Christmas Eve in
Kansas
Or
Business as Usual
Kenneth James Crist
“Grandpa, does Santa
really live at the North Pole?”
My granddaughter,
Melissa. Again. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And again with all
the questions…
“I kinda doubt it,
Sweetie.
I mean, conditions at the North Pole being what they are, I can’t imagine why
Santa would want to put himself through all that.”
“You mean all the
ice and snow and all that stuff?”
“Well, yeah, Honey.
And sub-zero temperatures and having to fly hundreds of miles before he could
even start on his deliveries. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
“I guess not.”
She
was looking down at the floor and inside that cute little tow-head, I could
almost see the wheels turning. More questions coming. In 5…4…3…2…1… “Grandpa?”
I knew this would go
on until her mom got there later in the day to pick her up. After she was gone
back to Denver, then I’d be able to get back to my primary job. But not just
yet.
Little kids are a
lot sharper than most people think. Most start disbelieving in Santa Claus long
before they finally give up the belief in the old fat man that visits a couple
billion households worldwide in one night, leaving presents for all the good
boys and girls. If they only knew how it really works.
Melissa’s mom was
a
little early and they left in short order. The weather was good and it was a
seven-hour drive, so I couldn’t blame them. There would be snow by morning in
the higher elevations. Down here in Kansas, maybe not for another month. I had
some daylight left and I decided it was time to start preparations. First, I
loaded a hay wagon and pulled out with my John Deere and headed for the extreme
back pasture. I farm eighteen sections of ground with the most modern equipment
and the sheer size of the farm, a section being a square mile, allows me to
keep my reindeer isolated from crossroads and prying eyes. Most city people
wouldn’t really know a reindeer from their ass anyway, but it’s good to keep
things low-key. As for the expense of the farm and the equipment, it’s like any
farm. It has good years and bad years. In a good year, I make all the payments
and have a little left over. In a bad year, when crops fail and combines break
down, or whatever, well, the Guild takes care of that.
After I delivered
hay and grain to the reindeer and took a look at their hooves and teeth and
their general health, I headed back to the number 7 barn. The reindeer needed
fattening up. It was amazing the amount of fat they would burn off in one night
of ceaseless exercise. They would be almost skin and bones by Christmas
morning. So, I would make the grain and hay run twice a day right up until Christmas
Eve.
In the number 7
barn, I started looking to the rest of my equipment. I went to the loft first
and uncovered the sleigh. It looked almost exactly as pictured in most
children’s books. Its glossy red paint would need to be waxed before the run,
as much to cut down air resistance as to make it pretty. The anti-gravity field
generator was hooked up to the battery maintainer, and a quick circuit check
verified it would do what it was designed to do, flawlessly. It had better, or
eight reindeer and an old fat farmer would be toast. It happened to one of our
guys in 1972. Complete system failure. They augured in from eleven thousand
feet. Luckily, they were over Lake Michigan at the time. No trace was ever
found. Good for the Guild. Bad for Marty and his deer. Sixteen other Santas
worked overtime that night to cover the rest of Marty’s stops.
The rest of the
barn, along with numbers 4 through 6, were filled to the roof with gifts of
every imaginable size and shape, every toy anybody ever heard of and even a few
dozen puppies and kittens. I draw the line at ponies. Fuck that. I’ll go
through a lot for this job, but I’m not hauling horses, miniature or otherwise.
Mrs. “Claus,”
my
wife, has the chore of keeping all the tiny livestock healthy up until delivery
night. She’s good at that and she loves her job. And, really, what’s better
than spending hours every day with half a barn full of puppies and kittens?
The final piece of
equipment really has no name. Nobody has ever figured out what to call the damn
thing and I don’t know anyone who really has figured out how it works. All we
know is that all those tons of toys will fit right into that sleigh, as long as
that one device is turned on and working. Packages become so tiny they have to
be selected with tweezers and a magnifier. But then, once they are away from
the sleigh, they will slowly begin to expand and by morning, they are normal
size again. They say the effect is enhanced by the presence of pine boughs, but
that’s probably bullshit. Doesn’t work on the little puppies, though. Or
anything living, for that matter. Nope, just hafta pack the little pets in a
big bag and hope for the best.
So, it was Christmas
Eve, 2025 and as soon as it was dark, it was takeoff time. The nearest airport
was Eisenhower National in Wichita and the radar traffic control was out of
Kansas City Center. I knew every one of the Guild members was gonna raise hell
with the radar, and air traffic control was gonna see all kinds of unknown
targets all night. But, I wasn’t worried. Those guys are used to all kinds of
freaky shit on Christmas Eve. As long as you don’t fly over the Pole toward
Russia, or from Russia toward the USA, you’re fine. We routinely violate all
kinds of airspace on that one night of the year, and nobody’s ever been knocked
down by a missile so far. I was loaded early and had to wait for full nightfall
so I could get busy. The reindeer were hyped and ready to get airborne,
stomping around and shaking their bells. My wife ran me out a last cup of cocoa
before liftoff and it was a clear, crisp night with tons of stars to navigate
by. I checked my list one final time, made sure I had enough coal for the
stockings of the little shits who just couldn’t behave, no matter what and
checked that live grenade I’d packed for the serial killer who lived out by Pratt.
Good to go. Two switches up, one down and half throttle. Yelled to the deer.
No, “on Donner, on Blitzen” bullshit. I just told ‘em, “Okay, you fat bastards,
get to work!” We shot into the sky.
I was really glad
Wichita wasn’t on my route. It takes forty-four guys all frikken night to
handle that nightmare. I had 2800 houses at my first stop in Medicine Lodge and
the surrounding area. While the eight smelly deer hauled my big ass in that
direction, I fired up my trusty old laptop and started going over lists. We
used to have to do that shit on paper. Thank God for Dell, Hewlett Packard, and
Mac. And barcoding. That little scanner saves me a lotta work and head
scratching.
By one-thirty AM,
I’d worked my way back up to 54-400 highway, through Kingman and on toward
Pratt. Twice I had startled Kansas Highway Patrol Troopers, setting off their
radar with highly improbable speeds and at one point causing a sonic boom. I
knew I’d be getting an email from the Director over that one. We’re supposed to
stay below the speed of sound unless we’re over the oceans. Not much chance of
that on my route.
At two-twenty, I
pulled the pin on that grenade and popped it down the chimney of the guy in
Pratt with the bodies in his garage in 55-gallon drums and we hauled ass toward
Greensburg. We were far enough away, I never heard the explosion. Coming into
Greensburg, we scared the shit out of about two hundred geese. The moon was up
and I guess they decided it was time to move. Who knows what the hell geese
think about anyway? Fuckers need to go back to Canada and quit flying at night.
At 4:10, over Dodge
City, I got a text on my cell from Stevie B. in Denver. He’d just dropped off
packages at Melissa’s house and wanted to let me know she got her Barbies.
Stevie and I were classmates at Santa School, class of ’61. Go Elves!
First light found me
shooting a pretty sloppy landing back at my place with some tired reindeer and
a laptop with a low battery. I’d forgotten my charger, wouldn’t ya know it. So,
finished for another year and a job well done. Encrypted emails would be flying
back and forth for weeks, managers congratulating their crews on setting new
records, etc. The population of the planet was growing at an alarming rate,
increasing the workload and there were rumors of starting two academy classes
per year just to handle the load. Well, job security and all that.
There will come a
day when I’ll either be too feeble to do this job, or I’ll pass away. Then a
sanitation team will come to my place and remove all traces of what I did
besides farm. In the meantime, I’ll be the Secret Santa, along with many, many others.
Have a good Christmas. Ho, ho, ho and all a that…
