After weeks of bitter dispute, Klaus vs. The Little Laplanders, the littlest biggest court case in the history of the North Pole, has ruled in favour of the elves of Santa’s workshop. The shocking result is this: Christmas 2013 is cancelled.
The legal battle began this June when the elves decided that they had simply had enough of the working conditions which they considered to be discriminatory against ‘little people’. They were being asked by Mr Klaus Christmas to produce all the toys for the annual world wide present drive, often known as “the show” or “the big dance”, while he sat around getting fat(ter).
The elves have been making thousands of toys each and every day for minimal remuneration. As one spokesman said “a wing and a prayer is all well and good but a prayer won’t pay the bills. We’re being discriminated against because of our size and we won’t put up with it any more.”
The Lapland economy has not been exempt from the economic downturn in recent years but nor is it free from the common discrimination against the less physically able bodied. Whereas Mr Klaus, his wife (Mrs Christmas) and even the reindeer are all paid enormous wages, the elves receive nothing more than food, board and any toys which were meant for children who make a last minute switch onto the naughty list. The elf community came to see this as disability discrimination, unionised and so began The Great Elf Strike of 2013.
This isn’t the first time that the elves had toyed with taking Mr Klaus to court. In the Eighties, the deal that Santa struck with Coca Cola saw loads more money come it yet the elves found that they weren’t seeing any of it. They almost took legal action at this point. The problem was, as it has been ever since, that because of their cheery disposition, they didn’t want to be seen as the little people who ruined Christmas. It was felt that they may do more harm than good for the less able if they were to be tarred with that brush.
However, the final straw came this summer. The decision came from on high that the elves we’re to be moved on to a deeply unpopular new way of doling out sweets, known as Programme for Individual Portions of Sweets (or PIPS). Under this harsh new system, any elf over the height of four foot was deemed too tall to be an elf and asked to move to New York and work in a Santa’s Grottos in a toy shop.
At the same time, Mrs Christmas (“a lovely lady who does nothing of note to help organise ‘the big dance’ other than baking and bringing general cheer”) was rewarded for doing very little with an enormous bonus of 2.5 million candy canes. Typical bakers’ bonuses. Making matters even worse, the big red guy himself was busy using expenses, from the same pot that goes towards feeding and clothing the elves, to build a floating penguin pond complete with a house and moat.
The extravagance of all this caused them finally snap and lawyer up. “We hate to do this, but the pond was a step too far. We need that money and the pond is as heinous as it is unnecessary. Penguins don’t even live on the North Pole. This is something that really gets elves’ goats. If we see one more Christmas card with a penguin on it, we are seriously gonna kick off… Also, the money situation is not on, we’re going to have to sue.”
After almost six tough months in the court room, the elves have their victory. The judge declared that discrimination was going on, the Christmas family have apologised for the PIPS idea and have agreed to pay the elves. The good news is that the elves have won a significant victory and will now be given as many candy canes as they want.
The bad news is that Christmas is still cancelled. A six month strike from the people who make the toys was too much to overcome!
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UPDATE:
Moments before this was due to be posted we received word from the press team at Santa’s Workshop that The Great Crisis of ’13 has been averted. The elves have fortunately remembered that they and the whole process of ‘the show’ are magic. They will be able to conjure up all the toys after all and apoligise for any concern. In fact, they can’t understand why the whinged about pay in the first place; they love making toys.
It’s a Christmas Miracle!!
Have a very Merry Christmas. From BBS and all the elves of Santas’ Workshop.
