Okay, so it’s panic stations now as Santa realises he has six weeks to make billions of toys. Hold onto your roast potatoes.

Coup d’état

Santa had to spend a week in the nurse’s ward recovering from fractured bones and numerous cuts and grazes. I had a fight with Rudolph.

And that SOB went on to take over MY factory! The thing is, once I was mobile again I went about and found… everything in good working order. WTF!?

Turns out Rudolph did an online course in project management and, once back on heroin after his failed withdrawal attempt, began running MY business with impressive efficiency.

So Christmas is back on track. Apparently. The factory is working like, “A normal factory should work.” As he put it. Of course, I was goddamn seething. I went to my quarters to belabour at my wife, bellowing for two hours straight about the injustice of it all.

Solution? I staged a coup d’état. It was pretty easy, really. I blackmailed my head elf, Vincent (who had sided with Rudolph, claiming I’m a “haughty tyrant”—that little bastard will pay for that one), to cut off the supply of heroin coming into the factory via various shipments.

Within a few days Rudolph’s professional veneer was gone. He was a dribbling, jabbering wreck lying prone on the floor ranting about instant noodle monsters and Bovril.

I had Vincent drag him to my quarters where I sat on my throne (the toilet in my bathroom) in a sort of James Bond meets villain type stand off.

I’d prepared a speech and everything, but as Rudolph just kept ranting about Bovril it kind of ruined any possibility to make my point. What a spoilsport!

I had Vincent drag him off to the reindeer shack where he’ll spend the next week going cold turkey. It’ll do him good.

To help him through it I gave him a jar of Bovril. “Haughty tyrant” my arse! My generosity knows no bounds.

Pollution

Well, Rudolph has done me a favour. Christmas production was so severely behind schedule I was planning to abandon my duties and go into hiding somewhere in Russia’s wilderness.

Remarkably, he was able to get everything running so efficiently after just one week! It must be my general genius was simmering below the surface, just waiting for that final push to blossom like a beautiful flower of productivity.

So I went into full steam ahead mode and demanded my elves double their production rates, with the remaining factory units ramped up to 11.

This sent everyone into overdrive, with the usual panic-stricken and stressed out looks returning to my elves’ faces. “This is how you run a factory!” I cackled between gulping from a brandy bottle.

I went outside to take in the grandeur of it all, the factory chimneys working overtime to belch all that toxic pollution into the evening air. Set to a beautiful sunset, it was a most emotive sight.

Then I went back inside to hunt down that no good SOB piece of shit bastard head elf of mine, Vincent. “Haughty tyrant! HAUGHTY TYRANT!?” I began bellowing that in a partially drunken way as I stormed through the factory corridors looking for the little git.

Eventually I found him in the Barbie doll production area, where I charged him bellowing to the full capacity of my lungs.

For dramatic effect, I began strippng as I lumbered at him. Unfortunately, my chubby feet got caught up in my Y-fronts and I tumbled.

I must have suffered a concussion as I came about and Vincent had scarpered! Concussed, I turned to a random elf and bellowed at him about where my head elf had gone.

Apparently, he’s “had enough” and has legged it to Russia to hide somewhere in the wilderness. Huh. That diminutive sack of shit had more in common with me then I realised.

Head Elf Ceremony

I decided to apppoint a new head elf that night to restore some order. That random one I yelled at turned out to be called Susan.

Normally I don’t put women in charge as they’re best in the kitchen baking hors d’oeuvres and all that. But something about this one did make me think, “This bitch can hack it!”

So I threw a mini-bash with free liquour and instant noodles brought up from the basement (still irradiated from our nuclear reactor, but you can’t have total perfection).

Drunk, I must admit, I introduced the workforce to my new head elf Susan. Rudolph managed to turn up, but he just lay on the floor pallid and quivering whilst sipping from a mug of Bovril.

As the elves squeaked “speech!” in their silly high-pitched voices, and Susan duly began to deliver, I could smell an excessive stench of sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons that we’ve all become so accustomed to over the years.

Then the air began to clog with smog and I realised the factory’s pollution rate was going a bit through the roof.

The air thickened steadily and everyone started to cough and retch, with Susan’s speech ruined just as she promised to, “Deliver Christmas in the best possible *weeeuuurggghhhh*!”

Pandemonium broke out as my employees raced to find a source of fresh air. I swelled with pride and roared with laughter as they sprinted about in a panic.

I went over to Rudolph and grabbed hold of his antlers, yanking him towards the fire escape. Unfortunately, it was blocked by 37 crates of my pernod collection.

So, yanking him toward the unit exit I bellowed at him that I was the rightful factory owner and that he should know his place. He continued ranting about Bovril and trying to sip away at his mug, but most of the yeast drink splashed out onto the floor.

We finally reached the reception area to my factory and I kicked the doors down, heading out into the fresh arctic air of the North Pole.

I left Rudolph in a heap on the snow and turned to see my factory in manic overdrive, a thunderstorm of smog and smoke belching fursiosly out of the chimneys and clogging the very air around us.

Roaring delightedly between coughing and retching, I stripped naked and, still drunk, began trying to breakdance on the snow. I suffered two sprained ankles and a ruptured spleen.

As the elves went about attempting to control the thunderous pollution rates, they did so to the sounds of my bellows of agony and invective. Merry Christmas, everyone!