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Letter from our President during holidays 2009
Fellow Americans,
Santa has asked me to communicate with you
this holiday season (notice I didn’t say Christmas)
concerning changes about to take place in Santa’s
annual gift giving tradition. It has had problems the
past few years as you know from previous notes from the
North Pole. First Santa, then Mrs. Claus (her name is
Bertha, incidentally), and last year Executive Elf Jimmy
John wrote to inform you of various difficulties their
gift giving tradition was encountering. Let me remind
you of some of those difficulties
The elves demanded health insurance, paid
vacation, and higher pay. Children’s interest in
traditional toys was greatly declining and they were now
requesting mainly electronic gadgets which the elves had
no idea how to produce, and so ordered them from China
where Santa finally had to send some of the smarter elves
to learn their procedures while aiding the Chinese with
some unrelated quality control issues. Even with a discount
for the quality control help, this was a great expense
for Santa, who was beginning to think about taking a long
vacation.
Santa has no income and survives on generosity of a few
extremely rich people. Mrs. Claus does have a small Social
Security monthly payment from her days working at the
zoo in Milwaukee before Santa convinced her to marry him
and live at the North Pole with a large reindeer population.
In order to take the vacation he desired and continue
his toy giving, Santa would need additional funding, so
he and Mrs. Claus opened The North Pole Ice Cream Parlor
which Santa manages while Mrs Claus took up gardening
(reindeer manure is great fertilizer).
Because of global warming, it both ventures quickly became
very successful. But just as quickly, Santa became tired
of scooping ice cream and was ready to travel beyond viewing
the world once a year from the sky or roof tops. He decided
to sell the business and the rights to use his name on
products and in advertizing until he was ready to reclaim
them.
After buying a travel trailer, he and with Mrs. Claus,
toured the U.S.A using part of this stream of income to
maintain the elves and assure continued holiday gift giving.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Claus fell in love with casinos’
black jack tables and could have lost Santa’s ability
to give anything to anyone, so they returned to the North
Pole (no casinos there yet).
By this time the North Pole’s warehouses were full
of traditional toys that few children seemed to want,
although the elves continued making them. At this point,
most of the elves stopped working and began enjoying the
now much warmer climate, swimming in the newly appearing
lakes and partaking in outdoor sports of all types including
a lot of frolicking which is drastically increasing the
elf population. Also the warmer weather brought tourists
who give big tips to the reindeer for sleigh rides.
Very few of the reindeer are now willing to make the
annual, grueling one night trip around the world. Those
reindeer still dedicated to Santa’s yearly world
trip, complain bitterly about the weight of all the old-fashioned
toys Santa is clearing out of the warehouses and dumping
on children who don’t want them.
This is where I, as president of the United States come
in. Santa has asked for my help, and though I am extremely
busy giving speeches about a multitude of problems I have
inherited, I will not let him or the children, at least
of the United States, down.
Therefore I initiated a committee which included myself,
elf representative Jimmy John, the chief reindeer ,Rudolph,
Mrs. Claus, my daughters , and my personal advisors who
wish to remain anonymous . Working together we have come
up with a plan to save Santa’s gift-giving tradition,
at least in our country. As you can probably guess, a
stimulus package is the first action we are taking. We
are calling it G.I. F. T.S. (Get Income for Toys to Santa).
Santa will be given five million dollars to help with
this year’s expenses. Where will the money come
from I’m sure you’re asking. Since there are
no funds in our treasury that can be used for this purpose,
the money will have to come from you.
Taxes on the toys you buy will quickly replace the millions
of dollars the stimulus provided according to all the
consumer polls on the subject. They show that children,
except infants who cannot as yet speak, are requesting,
as Santa puts it, “expensive electronic gadgets”
causing the annual dollar amount spent for children’s
toys to raise quicker than the divorce rate. Therefore
a twenty percent tax on any and all toys is in effect
immediately, thanks to the swift action of Nancy Pelosi
and others of like mind in the House and Senate.
Necessarily along with this annual, as needed stimulus
package come restrictions which can be found in various
chapters of the G.I.F.T.S bill. The most important of
these restrictions and rules I’ve included in this
letter. For example, toys bought with stimulus funds must
be made in America. The elves won’t like this very
much since most of them will have to go back to school
and then back to work, instead of enjoying sports and
frolicking, but a price must be paid for progress. Rudolph
has assured the committee members, that the reindeer will
comply with a new work policy if they are allowed one
half of their work time for providing tourists sleigh
rides, now that global warming has entered the picture.
The tips involved here have left them in fine financial
shape.
No stimulus money is to be spent on a child getting any
grade lower than a C on his or her report card. Also any
child who does get a gift acquired because of stimulus
money must be involved in a sport, dance class, or some
other physical activity on a regular basis. We’ve
tied in this condition because of its probable effect
and the cost of health care and therefore the health care
bill still being discussed in Congress. We must have physically
fit children.
Finally, and most important, any child receiving an electronic
device which would cost more than $50 retail must never
talk back to a parent, must do homework cheerfully, and
all chores requested in a timely manner. Naturally you
are asking, how will Santa know what your children are
doing in regard to these things? As outlined in the stimulus
bill, parents must completely fill in the requested information
on forms available on line or at your local post office
and sent them to the Classification of Gift Receivers
Committee (details of this committee can be found on pages
714 to 857 of the legislation). Please allow five hours
to complete each form as they are quite detailed. Also,
some of the wording is thought to be confusing by the
few senators and representatives who voted against the
bill and the related forms needed to implement it. It
was suggested by these nay sayers that in order to know
how to fill out these forms correctly most people without
a law degree from one of the better law schools would
have to hire an n extremely expensive attorney.
In any event, when members of the committee receive your
completed weekly forms for 50 consecutive weeks as requested,
the elf committee members, using the simple formula found
on pages 858 to 905 in the legislation will determine
who may be eligible to receive a gift from Santa.
Thus, because of changes initiated by me, the holiday
Santa gift giving tradition has been saved. Please often
remind your children of this so that when they are old
enough to vote they will vote for me, since my advisors
and I are now working for changes in the constitution
that would permit a president to hold the office for an
unlimited number of consecutive terms.
Coming soon will be a $5.00 stimulus check for your personal
use.
Cash it immediately, as funds are decreasing quickly,
Your President,
Barack O’Bama
Following are previous year's letters you might enjoy.
Happy Holidays, but a very happy and holy Christmas.
Carol
Letter from Elf Jimmy John at Christmas 2008
Dear Folks,
My name is Jimmy-Jim. I am the president of (S.E.W), Smart
Elf Workers in China, where this letter is coming from
as the holidays approach Santa or Mrs. Clause usually
send caring adults a Christmas message about what’s
going on at the North Pole, but this year I’ve been
asked to write for them.
Santa wants you all know that he and Mrs. Claus are well.
Santa is now fully retired, but has signed a Use of Name
Contract giving permission to anyone paying a fee to continue
to use his name to get children to behave and merchants
to sell their products during the holidays. Mrs. Claus
and Santa opened an ice cream parlor with some of this
new income. (They never could have done it with just social
security that’s for sure). It was expected to do
well as the temperatures rose. The temperatures at the
North Pole were in the 50’s most of the time a year
ago.
Sadly, the ice cream parlor failed. Gasoline prices were
the problem. The North Pole population, except for us
elves, is very spread out. Folks get around in cars, trucks,
and snowmobiles. Only Santa was lucky enough to have reindeer
transportation. However, as the price of gasoline rose
everyone took up reindeer hunting, not to kill, but to
begin desperate attempts at trying to figure out Santa’s
secret for getting them to pull a sleigh and even to get
airborne for longer distances. Many actually did get off
the ground but the minute a sleigh was attached the reindeer
refused to move. That ended that, sort of… Now there
are whole herds of reindeer flying around in the sky just
for the fun of it. You don’t want to be around when
they take a poop or pee I’ll tell you.
Mrs. Claus tried operating a gardening business next,
but that didn’t work out either. The reindeer poop
she was going to use as fertilizer was just too fragrant
for the area around the house. Santa complained constantly
even threatening divorce. It was a difficult decision
for Mrs. Claus, she loves gardening.
Their arguing didn’t stop there, however. Santa
decided it was time for them to travel. He wanted to see
the world, not just roof tops, the inside of chimneys,
and fireplaces. So he bought a travel trailer. (Santa
had that big new source of income, don’t forget.)
Mrs. Claus had a fit about this. She had no desire to
leave her lovely home and the huge number of craft and
sewing projects that would be left mostly untouched. Santa
threatened to go without her so she told him to jump in
the lake, which he did. There was a nice big lake on their
property, thanks again to global warming. Eventually they
put her things in storage, sold their North Pole home
and headed south. According to Santa’s first e-mail
about the trip, Mrs. Claus was learning to play black
jack at a casino in Las Vegas and Santa was enjoying the
Las Vegas scenery (the showgirls).
Meanwhile many of the elves remained at the North Pole.
They are being provided with a pension thanks to Santa’s
Use of Name Contract. The rest of us headed for China.
They wanted us to come over and help them straighten out
the problems they are having with some of their toy products
that have been found to be unsafe since they recognized
that we are the truly toy experts.
We’re working hard to fix their problems, but we’re
also learning a lot—the Chinese language, origami,
rice patty farming, and even egg roll making. The two
activities we enjoy the most though are Chinese flute
playing, saki drinking. We do love sake drinking. When
it’s done along with egg roll making, or origami
the results can be quite surprising. We’ve learned
not to imbibe while working in rice paddies (you fall
down a lot), and the saki does have a disastrous effect
on our Chinese as a Second Language.
In spite of that, we do always have a bottle with us to
drink in place of water. We only drink the water if we’re
constipated.
We all miss the North Pole and can’t wait to get
back. Our fellow elves tell us the weather is becoming
very pleasant thanks to global warming. Lakes have formed
and plant life is increasing. It is now a lovely, fun
place to live Many of the elves have taken up golf, line
dancing, and fishing now the temperatures are in the sixty’s
much of the time. They also have continued making toys
(electronic mostly) for themselves. Gameboys, Xboxes,
and computers are a few of the “toys” the
North Pole elves now have. Besides that, they tell us
they’re “frolicking” all over the place.
The elf population has doubled in the past year! Luckily
there’s a lot of space up there. No overcrowding
is anticipated.
. .
Santa has e-mailed them that he’s thinking of moving
back. He’s getting bored without a job, and driving
the huge trailer and putting up with Mrs. Claus’s
backseat driving is getting to him. He’s remembering
how much he enjoyed his reindeer and sleigh. Mrs. Claus
has offered to drive once in while, but according to Santa,
that would be an accident waiting to happen, and he’d
have a heart attack for sure. Also he’s afraid Mrs.
Claus is enjoying the casinos a little too much. She loves
black jack, roulette and the slot machines with cherries.
Wherever they travel the first thing she does is find
out where the casino is. Santa’s Use of Name Contract
revenue is shrinking fast— Mrs. Claus hasn’t
won in a long time. Since there are no casinos in the
North Pole, Santa keeps reminding her of all her craft
projects that are boxed up in the storage building near
where they used to live and that the price of homes has
come down so she could have a larger home up there now
for less money—a house with more room for craft
projects.
Santa says to tell you he is truly sorry for any inconvenience
his retiring has caused you, but he may be back. We’ll
just have to wait and see. Anyway, I and the rest of the
elves here in China wish you a very merry Christmas and
Happy New Year. Finally remember to watch for recall notices
before you buy toys made in China this year. By next year
we’ll have the problems fixed for sure, and we’ll
be back where we belong.
Sincerely,
Elf Jimmy-Jim
Letter from Santa at Christmas 2007
Dear Folks,
Well it’s that time of year again and unfortunately
I’ve had to make some changes up here. I know things
will be better eventually, but because of the sagging
economy, even at the North Pole, I’ve had to lay
off many elves (the more technologically adept ones) who
have the best chance of getting work down below. Many
of them have packed up and are moving south. Be happy
about these arriving little people because they will bring
with them the need for new sized housing, furniture, transportation
and more, which means jobs, jobs that will replace many
jobs that, at least temporarily, no longer exist.
Besides reducing the size of my work force there are
additional cost-cutting measures I have had to take. I
know most children have electronic toys or gadgets on
their Christmas lists, but due to their high production
cost (only a small number of the elf workers that haven’t
headed south have the skill necessary to produce these
highly desired and extremely expensive gismos now). We
now import most of them from China although the costs
of doing this have skyrocketed. From now on there be few
electronic toys from Santa.
This year, the remaining elves with Santa’s help
will produce lots of jump ropes, roller skates, ice skates,
bicycles, balls of all sorts and along with bats and hockey
sticks where appropriate. Children will also be receiving:
handyman and kitchen tools, harmonicas, flutes, building
blocks of all sorts, puzzles, books, and board games.
In other words we’re going back to basics and the
elves are very happy about that because they are exceptionally
skilled toy craftsmen and women who are again using skills
they’ve developed through many, many years.
Although the children might not be happy about their
gifts from me this year, at least they won’t be
oblivious to the rest of the world, with their ears plugged
and wired into a small apparatus intently staring at its
LCD screen as they click away, probably shooting at something
or someone visible there.
They won’t realized it, but this year’s gifts
from me will help them keep extra pounds off, have fun
with their friends, learn life skills, boost their brain
power, appreciate the beauty of music, and realize how
enjoyable it is to read a book. Besides that happy fact,
our costs for this Christmas’s gifts to the children
of the world will actually go way down. No donations are
needed this year.
Therefore Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight.
.
Hello to Everyone from the North Pole, (letter from Mrs.
Claus 2006)
Santa is resting on our new deck, so he asked me to let
you all know what’s going on up here. First, I must
tell you that my dear husband, Santa, and I have not been
feeling well lately. The rising North Pole temperature
has a lot to do with it the doctors assure us. You see,
we are feeling the effects of global warming. Temperatures
in the fifties might seem cold to you, but to us a temperature
in the 50’s is a heat wave. Although I’ve
gone through menopause, I am again often experiencing
“hot flashes,” and so is Santa! We have had
to modify our wardrobes considerably. Santa is at the
moment wearing red fur trimmed shorts and a Dago-tee that
says Ho, Ho, Ho. However, by the amount of sweat on his
brow I doubt that’s what he’s thinking. I
have exchanged my ten-year-old red sweat suit for a pair
of daisy dukes and sports bra. It’s not a pretty
picture, but I don’t care. I’m cool, at least.
The elves aren’t around today. With the temperature
in the 50’s, they’ve decided to go swimming
at ocean beach that recently appeared since the big snow
melt near their encampment. With the arrival of electronic
MP3 players, Playstations, Gameboys, and Xboxes on the
toy market, we’ve had to downsize drastically and
finally put the elves on extended leave which they are
thoroughly enjoying. The reason for our slow down is simple.
Our inflexible elves didn’t have a clue how these
new electronic gadgets were put together and couldn’t
care less. They simply continued making the same toys
that children requested 50 years ago until we had such
a stock pile of these toys that it was necessary to rent
several large storage buildings. And if that isn’t
enough, the elves union expects us to continue paying
health insurance premiums! Being Santa and me isn’t
easy, let me tell you.
On top of all this, Santa is extremely unhappy with the
elves about their quickly developing laziness and accompanying
weight gain. He was seriously thinking about sending them
to Weight Watchers or Jennie Craig until he discovered
that the closest facility is an extremely long sleigh
ride away and totally over budget. That really didn’t
matter though, since the elves aren’t the least
bit interested in weight management or fitness programs.
They’re too busy enjoying a feast of newly discovered
wild berries and frolicking around in the warmer climate.
And I do mean frolicking. The elf population is multiplying
at an alarming rate.
I have been investigating sending the younger elves to
electronic school. Unfortunately these schools are more
expensive than diet and fitness programs. Sadly, my salary
at the North Pole bakery would only have paid a few of
the elves application fees and my job will be gone at
the end of the week. No one up here wants to bake all
day without air conditioning when the temperature can
get into the sixties. Monday we’ll be living on
my social security alone. Santa never had a paying job
(one that paid with money anyway). Santa thinks an ice
cream parlor might become a big business up here because
of the warm-up. He wants me to open one after the bakery
closes. I told him I'll decide for myself what I'll do
in the future, thank you very much. I also told him I
think he should stick to Christmas and be thankful for
all the kind hearted rich people whose anonymous contributions
have helped make him famous. (Perhaps you would like to
become one of them. See donation form below). Besides,
no ice cream parlor in the North Pole could make enough
money to finance sending the thousands of elves to school.
(Yes, I said thousands. Besides the daytime frolicking,
what do you think adult elves do during the long nighttime
up here?)
Speaking of generous rich people reminds me of Bill
Gates. I’ve decided to write to him about donating
money for the elves’ electronic school. I know he
donates computers to schools and libraries all over the
world. We don’t have a library here yet—there
haven’t been enough people to warrant spending the
money, but now, with the warm-up, property values have
skyrocketed and I’m sure we’ll have a fine
one soon. In fact, Santa and I have been offered a big
bundle for our old house and property. (We do have quite
a bit of property.) We’re thinking this just might
be time to downsize. Honestly, Santa isn’t getting
any younger. He’s tired and thinking it would be
nice to be home for Christmas for a change. That sounds
nice, but it would mean we’d be together a whole
lot more time than we are now. I’m not sure either
of us is ready for that. You see, we’ve had quite
a few of what I’ll call heated disagreements lately,
and more togetherness would probably only make it worse.
Men (yes even Santa) do get very grumpy as they get older,
don’t they?
I sorry I brought my problems up. I ‘m sure you
would rather hear that things are great and that Santa,
I, the elves, and even the reindeer are just one big happy
family singing Christmas Carols as we go about preparing
for the big day. Now you know that isn’t so. Don’t
worry though; we’ll come through for the kids again
this year, but with one small difference. We’ve
informed all our Santa’s helpers, who usually listen
as children rattle off their wish lists, to tell the kids
that this year Santa is going to bring them a surprise
present—something very special. And he will. We’re
attempting to out get rid of some of the toys in the storage
buildings. I hope lots boys will actually enjoy the building
blocks, model railroad, erector, and tinker toy sets after
they figure out that you don’t just sit and press
buttons with these things. The girls will love the baby
dolls, buggies, rocking horses, doctor kits, and stuffed
animal just as much as they always have and probably won’t
even notice they didn’t get an MP3 player.
Once we get rid of our surplus toys and Mr. Gates agrees
to supply the money to send the elves to electronic school,
we’ll be up to speed on the toy end. Then if Santa
decides he needs a rest we’ll put an ad in the papers
for a temporary Santa, and my husband will can take his
place as ice cream parlor manager. That should keep him
busy. I’ve decided to take up gardening. I’ve
read reindeer poop is good fertilizer.
Merry Christmas!!
Mrs. Sandy Claus
Yes, I would like to donate to Santa's Christmas Fund
$5,000._____ $10,000______ $100,000_____
Name: Send to: Mrs. S. Claus
Address: 1234 Misletoe Lane
City, State, Zip North Pole
Important Letter From Santa Claus 2005
Dear Folks,
I’m usually on the receiving end of the mail this
time of year, but this year is different. I’m writing
to let you know about some of the problems we’re
having up here at the North Pole lately. First, the cost
of reindeer fed, has skyrocketed. In addition, many of
the elves are getting older and demanding health insurance
and a shorter workweek. Besides that, none of my stubborn
elves have any desire to learn how to make the computers,
Nintendos, Play Stations, and X-Boxes so many children
are asking for lately. So don’t expect any of these
things to be under the tree. Finally, the elves refuse
to put Barbie’s name on anything they make for the
girls. They insist they are craftsmen who make wonderful
wooden toys, dolls, sleds, stuffed animals, and the like.
And Barbie, they insist, has nothing to do with it.
Because of their defiant attitude, Mrs. Claus and I,
and many of the elves, have been forced to take full-time
jobs to help defray the cost of buying most of things
children are now asking for. Naturally we buy at attractive
wholesale prices, but having to buy toys has never, up
until now, been a part of our budget. Mrs. Claus is a
full-time greeter at our local Wal-Mart in addition to
being a part-time fruitcake baker at the North Pole’s
busiest bakery. I was able to get a better paying government
job because of my knowledge of reindeer. The U.S. Mail
Service is hoping I can train a large number of reindeer
to fly for them, thus saving the government much of the
money they now spend on overnight delivery of mail and
packages. With the cost of jet fuel skyrocketing much
faster than the cost of reindeer fed, they feel reindeer
mail transport might be a good alternative.
Sadly, my own young reindeer are refusing to go to flying
school. They say it’s not worth it for a job they
only do one night a year and don’t even get paid
for. On Christmas Eve, they prefer the warm cozy barn
to zooming around in the sky in extremely cold temperatures
and possibly stormy conditions. However, most of them
are quite happy giving sleigh rides to the tourists who
now come frequently to visit us, thanks to global warming.
The tourists are great tippers, the reindeer inform me.
We split the tips. Every little bit helps you know.
Because of these problems, my time to actually be Santa
Claus has become very limited. It’s become necessary
to make some changes and you need to be made aware of
them. First, because we now have to buy many toys (even
with our new jobs there’s no way we can afford the
toys most kids are now asking for) we are setting a toy
price limit of $5.00 per child up to age 5. After that,
there will only be presents for children who truly believe
in Santa Claus. Don’t ask how I’ll know that;
I’m magic, remember. Also, because of the reduced
number of reindeer willing to make the trip, children
wanting presents that are smaller and lighter will be
given priority.
Now to the actual trip. I do not do chimneys anymore.
It’s not just the elves that are aging. It’s
no fun being stuck in a chimney, and it certainly isn’t
any fun getting burned. Please leave your front door unlocked,
or if you don’t want to do that, leave a key under
a mat by the door. Don’t worry about robbers; statistics
prove they are home with their families on Christmas Eve,
just like you. Another thing, Mrs. Claus asks that you
don’t leave me any cake or cookies. She thinks I’m
getting too fat. I think the chimneys are getting narrower.
Instead, she asks that you leave carrot sticks or celery.
I think a cold beer would be nice and some money to help
with our ever increasing costs. Don’t forget the
reindeer. They get really angry when I get a snack and
they get nothing. Let me just say the ride gets very bumpy.
Luckily, being magic, I can still make it around the
world in one night. Also, there is hope that with selective
breeding, the next generation of reindeer will return
to be the selfless animals, fortunately, a few of them
still are. I don’t have much hope for the elves
though. I’m looking into getting robots to do their
heavy work. I’m in contact with NASA begging them
to donate any robots that are obsolete for their purposes.
I also contacted Bill Gates about donating some computers
with CAD programs to make producing the toys faster and
require fewer elves. He came through with some state of
the art computers and special programs. Bill also kindly
gave us some Micro-Soft stock which at that time wasn’t
doing so well. Now, using the Internet on our new computers,
the elves are busy watching Micro-Soft stock. We’re
counting on the stockmarket to bounce back soon.
Finally don’t forget to tell the children that
they must be good to get presents from me. Many of them
seem to be forgetting that lately. Again, I am magic and
I still know who’s good and who’s not. So
spread the word and send a donation if you can. The reindeer
say to come and see us. The wife and I will probably be
working, but the reindeer will be glad to give you a ride,
and the elves will have a lot of time to sit around and
talk once we have some robots and our investments pay
off. Finally, ‘Merry Christmas to all and to all
a good night,’ just like every year.
Sincerely,
Santa Claus
P.S. We were working with an ad agency on an updated
version of the Merry Christmas to all bit, but like I
said money’s a little tight right now.
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