2. Santa

Chapter 2

Santa

For some reason, this year, Christmas seemed to be slamming into me headfirst. I normally had pretty much everything done by now and was just working on making sure everything was in its right place, ensuring I hadn’t missed anything. Double-checking the naughty list and all that, but not this year. There was still so much to be done.

Ryfon, my head elf, was doing a great job picking up the pieces, but that wasn’t his job. Maybe this was going to be the first Christmas we failed, the year where some children woke up to discover Santa hadn’t come. No. I refused to let that happen. I needed to do that working smarter, not harder thing Ryfon was constantly chattering about. If only it were that easy.

I stirred my cocoa and took a long sip. The warm chocolatey goodness always helped settle me. But today? Today it wasn’t as effective as normal, but still, better than nothing.

Grabbing the cocoa pot, I poured myself a second cup. I never understood why those down south of me preferred coffee over cocoa as their daily beverage, cocoa being just a treat. Sure, coffee had more caffeine and kept you going, but there was just something so smooth and calming about a nice cup of hot cocoa, especially when paired with a homemade sugar cookie. Although, in my case, it was less “homemade” and more “elf-made.”

A light knock on my door, followed by Ryfon walking inside, told me something had either gone really, really right or really, really wrong. He wasn’t one for surprise visits, and he never came in here during my cocoa break unless I invited him. He understood this was my time to recoup and destress. But to be honest, I was glad to see them. I’d been so busy getting into my own head that I was probably making everything seem much worse than it was. At least that was my hope.

“Did you come to join me for cocoa and cookies?”

He shook his head. It was worth a try.

“No, although I won’t turn down a cup of cocoa. I, um, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Let’s get you some cocoa first.” I poured him a little demitasse of cocoa from my pitcher and handed it to him.

“I… I… You don’t think we’re gonna make it.” I figured I might as well rip off the band-aid.

“No, hardly.” He took a long sip, and as much as I wanted to pepper him with questions, I stayed silent. “I think we’re gonna make it just fine. But I think that you think we’re not going to make it.”

Fair enough. I didn’t. We were cutting it close this year, closer than I’d like.

He took another long sip, and once again, I remained silent. What could I say? Nope. I’m really worried. What good would that do? None. It was best to wait him out. He was my right-hand elf for a reason.

“Or… you’re seeing things worse than they are because you’re stressed out. Last I checked, you have not gone on any surprise visits lately.”

By surprise visits, he was referring to when I randomly showed up at Christmas events as myself. I’d hand out gifts, listen to children’s wish lists, read books, and sing songs. I loved doing them, but that didn’t mean I had the time.

“No, I haven’t, but that’s because we’re behind.” I wriggled my nose; just hearing about me popping into an event had my body ready to go.

He gave me some serious elf-eye, not liking my excuse. I didn’t like it either, but that didn’t make it less fact.

“Ah. You think we’re behind, so you shouldn’t go on visits.” It felt like there was a huge but missing in that sentence. He was talking in circles. “Santa, are you stressed out?”

I leaned back in my big, fluffy red chair and closed my eyes. “Sugar plums, yes. So very stressed. I don’t know what it is about this year. It’s different.”

“Do you want to know why?”

That had me opening my eyes, and I let the question hang in the air before I answered. With Ryfon, it could go either way on whether I did or not. He was one of the only elves that didn’t think they had to keep everything candy canes and tinsel with me. I appreciated it more than he knew.

“Sure. Why am I so stressed?”

“Because the only people you see are your crew. You haven’t seen anywhere else, gone anywhere else, in almost a year. Go out. See the children. Meet the families. See why we’re doing all of this. Most years, you can’t wait to get to it.” He grabbed a cookie off my plate. “It’s the only reason you feel overwhelmed and behind. Trust me, everything is under control here.”

Had it been anyone else, I might not have believed things were as under control as he was stating, but this was Ryfon. If he said we were going to be good to go, we were… with the exception of me. I was the problem in all of this, and if going on some outings could rectify that, I was all in.

“Okay. I’ll go do some visits, as long as you promise to keep me updated on things up here. Because if we get behind because I’m out handing out candy canes and stickers at some festival?—”

“I promise you, Santa, I will call if we even get a tiny bit behind.”

I wasn’t sure I believed him on that, but he’d make sure things got done, and if anything major happened, he wouldn’t hold back.

Now that I had it in my mind to go and take the place of some Santas-for-hire, I was getting kind of excited about it. Maybe I’d do some hospital visits or stop by one of those small, independently run toy stores. Or maybe a community center. There were so many options and each one sounded better than the last.