AMERICANWAY
OCTOBER 1 2007
120
ILLUSTRATIONBYAMANDADUFFY
Santa’sBluesTurnGreen
ByJimShahin
glistening ice used to extend to the horizon;
now the Arctic waters lap only 30 feet from
his doorstep.
“Another year or two, and this place will
be completely submerged,” he says. “As it is,
the elves keep falling in the drink, and I have
to keepfishing them out.”
In this exclusive interview, Santa is any-
thingbut jolly.
AMERICANWAY:
So, how’s themove going?
SANTA:
How’s the move going? How do you
think? Look at all this stuff.
[Santa’s eyes
scan the room, drawing my attention to the
landscape of boxes and unpacked toys.]
It is
amazing what you accumulate. Where does
it all come from? I tell Mrs. Clauswe have to
pare down. But then we start going through
the stuff, and everything seems to conjure a
memory. Sowenever throwanythingout.We
end up moving little wooden stagecoaches
that nobody wants anymore and cuckoo
clocks, for crying out loud, along with the
iPods and the
Guitar Hero III
s.
It’s just a
nightmare.
AW:
Moving is always hard.
SANTA:
Yeah?You’ve had some hardmoves?
Trymoving an entire village. There are all the
elves—moving them isn’t easy, I don’t mind
telling you. The coordination involved …man!
Plus, you know elves— theywork hard, they
play hard. But besides moving them, we’ve
had tobuild entirelynewaccommodations for
them.Wedecided togowith condos.
And then, of course, you have the reindeer.
They’re like cats. Or dogs. I for-
get which ones don’t like to
move. Anyway, they keep
coming back to the
house. They just keep
wanting to play all
their reindeer games.
It gets to me. I’ll be
like, ‘Donner! Blitzen!
You want to come
back to the old house? Fine.
We could use a little help
aroundhere. Start transport-
ing this stuff.’”
We’ve had to build a new
toy-assembly plant and a new
sleigh-maintenance facility.
HERE’SSANTA,
with less than threemonths
to go before his big night, and he’s sitting in
his rocker by thefireplace.
Normally, that would be a good thing, an
iconic picture of joyful Christmastime repose.
But these are not normal times.
It is the middle of the afternoon. Santa
should be out supervising the elves and their
last-minute toymaking, and going over logis-
ticswithRudolph— that sort of stuff.
But seen in the flickering light cast by a
dying fire, Santa’s expression reveals that he
is not in good cheer. In fact, he seems com-
pletely stressed. His snow-white beard is un-
kempt and graying. The trademark twinkle is
gone from his eyes, replacedwith amirthless
fatigue. He’s lostweight.
“It’s not been a ho-ho-ho kind of year,” he
confesses, gazing contemplatively into the
crackling embers.
The causeof Santa’swinter of discontent?
Global warming.
That well-documented phenomenon, the
meltingof theArctic ice cap, is forcingSanta
tomove from his one and only home and into
a three-story neo-gingerbread-style green
house that he designed andbuilt himself.
The peril Santa faces is evident outside
the window of his old house, the one he and
Mrs. Claus have calledhomeall their lives, the
one that he, now sitting in its living room,
seems to be having a very
hardtime leaving.His
frontyardof
It’s been hard onMrs. Claus, butwe’re go-
ing to get through it. I don’tmind telling you,
it’smademe a little crabby.
AW:
How will the move impact this year’s
Christmas?
SANTA:
It won’t. Oh, I’ve been irritable, so
there may be a fewmore names than usual
on theNaughty list. But I just got anewGPS;
I’m ready to go.
AW:
A GPS? I thought you just went every-
where, likemagic.
SANTA:
The new system’s been a lifesaver.
I can’t tell you how lost we used to get.
[He
grabsasmallmonitor.]
Here, check thisout. It
not only tellsme theway, but it alsohelpsme
avoidairline traffic. Oh, and it’sgotBluetooth,
so I can check in with Mrs. Claus while I’m
driving. I just love it.
AW:
I understand your new place is environ-
mentally sensitive.
SANTA:
Yep.Wind-powered electricity. Bam-
boo floors. Ergonomic workstations run on
vegetable oil for the elves. I like to think of it
as Santa’sGreenWorkshop.
AW:
Why?
SANTA:
Well, I can either do nothing— just
hope that things get better and end up with
water at my doorstep again in another few
years — or I can do what I can to help re-
verse the situation. Theway I lookat it, build-
ing amore environmentally sensitive place is
aChristmas gift tomyself.
Mrs. Claus walks into the room, carrying a
tray of cookies.
“Ibroughtyoua little treat, dear,”shesays.
“Then you really ought toget back towork.”
“You’re right,” he replies, reaching for a
sugar cookie.
As he chews first one, then another, he
turns toMrs. Claus, and a broad, joyful smile
spreads across his face; it’s as if her presence
has clicked something on inside him. A rosy
hue returns to his cheeks, and the twinkle is
back in his eyes.
After downing a glass of milk, he all but
leaps out of both his rocking chair and his
contemplativemood.
Santa picks up a cell phone. “Do you have
those Naughty and Nice lists updated?” he
asks. “E-mail the latest versions tome. I need
tobe checking them twice, you know.”
If all the familyvehicles in theUnited Stateswere tobe linedupbumper tobumper, they could reach from the earth to themoon — andback.
