Jump to content

Lockdown diaries: Santa Claus


Rob Thompson

Recommended Posts

Lockdown diaries: Santa Claus

Source: Radius Data Exchange 15 Nov 2020

 

A dispatch from the North Pole on the future of the workshop, logistics and preparing for the big day

Up at 4.30am to go to the toilet. I might only be 1,749 years old, but I seem to have developed the bladder of a man 500 years my senior. There’s no point in trying to go back to sleep. Mrs Claus is still in the land of nod, so I pad downstairs to put the kettle on.

It’s been a funny old year. Covid seemed to get around the world even faster than I can. But time now to spread some joy. Cancelling Christmas? Out of the question. Glad the politicians saw sense.

I’m behind with the children’s letters, as usual, so I get started with some reading over the first cuppa and a bowl of porridge. Archie in south-west London wants a pair of noise-cancelling headphones to block out the sound of his father’s Zoom calls. What has lockdown done to these families?

After breakfast is finished and the reindeer fed, I head to the study to spend some time preparing for a webcast I’m speaking on later in the week called “The Future of the Toy Workshop: Getting Ready for the New Normal”. It will be good to share some thoughts on how to adapt in the face of a changing industry. Antony Slumbers is hosting it.

Lunch with Mrs Claus has been a regular treat this year, given that I’ve been unable to spend as much time in the workshop with the elves. It’s important to strike a work-life balance. She asks when I’m going to fix the back gate. Doesn’t she realise I’m doing just as much work even though I’m at home? Might hide in the study for the afternoon.

The afternoon begins with a call to a couple of agencies to talk about logistics sites. Social distancing means I need the same number of helpers – we haven’t furloughed a single elf – but an even larger space in which to get everything prepared. Not easy with appetite for industrials as big as it is, and don’t the agents love to remind me of it. There’s a fantastic site coming to market nearby but I can already see the price being pushed higher than my sleigh, and my competitors have as much firepower as me after Brussels sprouts. What does SEGRO need with an industrial unit at the North Pole anyway?

Next, some paperwork to sort out for an exciting revamp of part of the workshop. Lockdown has taught me that I can work pretty much anywhere, Mrs Claus notwithstanding, and so having office space within the workshop no longer feels necessary. I can work from the house and the accounting, HR and business development teams can all work remotely too. So we’re repurposing the office space as homes for the little helpers. I’d always been intrigued by the offices-to-resi trend, and the elves are so small that I don’t need to worry about minimum size requirements at all.

I stop mid-afternoon for a brisk walk in the bracing winter air. Just lovely. Trying to make sure I hit 10,000 steps each day. Don’t want to do so much that I lose the loveable, rotund figure, but, as Mrs Claus points out, I’m not getting any younger and I should be looking after myself a bit more.

Back at the house, I have a quick catch-up via Teams with the head elf to make sure everything is running as it should with just a couple of weeks to go until the 25th. The day-to-day running of the workshop largely takes care of itself now, and it’s good to know I can rely on the team to look after everything without me being accused of micromanagement.

After reading a few more letters it’s time for a cheeky port, dinner and then a relaxing, hot bath. I have to admit, as soon as the calendar says “December” I start to get a little nervous about the big day, even having done it as many times as I have. Performance anxiety, I suppose, but this time it really does feel like there’s a lot riding on it. Who doesn’t need some cheer after everything 2020 has thrown at us? It’s been a funny old year.   

Santa-Claus-Father-Christmas-Pixabay-114

Link to comment
Share on other sites

🎄 COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS

  • Days
  • Hours
  • Minutes
  • Seconds
  • Donations

    All donations go directly towards the cost of hosting and running ClausNet!

    Your support, through donations or simply by clicking on sponsor links, is greatly appreciated!

    Donate Sidebar by DevFuse
  • Our picks

    • How do You Portray Santa?
      Portraying Santa is acting; it is a characterization of a mythical character.

      Most of us never think of ourselves as actors, but we are. Certain characteristics of Santa Claus have been handed down from one generation to another. The way we dress and conduct ourselves all follow an established pattern.

      Santa Claus is one of the most recognizable characters throughout the world. This came about from the advertising campaign of the Coke Cola Company and the creative painting genius, of Haddon Sundblom. Coke Cola was looking to increase winter sales of its soft drink and hired Sundblom to produce illustrations for prominent magazines. These illustrations appeared during the holiday season from the late 1930s into the early 1970s and set the standard for how Santa should look.

      This characterization of Santa with rosy cheeks, a white beard, handlebar mustache plus a red costume trimmed in white fur is the image most everyone has in their minds. Unconsciously people are going to judge you against that image. If your beard isn’t white or you have a soiled suit it will register with the onlooker.

      By the way, the majority of Sundblom's paintings depict Santa with a Brown Belt and Brown Boots. Not until his later illustrations did he change the color to Black for these items. Within the past few years many costume companies have offered the Coke Cola Suit and it has become very popular. You can tell it by the large buttons and absence of fur down the front of the jacket.

      No matter how you portray Santa, be it home visits, schools, churches, parades, corporate events, malls, hospitals we all make an entrance and an impression! The initial impression we make determines if our client will ask us to return.

      The 5 Second Rule

      I have a theory: When you enter the presence of your audience you have about 5 seconds to make people believe you are the real Santa.
        • Thanks
        • Love
        • Like
      • 18 replies
    • If You Have the Post Christmas Blues You’re Doing Christmas Wrong
      The post-Christmas blues are a very real thing. Once the date of December 25th has passed the specter of December 26th is an ominous marker to many. It sits there on the calendar like the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come. Silent and foreboding, the very image of the hooded Angel of Death it seems to be. And why not?

      Just about anywhere you look Americans are tossing trees to the curb, ripping down lights from rooftops and radio stations are flipping back to everyday music. What took months to build gets deconstructed in a matter of a couple of days.
        • Love
        • Like
      • 30 replies
    • Not Everyone Can Be Santa!
      Yes, I said it and it is not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. I do view many Facebook sites along with websites and posted photos. Frankly, many of these postings should have never been put on public display.
        • Thanks
        • Love
        • Like
      • 10 replies
    • Auld Lang Syne
      Every New Year’s Eve at the stroke of midnight, millions around the world traditionally gather together to sing the same song, “Auld Lang Syne”. As revilers mumble though the song’s versus, it often brings many of them to tears – regardless of the fact that most don’t know or even understand the lyrics. Confusion over the song’s lyrics is almost as much of a tradition as the song itself. Of course that rarely stops anyone from joining in.
        • Wow
        • Thanks
        • Love
        • Like
      • 4 replies
    • Merry Christmas, My Friend
      Every year around this time, some variation of this poem is circulated online. The poem is generally credited to “a soldier stationed in Okinawa” or more recently since September 11, 2001, “a Marine stationed in Afghanistan”.

      However, the poem’s true author is Lance Corporal James M. Schmidt.

      Originally entitled, “Merry Christmas, My Friend”, Corporal Schmidt wrote the poem in 1986 while serving as Battalion Counter Sniper at the Marine Barracks 8th & I, in Washington, D.C.

      That day the poem was placed in the Marine Corps Gazette and distributed worldwide. Schmidt’s poem was later published in Leatherneck (Magazine of the Marines) in December 1991.
        • Sad
        • Love
        • Like
      • 1 reply
×
×
  • Create New...