It’s Saturday the twenty first of December at six am.  Santa Claus stirs in his bed throws back the covers and blinks painfully as his hungover eyes get used to the light.

Except for his boots he is fully clothed in his all red suit with the white fur trim.

He rolls into a standing position beside the bed, stretches, bends forward to put on his boots and lets out an enormous fart, sniffs and smiles…. approving.

Then he notices the silence, something is wrong, it’s three days to lift off, there should be lots of noise as everyone, except the star of the show of course, should be busy getting things ready for the big day.

He goes down to the kitchen, it’s empty, no Mrs Claus and her Elf helper Sugarplum Mary who should be busy preparing the food to feed everyone for the busy day that started at five O’clock

He shouts for Shinny Upatree, his oldest most trusted Elf and leader of the Elves…. no answer

He looks into the computer room where Elf Alabaster Snowball, who manages the huge naughty or nice database works, empty, all the screens are blank

He shouts for Pepper Minstix head of elf security, nothing, complete silence

Worried now he runs to the factory at the back of his house where Elf Bushy Evergreen runs the toy making machines.The building is sound proofed to keep the noise from the machines deafening everyone outside. He throws open the door, silence. All the machines are stopped. Half made toys of all description are lying on the benches

Beads of sweat break out on his face as he runs to the stables where Elf Wunorse Openslae should be preparing the reindeer and his sleigh for the big day. The sleigh is there, no reindeer

He stands looking around a confused look on his face.  Suddenly, the sound of hammering like someone nailing pieces of wood together drifts down from the ancient forest up the hill.  He realises it’s coming from the wooden shed they used in the old days, before machinery and computers.

Puffing and blowing he starts walking in that direction. He is fifty metres from the shed when the doors burst open and out march all the Elves, flanked by the reindeer and followed by Mrs Claus. They are carrying “strike on here” placards and marching towards him, lifting their knees high and stamping the ground with each step. They march past him down the hill singing at the top of their voices

Ho ho feckin’ ho,
What a crock o’ shit,
We all work for Santa Claus,
We’ve had enough, we quit.
Cos we do all the feckin’ work while he stars in the show,
Stick yer Christmas up yer arse, ho ho feckin ho.

You don’t care about us elves,
we’ve had enough of this,
workin’ in that freezing factory, yer takin the feckin piss,
we work until we drop, with our round bits freezin’ off,
ye can stick yer Christmas up yer arse, ho ho fecking ho.

Then Rudolph screams I QUIT.
Just who does he think he is?
That little fat git sits back in the sleigh,
crackin’ that feckin’ whip.
And me stuck up the front, with these other useless gits,
Ye can stick yer Christmas up yer arse, ho ho feckin ho.

The negotiations only lasted fifteen minutes.  New heating was installed in the factory, the elves had their names painted on the sleigh, Rudolf got double rations during the Christmas rush, Mrs Clause got her own bedroom and a string of pearls and the children got their presents for Christmas

©Brendan Palmer.
Submission to The Inkslingers 500 word Christmas story competition December 2019
The verse is a version of the Monty Python song