Bulgaria Wants to Interview Santa

/3 Comments/in , /by

Bulgaria wants to interview Santa. On December 24th. On national television. At 7pm local time.

Can you see now why Santa needs elves all over the world?

No matter how much work the Public Relations Department at the North Pole puts into, well, publicizing, how Santa works they still don’t get it.

The media – and this is everywhere, not just Bulgaria – should know better than anyone that Santa is juuuuuuuuuuuuusssssst a little busy on Christmas Eve.

I am sure the News Department hates to turn down a media request in prime time.

But they didn’t even need to think about this one.

Bulgaria is in the center of the delivery schedule for Santa. That means he’s somewhere else just an hour – or 12 hours – before he gets to Bulgaria.

He’s up to his eyeballs in chimneys and reindeer then. There’s no WAY Santa has time to talk to anyone on Christmas Eve.

Elves, we need your help.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, TALK to people over the next week or so. TEACH them about how all this works.

Get them to understand that Santa is delivering to the WHOLE world between the hours of 10pm and 4am local time.

It takes him more of less 30 straight hours to do this – which is a miracle, if you think about it.

30 hours in and out of a sleigh starting in Sector 1 and going until the last porch light goes out in Sector 5.

That means Santa doesn’t have time for phone calls, visits or nationally televised interviews.

Look, you guys – tracker elves, pretty important people in the world of Santa Claus – have to meet with Santa this Saturday (the 16th) because Santa doesn’t have a hole in his schedule closer to Christmas.

If that’s true, and it is because I keep Santa’s calendar, what chance does Channel 4 in Bulgaria have?

Good grief.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Where is Elf Crash?

/2 Comments/in , /by

Joel here. Remember me? Santa’s calendar guy?

Yeah, my job sucks right now. Santa took off, nobody can reach him, everyone wants to meet with him and I can only book things for November and December.

That’s not exactly a great time for Santa.

That means everyone is mad at me. You see, Santa could come back this week or sometime in the fall. I don’t know. So I don’t dare put anything on his calendar. He told me to just tell people “no”. And they don’t like that.

I’m not the elf everyone should be mad at right now. They should be mad at Elf Crash Murphy.

I’m hearing lots of complaints.

Since Crash was named International Director of Santa Trackers there have been nothing but questions.

Where are the elf reviews? Are we recruiting new elves this year or not? What about the regional tracking centers – when do we get word of those? How about Santa’s sleigh and the test flight schedule?

But we haven’t had a single word from our intrepid new International Director. Not a chat, not a radio news report, not a podcast. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch. A big donut from the new director.

Am I mad?

Well…not exactly. I’m just bored if you want to know the truth.

I’m working at Mrs. Claus’ new office because Santa’s office is, well, empty and dark. Plus, getting away from there means that people have to come find me if they want to be told “no” about adding something new to Santa’s calendar. I find hiding out over here is a good strategy.

Since I’m not calendaring I’m doing a lot of filing. Elf Trixie has me shuffling paperwork – filing last year’s weather reports from Flight Command. Very boring. It snowed nearly every day last year at the North Pole. Did you know that? Yeah, I know, who cares, right?

Anyways, one of my new passions is, well, tracking Santa. Like many of you I’m a tracker elf. After all, what is there for Santa’s calendar guy to do on Christmas Eve?

So I’ve been deep in Elf University, catching up on all the Santa Tracker Podcasts and doing all I can to be ready to track Santa for Santa this year. Just like all of you.

And I have questions. Questions that only Elf Crash, our new director, can answer. And he appears to have gone silent. Which is really weird for a guy like Crash.

Yes, I know Crash. I’ve known him actually since I was a kid and he was a tape dispenser repair elf in the Wrapping Department.

He’s a good guy.

But where the heck is he?

Like everyone else, I really feel Crash is the right guy to be our director.

I want to hear from him. I have questions. There are things I think we need to know. Now. Not at Christmas in July. Not in the fall when all the tracker elves will be back in abundance. Now.

Where is Elf Crash?

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

The Job Comes First

/2 Comments/in , /by

Hi. Joel here. At the Pole, as ever.

Elf Joel

Lots of confused elves running around here. Elf Roger’s announcement yesterday has thrown everyone into a tizzy.

Some elves here didn’t come in to work.

They aren’t mad. They just don’t know if they still do what they were doing before. So they stayed home, waiting to see if they need to apply for a job.

Elf supervisors in departments all over the North Pole are busy calling elves in to work.

It was bound to happen.

It didn’t happen to me. I’m here, outside Santa’s office. Doing my usual thing with Santa’s calendar.

There was no way I wasn’t coming to work.

Can you imagine the chaos?

You see, nobody else knows how to do my job. I’ve done it for so long. And I have never trained another elf to do it. If I get sick and can’t come in to work, Santa’s calendar world stops.

Nobody else can manage Santa’s calendar, not even Santa.

We did talk about this last year during my review. I asked Santa, “What if I get hit by a bus?” Santa just laughed. Then he admitted that maybe we should organize a little succession plan for the Santa Calendar Department, as he put it.

He told me to put that on his calendar.

Haha. Santa is such a jokester sometimes.

Anyways, every time there are changes at the North Pole – and there are constant changes – elves tend to freak.

There is a lot of freaking out going on right now at the North Pole.

Every January something like this happens.

I remember the year when Mrs. Claus said the elf hats worn in the North Pole kitchen might not be white any more. She was thinking red would be a lovely change. Well, that freaked out the kitchen elves like nothing else. There were elves seriously shopping for new shoes that very day just because of the possibility of red hats.

That’s why these days important individuals like Mrs. Claus or Elf Roger are really, really careful about what they say in January.

As elves we take our jobs very seriously. Our elf job is part of our elf identity. I like that sometimes but most of the time, it bothers me a little. As Santa’s calendar elf I’m known everywhere here for that.

But I’m not anyone important. I don’t make decisions. I write things down in pencil and erase things a great deal. That doesn’t make me important in any way.

Santa is important.

Not me. Just because I work for the Big Guy doesn’t mean I’m someone.

I often wonder what it feels like to be just a regular guy who is not an elf. Like a bus driver, or something.

In the real world, do people see you and recognize you by your job?

I don’t think so.

If I were just Joel from Toledo, or somewhere, and I drove a bus would they call me Bus Driver Joel? I kind of doubt it.

But here, at the North Pole, I’m Elf Joel – the elf with the office just outside of Santa’s office. Most don’t even know my name. I’m that Santa calendar guy.

That’s so uncool. I don’t like it at all.

But that’s the way it is and I accept it. Heck, I embrace it.

I even called my Mom the other day. “Who is this?” she asked. I said, “It’s me, Mom. Your son, Joel?”

She said, “Who?”

I said, “You know, Santa’s calendar elf?”

“Oh, oh, oh…” she said.

She was just teasing.

She knows I’m sensitive about this. But I took her serious. I always fall for that.

But I took her serious because that’s my job. I’m an elf. I’m Santa’s calendar elf. That’s who I am. That is what I respond to. The job is everything to an elf.

And that, I suppose, is why so many elves are freaking out today.

I get it. I understand it.

But I tell you: relax.

Being an elf is good enough. Or, at least it should be. Being a particular kind of elf doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

You’re an elf. Think about that.

That makes you special.

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Nothing to Do

/3 Comments/in , /by

Hey. Joel here. Remember me? Yeah, that guy who wrote ONE post like months ago and then disappeared?

I’m back.

Back at the North Pole. Back from life on the road with Santa. Back to a winter wonderland with nothing to do.

I have not been at the North Pole during Christmas time for many years. Well, I was a little more during the pandemic but that was because Santa was held against his will. He was grounded and so was I. Boy, that was a slow time.

Every November, right after Halloween, Santa hits the road and I go with him. He’s done it forever. He just loves visiting with the children and hearing their Christmas wishes. That’s what he does.

That’s not what I do.

I already told you all about it, so I won’t tell you my part in it all again other than to say unlike other elves at the North Pole I’m not at the North Pole when it is Christmas. Right up until Santa returns to hop in the sleigh I’m gone. Then he dumps me like yesterday’s lunch.

It’s usually just a few hours to Christmas Eve on December 23rd when I get back and other than getting a decent chug of eggnog there’s nothing for me to do when I get back.

Like everyone else – like you – I track Santa first thing when he takes off.

But, unlike you, I have no clue what’s going on. And, unlike you, I have no elf supervisor here at the North Pole to guide me.

Think about that. Every sector has an elf supervisor – and a news page – on this website. But North Pole trackers like me don’t have a sector. The North Pole is not in a sector. It’s just the North Pole.

Oh, we have Flight Command but those elves are useless to us. They are too busy telling the world when to get to bed and keeping up with that map. They don’t have time to tell trackers like me at the North Pole what they need.

And what would North Pole Flight Command need of just a regular tracker elf like me who lives at the North Pole?

So, really, once Santa drops me off I have literally nothing to do. And since that time I’ve been busy as heck doing nothing.  And that nothing continues well into the New Year.

Now, you’d think a calendar guy like me would like New Years. And I do, don’t get me wrong. It’s good to be home after traveling with Santa for two months. But it’s a new year. That means a new calendar, right? Big time for calendar elves, huh?

Actually, I detest January. January is the reason why I work in pencil.

You see, in January, everyone thinks Santa has a blank calendar. Well, he does but for whatever reason they seem to think January means they can put whatever they WANT on Santa’s calendar.

They can’t.

It doesn’t work that way.

Well, it does for Mrs. Claus. She calls me up – usually the first week of January – and she puts just two events on Santa’s calendar.

The first is their trip for Thanksgiving in October with the Canada family Mrs. Claus has. That is their tradition and they go every year. I can practically write that one in ink. I don’t, of course, cause he’s Santa. He’s definitely a guy who has to keep things written in pencil, especially on his calendar.

The second event is their anniversary.

Actually, Mrs. Claus doesn’t have to tell me it because I know it. I put it on the calendar before she ever calls. But Santa can never remember it and I put it down so I can remind him. That’s another inker, by the way. Santa does not miss his anniversary. That’s my job, you know. To remind Santa of what’s on his calendar.

Anyway, in my office – which is really just a cubicle outside of Santa’s office (how much of a desk does a calendar guy need?) – I sit at my desk during these dog days of January doing nothing. Well, I do take phone calls – which are all worthless and a waste of time, by the way.

Everyone calling is important. At least that’s what they tell me. And they want Santa’s time. They want me to put time slots down on Santa’s calendar for him to meet with them.

But it doesn’t work that way.

I tell them this. All-the-time. But they never listen, and that’s because I’m a second class elf. I’m just Joel at the Pole. I have no power over Santa’s calendar except this: I don’t put anything on it unless SANTA tells me to. (Well, after Mrs. Claus, of course).

He’s my boss.

So, when they call, I get to tell them, “when Santa tells me it goes on the calendar, it goes on the calendar”.

Until then, I wait.

I wait until Santa has time to meet with me. I don’t set an appointment with him. He calls me in.

When he calls me in he works from a billion scraps of paper. Post it notes, mostly. He scribbles down names and stuff and then expects me to put it all down on the calendar.

You have to be very specific with Santa. That’s your friendly Elf Joel tip-of-the-day. Remember this when you make a wish list or something for Santa. Be specific. Don’t tell him you want a new dolly for Christmas. Tell him you want the 2023 Molly Dolly that wets, cries and says “Mama” while closing her eyes. Otherwise who knows what you end up with.

Santa is not good at giving specifics but he’s great at remembering them.

For example, last year, around the 20th of January, he finally met with me and we went through his list of calendar events. He wanted me to put a meeting down with Elf Bernard, head of the workshop, for a specific date. He could remember the day but not the time. BUT – Santa knew exactly what he wanted to meet with him about and how long that meeting needed to be scheduled for. Good enough for me. Of course, I had to call Elf Bernard to see if he could remember the time – he did – and we got it on Santa’s calendar.

These are the down and dirty details of being Santa’s calendar guy. Exciting, eh?

That’s why these early days of January are so awesome for me.

There’s nothing to do.

Not yet.

And it’s glorious.

Happy January from the Pole.

Elf Joel

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online

Where Santa is Now

/2 Comments/in , , /by

Hi.

I’m Joel. I’m an elf. I live at the North Pole.

This is the first entry of my new column – an exclusive here at SantaTrackers.net.

Honestly, I’m not sure I want to do this. You see, I’m what they call a reluctant elf.

My Dad is an elf. My grandparents are elves. My great-grandpa was an elf. And his father was an elf.

But I’m not sure I want to be an elf.

You understand, right?

Well, maybe you don’t. Most of you were not born at the North Pole. Most of you have not lived day-in and day-out all the days of your life in the world of elves.

Sometimes I just want to be a regular person.

But enough about me. Let’s get down to why I’m here.

My elf job is one so many elves want – except me. I don’t hate my job. Honestly I don’t. I just don’t think I deserve this job.

My official elf job is to work on Santa’s office staff. My role there is to track Santa. Hahaha, that’s a joke. I track Santa in the sense that I keep his calendar. So, it’s my job to tell Santa where to go all the time.

Some think that is funny when I say that. But the truth is that Santa is a very, very busy man. He needs elves like me.

Santa actually has a very large office staff. Most really important people do. In Santa’s case, his staff is necessary to keep him moving to all the places he needs to go, to meet the right people he needs to be with and to keep him on track with all the stuff he wants to do.

My job just happens to be his calendar.

Some people – even other elves – think this is a privileged position, like working in Santa’s workshop. They think that because I see Santa almost every day (I travel with him a great deal) and that I know almost everything he is doing at any given that I’m important and that my entire days must be filled with candy canes and sugar plums.

But believe me. It’s not at all a big deal. It’s work. A job.

What I do is important. But it’s not important like being a doctor, or a teacher or one of those jobs where you get to help a lot of people.

The job I do helps one guy. That guy happens to be Santa Claus.

I know it is a privileged thing I do. After all, how many elves can say their direct supervisor is Santa himself?

But from where I’m coming from it isn’t all that special.

I grew up here at the North Pole. My Dad worked in Santa’s workshop for many years. He was the lead woodworker. He worked side-by-side with Santa for decades on a billion kagillion projects.

As a kid, Santa came to my house. He ate BBQ with us. He pooped in our bathroom.

Yeah, not your ordinary Santa experience.

You see, living at the North Pole, at least in the eyes of people who have never been here, is like living in a snow globe. They think it is all Christmas all the time. They think eggnog flows in the rivers, that candy canes grow on trees and that Rudolph actually talks to people.

He doesn’t, by the way. He’s actually a very shy and private guy. He glows that red nose at people who approach him in public as a way to say “STOP!”. They never do though. Rudolph can’t catch a break when people are around. He just wants to be left alone most of the time.

I get him.

Living at the North Pole is not the picnic you think it is.

And neither is being Santa’s calendar guy.

Some days I think I am the only guy in the world that still uses a pencil. Santa’s calendar is filled with eraser marks because his schedule always changes. I use a lot of pencils and it’s usually the rubber end.

All this is my way of saying things aren’t always holly berries and Christmas trees at the North Pole and in the life of a working elf.

That’s all. I still want everyone to have a Merry Christmas.

But at the same time I envy those who can just hang their stockings and wait for Santa to come one night every year.

That does not mean I hate my elf life.

It just means sometimes I want to be just Joel – normal guy. Boring dude. Mr. Ordinary.

So what is Santa doing now?

Well, he’s packing his bags.

And so am I.

Every November, right after Halloween, Santa hits the road. He is intent on meeting with people, especially children all over the world.

Between now and Christmas Eve Santa will be “out there” – well, except for a few times he comes back to the North Pole, like Thanksgiving. He’ll be here for all the traditional stuff we do on Thanksgiving.

And I will be with him. The calendar guy has two jobs with Santa on the road – I get to keep the calendar and I get to, um, help the reindeer find a place to do business. Hey, someone’s got to do it and when Santa is on the road he doesn’t have his whole staff with him. Just those he needs. So we double up on duties.

My job here in writing this column, ironically, is to share with you what it is like to live at the North Pole.

Of course, between now and Christmas I’ll be writing this on the road.

News departments are dumb like this.

You see, and maybe I have already blown it with that statement, but I’ve applied for a different elf job. I want to be a news guy. I like the idea of writing. I may even ask to give that radio or podcast thing a shot.

Anything that doesn’t require a pencil.

But, like most elves, I have to earn it. That means waiting a long time. Taking opportunities as they come. Showing I can do other things while I’m still doing the same old thing.

That’s just how it rolls for elves who want to do different elf things.

I’m sure some of you can understand. I’m sure some of you want to do something more or different than being a tracker elf.

Do any of you want to be the calendar elf for Santa?

Hahaha. I’m just kidding.

I love my job.

Elf Joel at the Pole

SantaUpdate.com - Tracking Santa Online