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It was the last call of the night—on my busiest night of the year, Christmas Eve—when I overheard someone mutter, “Reindeer must be so much cheaper than diesel.”
Cheaper than diesel? Reindeer?!
People seem to think these creatures run on festive spirit and cartoon logic. Let me enlighten you: they eat like furry little combine harvesters. Hay by the bale, oats by the sack, and the “special blend” mix Blitzen swears he needs or he “can’t fly properly.” Harnesses cost a fortune, and don’t even get me started on the reinforced ones—you try keeping eight half-ton sky-rockets from snapping leather like spaghetti.
Then there’s re-hoofing. Barely affordable. Painfully necessary. And the veterinary bills? Extortionate. I swear the vet’s sleigh is newer than mine.
They need stalls, too—proper ones. Warm, dry, clean. Hay that doesn’t go damp. Floor bedding. Salt licks. And let’s not forget the four-acre grazing field I’m still paying the mortgage on so they can gallop around playing whatever ridiculous reindeer version of tag they’ve invented this season.
And the time it takes to find them when they go missing…
Rudolph is the worst. Forever slipping out, probably flirting with some doe across town, thinning his antlers and acting like he owns the night sky.
Reindeer cheaper than diesel? As if.
Will you be struggling to get the kids to sleep this Christmas eve, try this activity book, its got lots of ideas and it’s screen free for better sleep.
End of the year, and what a year it’s been—making toys with nothing but a small army of miniature elves and “traditional craftsmanship,” which is code for slow. Beautiful, yes. Charming, yes. Efficient? Absolutely not.
And after all that—after I circle the entire planet in one night—the kids aren’t interested in hand-carved magic. Oh no. They want the latest game consoles, hover-skateboards, pixel-purses, hologram pets, and whatever else the tech companies churn out every three seconds.
We live at the North Pole. We can’t exactly run a high-speed microchip foundry next to the candy-cane mill.
Considering a set of Family PJs which will look good all winter, check these out!
And then there’s the milk.
Does everyone think I’m some kind of oversized infant? Two brandies over Paris—lovely. A malt whisky in Glasgow—warms the beard. For a moment, things looked promising in New York. Someone had left what I thought was a cocktail—golden, icy, elegant. I reached for it, and the mother snatched it right from my hand.
“That’s mine.”
She even slapped my fingers. Like I was trying to pinch her lunch money.
Thinking that Santa may be better with non-alcoholic alternatives this Christmas, the ethical superstore has lots of options for those driving sleighs!
Things devolved from there. In the Bronx, one woman was completely unconscious, the apartment still smelling of the crack pipe that lay shattered on the floor. When she came to, she mistook me for some sort of giant bat despite the fact I was dressed head-to-toe in red velvet. And on top of it all, I’m somehow responsible for ensuring her kid’s present arrives on schedule.
Planet-wide logistics, magical time-bending travel, and now personal social services. Wonderful.
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When I finally got home—exhausted, frozen, and smelling faintly of chimney soot—did I get to rest? Of course not.
I had to unharness the reindeer, feed them, brush them down, clean their stalls, and double-reinforce Rudolph’s, because if there’s even a sliver of a gap he’ll be out faster than a New York cabbie at shift change.
And my wife? She made dinner. With groceries I paid for. She’s been in a mood for years—first blaming “cycle trouble,” then menopause, then some vague “hormonal shift.” In the seventies she even made me run to the shop for sanitary towels while I was still in my best Christmas Eve suit. I love her dearly, but by the stars, she doesn’t make it easy.
So that’s it.
I’m done.
Next year: Christmas is cancelled.
No toys. No elves. No reindeer. The field gets sold. I’m buying a diesel-powered sleigh with heated seats and a radio that actually works.
No more milk, no more ungrateful children, no more chaotic households, no more being expected to solve everyone’s problems in twelve hours.
Next Christmas is officially cancelled.
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