After Santa’s barber hairdo thing last week, this time out he continues to ignore his Christmas obligations. There are distractions, you see, and this time it’s all down to a mutt.

Santa sent us this column 13 hours late this time. He claims he wasn’t drunk at all, even though the document arrived via pigeon mail whilst reeking of brandy. We’re not sure we believe Santa on that claim… but, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt! After all, he’s such a jolly old fellow.

The Bark

That bastard barking outside the factory did it in for my latest Santa hangover. I came too draped over a pile of Christmas crackers in factory unit 4 with rats swarming all over me! My hysterical shrieking sounded out hard and long. Luckily, my head elf, Markus, turned up to remind me I’d personally hired the rodents to work for me.

“Oh, yes… yes! Thank you Markus, go and have a donut.”

“Thank you, sir!”

If you’re surprised by the donut thing and Santa’s unyielding generosity, that’s all down to Santa’s new plan of… *gritted teeth*… cordiality. I read it online in The Sun that if you pretend to treat your staff right, they work good. So I airlifted in 300 metric tonnes of donuts over the weekend for the elves and rats to feast on whenever they do anything well.

Trouble is MOST OF THEM ARE INCOMPETENT SWINES and so THEY DO NOT GET ANY DONUTS. Shame on this workshy generation. Shame on them!

This does mean the donuts are just sitting there now going mouldy.

I’m not sure if the gargantuan donut pile is attracting rats or not, because the factory is already overrun with rat workers. This is really confusing, so Santa hit the bottle. Nothing quite like 7am gin slugging.

BUT THAT BLASTED BARKING CONTINUED!

“Markus!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Go and find out what’s causing that barking! If it’s one of those SEALS again tell it to sod off!”

“Yes, sir!

Markus scurried off and left Santa to slug from the gin bottle. I undraped myself from the Christmas cracker pile and stood there in my stained Y-fronts. This is the life!

The Dog

Markus returned after five minutes as Santa stood there swaying next to the Christmas crackers. I belched exuberantly as I saw the little git return.

“WELL!?” I barked.

“It’s a stray dog, sir, it’s lost.”

“What the hell is a dog doing out here!?” I barked again.

Markus didn’t answer. I sneered down at him and roared “SOME HEAD ELF YOU TURNED OUT TO BE!” Then I found my Santa pants, hoiked them up to my massive beer belly, and staggered out of the factory into the wilderness. There it was! A brown, bedraggled dog sprinting about the place, barking, chasing snowflakes, chasing its own tail.

To my eternal horror, Kenneth the walrus (my factory gaffer) ambled out to see what all the fuss was about. Braying hysterically, he then rampaged over to the dog and the pair of the idiots starting playing around and having FUN.

“CUT THAT OUT THIS INSTANT!” I bellowed at them.

Anyway, the dog turned out to be pretty obedient and came running up me with its tail wagging. It kept jumping up and licking at Santa’s big red blotchy face, which was pretty disturbing, not least as this is the most romantic moment I’ve endured since my wife DIVORCED me because of FEMINISM. Yes, Santa is still single BUT THAT IS BY CHOICE because otherwise I have MILLIONS of women just waiting to marry me.

But the big problem was the dog. It kept licking at my face.

“SIT DOWN AND STOP THAT!” I roared.

It sat down and stopped that but it looked super eager about something.

“What the bloody hell do you want!?” I barked.

“Woof!”

“What!?”

“WOOF!”

I looked at Markus, my head elf, and Markus (my head elf) looked back at me. Then Kenneth lumbered into the scenario right up in front of my face and gazed at me lovingly. This bullshit was too much to handle! Santa needed a drink and so yanked a bottle of Drambuie out of my Santa pants and took a big old hard slug of the good stuff.

The Teddy Bears Incident

While drunk, Santa adopted the dog and called the dog Dog. Dog was highly excitable about his new home in the factory. Pissed out of my mind, I decided to give my new pet a tour of the factory. To cut a long story short, Dog decided to urinate on a long deactivated teddy bear making machine that was deemed illegal by international health & safety regulations, which had led to Santa having had to switch the stupid thing off.

Unfortunately, Dog triggered it back on with his piddle.

The machine belched violently into life with huge plumes of black smoke kicking out of the thing. Several elf workers were present and began panicking when they realised what machine had just been brought back to life. They remembered the carnage of 10 years ago, Santa remembered the carnage of 10 years ago, Markus remembered the carnage of 10 years ago.

Kenneth the walrus and Dog did not know about this at all and seemed confused that the elves were running around in hysterics.

But then it started…

To the sound of loud clanging, clanking, and whirring, the machine was back in action and firing on all cylinders. Problem? This was a specific type of teddy bear making machine specialising in mass producing EXTRA LARGE teddy bears. When I mean big, they’re big buggers—massive. So big they’re considered a threat to international safety. But now the bloody machine was pelting out these 20ft monstrosities one after another! Within five minutes the factory unit was packed tight to maximum crush levels and ready to burst at the seams!! Thankfully it did, otherwise we’d have all been crushed to death!!!

That’s when Santa realised why it was a good idea to deactivate the contraption 10 years ago. IT JUST DOES NOT STOP PELTNG OUT GIGANTIC TEDDY BEARS!

Not that Santa was panicking because I was drunk. I actually found all of this vaguely amusing and kept cackling to myself and singing that song about teddy bears and picnics.

Markus, however, in a sober moment reminded me I’ll have a $100 million fine if the World Trade Organisation (WTO) found out about this. Those bastards aren’t getting a penny off of me! But watching on as wave after wave after wave of massive bloody teddy bears pelted off into the distance in the North Pole and I figured this was emergency situation number one that needed addressing. If we waited another 30 minutes the entire continent would be swarmed by teddy bears.

THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE FOR IT!

With Dog running around yapping, sniffing, and lapping at my ankles, and Kenneth braying hysterically, and the elves panicking and in hysterics, and Markus very pale and shocked, and me pissed senseless, Santa went off to my office to have a power nap.

While I ambled off on my gout ridden ankles Markus paced beside me pleading for me to “address the situation at hand” and that it would be an “international emergency”. Santa told the little git to sod off.

Wandering into my quarters I slammed the door, locked it, and stripped down to my stained undies.

Then I picked the half eaten burger from last night off the floor and chowed down on that.

30 minutes later Santa was in the bathroom groaning like Beelzebub and Behemoth on a karaoke machine. If there’s one thing I learned today, kids, it’s TO NOT ADOPT A STRAY DOG!