas.
Settle in! We’ll tell you all about it.
- 50 Weeks Until Christmas - January 8, 2026
- How Santa Counts Down to Christmas - January 7, 2026
- 51 Weeks Until Christmas - January 1, 2026
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