Have you ever seen one of Santa’s elves? Like a real elf. Not the stout, cherubic imps with those perfect dots of rose on their cheeks. That’s storybook stuff.
Santa’s actual elves are unsettling. Barely two feet tall, saggy jowls, crooked hands, patches of hair along the ridges of their ears. Think of Dobby from those Harry Potter movies, and then age him 200 years. It’s not pretty.
A preface: I have always been very spoiled at Christmas. Take a peek at my family’s holiday albums and you’ll find countless photographs of me buried in a trash heap of wrapping paper, WWF action figures, Goosebumps books and board games. One year, I got every CD I put on my wish list. There were 25, and they were nothing but Yes, Genesis and Supertramp.
The spoils weren’t limited to Christmas Day. I was an extra good boy, so I got a visit from Santa’s elves on Christmas Eve, too. The gift was almost always pajamas, sometimes a book or CD (Asia’s Alpha was the crown jewel), or a new cartridge to slam into my Game Boy. It happened every year, long past any normal age for someone to get a special bedtime treat from the elves.
Even after I left home, I’d drink way too much at the family Christmas Eve party and stumble up to my old bedroom and find a pair of warm flannels waiting for me. I’d pour myself into the PJs, crawl under the covers, and snore until 6 a.m., when it was time for my parents to be woken up by their hungover adult kids wreaking havoc in the living room.
It was bliss.
I met the elf in 2012. It was a boozy Christmas Eve, as usual. My father and my uncles huddled in the family room, arguing over whether poisoning a dog was the right way to end a feud with Uncle Steve’s neighbor. My cousins and I lorded over the kitchen, loudly declaring our opinions on whether the Diane or Rebecca era of Cheers was better. My mother and aunts sipped wine in the living room, trying to ignore all the yelling.
The party cleared out at around 2 a.m. I stumbled out to my car to grab the overnight bag and the presents I had packed in the trunk.
When I walked back into the house, it was dark except for the lights on the Christmas tree. I dropped to the living room floor and began arranging my presents, basking in the glow of the colored tree lights, shoving my boxes into the already much too large pile.
Once finished, I picked myself up and trudged up the stairs, humming Greg Lake’s “I Believe In Father Christmas” while I zig-zagged down the hall and into my room. As I turned on the light switch, I saw him.
Crouched over my pillow, laying out a new pair of blue and white-checkered pjs was… an elf. He turned his head to me, gaunt, bloodshot eyes wide open in surprise.
“Oh shit,” he said.
“Oh shit,” I said.
It was a living, breathing elf, hunched over, withered fingers splayed out as his arms hung at his sides. I rubbed my eyes and looked again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Still there.
“He-Hello?” I blurted.
“Hey,” he replied. “Look, before you get too excited. I can’t stick around. You’re not supposed to see me. I figured you’d have passed out under the tree.”
“Wow,” was all I could muster as I ogled him. He looked ragged. His pants were too baggy. They almost covered his black work boots. On his torso hung a tan workman’s jacket, a button-down, collared red shirt underneath. He did wear a pointy hat, the kind you see an elf wear in a children’s book, but its once-dark green color was faded.
“You’re an elf?’ I managed to ask.
“Yep.” He clicked his tongue.
“Well… no offense, but you don’t really look…”
“Like you expected? Yeah. I get that a lot. You can’t please everyone. I gotta run.”
“No, wait. Why?”
“Why what?”
“You look so beaten up, and run down. Your face is so… old. And your clothes…”
He coughed. A loud, wet, phlegmy hack. “Listen, kid. This is just who I am. Who we all are, actually. You might look this way, too, if you had to spend every day of the year figuring out a way to make every single damn person in the world’s biggest wish come true, then try to help the big man deliver everything in one night. It’s exhausting.”
“But aren’t you all magic?”
“Man, all the magic in the world isn’t going to make the work a piece of cake. We have to make EVERYONE IN THE WORLD happy.” He snorted. “It takes years off your life.”
“Aren’t you all immortal?”
“Don’t believe everything you read, kid.”
“Sorry.”
“No sweat. Listen, we done here? I’m way behind tonight, and I still gotta help ol’ SC with the main run.”
“Wait. Santa? You get to work with him?”
He nodded.
“What’s that like? It has to be fun running around the world with him.”
“Heh. He’s just as ornery as the rest of us. You think I look old and rundown? Try to catch a glimpse of him sometime. Did you know he can’t NOT fulfill a wish? Yeah, no matter how dumb, or trivial, he has to do it. It’s some sort of curse. Do you know how many men ask for a new wife for Christmas? It’s like they think they’re married to the only woman in the world who would dare ask her husband to wash the dishes.
“Little Sally wants a pony for Christmas? We and Santa have to find or buy a horse, and then train it to be able not to pitch little Sally headfirst to the ground. And before you ask, no, we can’t make a horse.
“It’s nothing but stress. We’re all cynics, now. And bad people get their wishes, too. The day, THE DAY after Obama was elected to a second term last month, we got a letter. From Donald Trump. He asked for his 2016 Christmas present. He wants to win the election. Now he will. With our help. I don’t know how we’re going to pull it off, but we will.
“And nobody can cancel it out by wishing he doesn’t win. First come, first served. He came in with his wish early. He gets it. The best anyone can do afterward is wish that he doesn’t serve a full term. Christmas ain’t gonna be fun from 2016-2020. I’ll tell you that.”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“Yeah.” He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his filthy jacket. “It’s quite the life we lead.”
I just stood there, gobsmacked. I stared in horror at the tiny, gnarled man hunched before me.
“Alright. Well, I see I’ve made your Christmas Eve a wonderful one,” he said. “Enjoy the pajamas.” Then he just faded out of sight.
I walked over to the bed in a daze and picked up the pajamas. They were flannel, but they felt cold. I wouldn’t be feeling warm and cozy for a while.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
My eyes snapped open at 6 a.m. as the alarm on my phone blared. My sisters burst into the room.
“Time to get up!” Caroline, the youngest, yelled, as she picked up a discarded pillow and smashed me over the head.
I groggily rolled over, unable to match their smiles.
“Okay,” I mumbled, and rolled out of bed.
I trudged downstairs slowly, hoping the sight of a pile of presents would lift my spirits. It didn’t. It all felt so cheap. Everything I’ve ever wanted, all wrapped in front of me, and Donald J. goddamn Trump, in line to become the 45th president of the United States because of a letter to Santa. How dare he? And how dare they? Who the hell were Santa and his elves to just give everyone in the world what they want for Christmas? What’s the point of a naughty and nice list?
I stewed throughout the day, piles of books, games, records and iPhones growing around me. All of it meant nothing, ground to dust under the weight of what was to be. I’d be powerless to stop it.
It weighed on my mind as I drove home that night. After suffering through a day of my family’s blissfully unaware joy, I finally was alone. I drove in silence. Snow was falling. My windshield wipers churned out a rhythmic “thunk-thunk” to clear it away.
“There must be something I can do,” I said to the empty car. The elf’s words echoed in my ears. “Nobody can cancel it out.” Unless. Unless.
The idea hit my brain like a thunderclap headache. It was so simple. It would take some time, but if I acted quickly, everything would be right.
I sped home, rolling through stop signs and running red lights. I skidded into the parking spot in front of my building, popped out of the car, sprinted across the lawn and bounded up the steps to my door, furiously mashing the lock button on my car’s key fob. I left all of my Christmas loot in there. Couldn’t be too risky.
I burst through the door and ran to my desk, hitting the power button on my laptop as I sat in my chair. I rubbed my hands in excitement as a new Word doc opened. A cursor blinked at the top of the page. I was going to save Christmas.
“Dear Santa,” I typed. “I know 2018 is a long time from now, but all I want for Christmas that year is for proceedings for impeachment to be initiated against…”