Since Santa raided his business rival (resulting in mass failure), Santa felt into a bit of a deep gloom about his business prospects.

However, in a final last ditch attempt to save Christmas 2023 he’s hired a bunch of robots manufactured to assist busy businesses in the Xmas rush. Huzzah! We’ll be getting Barbie dolls after all!

Hiring Christmas Robot Worker H.0 H.0 H.0

Santa lives by the proviso NOTHING IS EVER FINAL. Hard work is enough to work harder your way out of ANY crisis! And with with just days to go until Christmas, I had a bloody great big plan up my Santa sleeve!

I went ahead and ordered in four Robot Worker H.0 H.0 H.0 contraptions to help with a manic, last ditch push to produce at least 50 million toys.

It was a long shot. But my decision fuelled by vodka and energy drinks, Santa knew it could be done! And after ordering the robots in, they arrived with same day delivery and I got Markus, my head elf, to prep them up ready to roll.

Robot Worker H.0 H.0 H.0 has many features! It’s great! 

Each robot stands at 6ft and has the strength of 30 grown men! It’s programmed to never get tired and can work 24 hour shifts with nary a grumble. It responds to voice commands, too, which is mega. So you can say stuff to it and it’ll respond like:

• “Go and punch Kenneth the walrus in the face!” – “Bzzt! Yes, master!“
• “Unclog Santa’s toilet!” – “Yes, bzzt, master!“
• “Finalise the production line of fifty million toys within two working days!” – “Bzzt, yes master!”

They also come pre-installed with Christmas carols and other songs, including that Slade one when Noddy Holder screams “IT’S CHRRRRRIIISSSTMASSS!!!” All you have to say to the stupid things is “Noddy Holder” and then it’ll stop what it’s doing, rear back slightly, and launch into that deafening roar.

Santa set the robots to work in the factory immediately. The four units stomped from left to right at breakneck speed and pulverised multiple elves who were too slow and getting in their way.

There’s something so very satisfying watching an elf flying through mid-air as a robot worker, who you don’t even have to pay, performs the job 1,000 times faster!

Markus, my head elf, was concerned about the future of his job. I patted him on his shoulder, kneeled down, and wheezed gin breath into his face.

“Don’t you worry, Markus, you’ll always have a job here! Worst case scenario you’ll be demoted to cleaning Santa’s bathroom every day!”

That didn’t cheer Markus up in the way I’d expected, so I gave him a shot of brandy and he perked up a bit. Then he passed out drunk.

Such lightweights, these dimwit elves.

Does Not Compute! Bzzt! And Other Malfunctions

Santa went off to bed that night safe in the knowledge I’d saved Christmas. I got drunk to celebrate, staying up late drinking brandy from the bottle while watching ABBA clips on YouTube.

Only the sound of a catastrophic explosion jolted me out of my prone position, which was me lying there on the floor while drooling along to The Winner Takes It All.

Santa could hear, off in the distance, the bloody robots bzzting and kicking up a right old bloody fuss of it!

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?!” I bellowed.

Staggering to my feet, Santa stumbled out of my office, stumbled down the corridor, stumbled over, stumbled back up, stumbled onward, and stumbled into factory unit 1 where the robots were SUPPOSED to be working!

And there they were. Bedlam!

They’d bloody gone and grown a bloody conscience during the night, malfunctioned, and were no longer Robot Worker H.0 H.0 H.0s! They were now demanding a union, had gone on strike, and had detonated 300lbs of MY OWN PERSONAL dynamite stock right there in the bloody Barbie doll making sector of my factory!

At some point the robots had already printed off political paraphernalia for their strike action with slogans reading:

• Workers of the world, unite!
• Enough is BZZZT!
• Labour is entitled to all it creates!
• BZZZZZZZZZZT!
• 0100101010011110
• Dump the bosses off our motherboards!

Worse still, they’d got that bloody halfwit dogsbody of mine Kenneth the walrus to join their movement.

Kenneth had clambered on top of the Barbie doll head making machine and was performing a mating challenge on the contraption while braying hysterically. He was wrapped in a “BOSSES BEWARE – WHEN WE’RE SCREWED, WE MULTIPLY!” banner and cripes almighty, the last thing Santa needs running around is multiple versions of Kenneth.

This was worst case scenario.

Strike action from a set of ultra-strong, hyper intelligent robotic commie bastards who’d gone rogue and were braying for workplace equality. I said aloud to myself right then and there, “This wouldn’t have happened in the good old days!”

I’d had enough already and decided nothing else was for it! Time to blow the bastards up with a bazooka shell or two!

But the devious bastards had had off with the bazookas as well! The robots were brandishing them all in the air while bzzzting mechanically over and over.

Santa needed a Christmas miracle! 

(Just About) Stayin’ Alive

Santa retired to my quarters to blast The Bee Gees hits at maximum volume. I find listening to Barry Gibb’s high-pitched falsetto seriously puts me on psychotic edge, thusly inspiring my entrepreneurial mania.

I was 47 seconds into Stayin’ Alive when I started to strut my drunken, funky stuff. Santa even had a crack at a falsetto, but almost blew a kidney in the process.

Santa focussed back on strutting.

Whilst shaking my hips like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, Santa lost control of my bodily functions and limbs in general. I cannoned across my office and slammed violently through the wall, careering spasmodically back into factory unit 1.

It’s while I was flailing around totally out of control that Santa, in what must be a 300-billion-to-one-chance, scrawled my signature across Robot Worker H.0 H.0 H.0s’ socialist statement of demands, thus affirming my agreement and that it was all legally binding.

Santa then careered onwards, slammed through the wall of factory unit 1, and disappeared into the snowstorm wailing away outside.

Markus, my head elf, chased after me to ensure I didn’t succumb to hypothermia. Eventually, he caught up with me when my legs froze solid in the snow.

He dragged me back and thawed me out in my Santa office. Nurse Doreen also brought me a mug of hot cocoa and a bottle of 95% proof absinthe.

The next day, while very hungover, I attempted to argue that I was totally insane and hadn’t intended to sign the document. Santa was informed by the Robot Worker H.0 H.0 H.0s (all of them at once) that my claims were irrelevant.

I tried to engage them in a punch up, but their solid metallic exteriors instantly broke both my hands!

Crap bags.

CURSE YOU FOR THIS THE BEE GEES! YOUR STUPID FALSETTOS AND FUNKY ’70S DISCO NUMBERS HAVE CURSED MY EXISTENCE!

Santa now DICTATES this column to Markus, my head elf, while I ponder over the inevitable fallout of Christmas 2023 and those stupid little kids who’ll get angry when they don’t get their bloody Barbie dolls. This is a disaster!

To ease the mental burden, I got Nurse Doreen to inject me with some VERY song drugs… oh yeah, that’s the stuff!

Back on with the Bee Gees and the vinyl. NIGHT FEVER, NIGHT FEVER! Jive Talkin’… Night On Broadway. Santa was strutting his funky shizz in every direction, right up until I threw several hernia when trying to do the splits.

I also split my Santa pants right down the crotch… I’ll drink to that!