Hectoring Santa

KEY POINTS

• Perils of celery sacrifice.
• Elves’ employment status.
• New tax on paper tissues.
• Allowances for elves’ new clothes.

As I approached Santa’s cave for my annual meeting something seemed different. I listened intently: his cries of ‘Ho ho ho!’ sounded distinctly less jolly than usual and as I rounded the last snow drift the reason became clear.

‘Hoe hoe ... hoe!’ he growled throwing down the said garden implement and giving up the struggle to break up the surface of his frozen vegetable patch.

As he turned round to greet me a cruel fluke of the wind picked up some of the soil and flicked it into a face that was already as red as his jacket. When he finally stopped sneezing and said ‘hello’ he did so through gritted teeth.

I shook his...