The little man in green gyrated, shaking off the snow. But his red face betrayed his anger.
Elves are normally placid, hard-working, cheerful sorts.
He stomped his little feet and looked across at the old, white-haired man sitting by the fire.
“This is the pits, boss! Who decided we must live and work north of the Arctic circle?
Why couldn’t we go to Miami? I love sea and swimming!”
The old man shook his head: “We’ve been over this a thousand times. You wouldn’t get into the States. You’re not white enough!”
The elf wasn’t giving up: “ I can always jump in a barrel of whitewash…”
“No matter. You still can’t speak Afrikaans so you’ve got no chance…”
The other elves, who had been following the conversation, got back to business, wrapping presents.
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Father Christmas had decided, a few weeks ago, to use that name only, following a vain attempt to convince the American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) people that Santa Claus wasn’t a Venezuelan drug dealer’s name.
You’d think that the ICE-men might have some sympathy for a citizen of a polar region…
“Okay, sports department – how’s it going?”
The elfin supervisor looked down at her clipboard: “We are following your instructions to try to educate the world this year by giving more books than usual. We’ve got Cricket for Dummies to leave at Lord’s for the England team and we think Ireland Rugby will like the copy of How to scrum like a Boss, signed by Rassie Erasmus and the Springbok front row.”
The old man nodded and looked over his spectacles towards the logistics department: “That reminds me, how’s the planning going for our South African leg on Christmas Eve?”
“We had to upgrade our GPS systems because so many of the airport instrument landing systems are on the blink. At least we don’t have to bring presents for the bosses at the Air Traffic and Navigation Services because they paid themselves fat bonuses anyway.
“We’ve also fitted landing floats on to the sleigh for landing on water – which is just about anywhere in Gauteng.”
Father Christmas stroked his white flaxen beard: “Any special arrangements we may have to make for Rudolf, considering he has been shot at before by people thinking he was a drone…”
Logistics Elf said: “Drones are not a big problem in South Africa. Most of them live in parliament but at this time of the year they’ll be sleeping off the booze and food in their mansions as you’d expect from politicians.
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“However, we believe there could be a problem with his red nose guidance system close to ground level. When the average South African driver sees a red light, he just puts foot… and we don’t really want to crash and see it rain deer.”
Father Christmas chortled: “Ho, ho, ho. Very droll. Continue.”
“You will see, boss, that on the logistics form we have put in for cooldrinks…”
The old man’s eyes rose: “Come on now, I know it’s hot in Africa but why would we need to quench our thirsts?”
The elf replied: “Sir, in that part of the world a cooldrink is what you give to a traffic cop…”
“Okay, I can understand that. It’s thirsty work directing traffic.”
Clearly, the elf’s face said, Father Christmas had to be brought up to speed with SA.
“Firstly, you seldom see a traffic cop actually directing traffic. Cooldrink is the local lingo for a bribe.
“And this is the time of the year when they’re very thirsty at the roadblocks.”
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