![ye4rhuxxr0.png](https://img.esteem.ws/ye4rhuxxr0.png)
*public domain picture from Pixabay.com*

Santa pushed up his glasses and sighed.  His hot chocolate and cookies remained untouched on the desk as he again looked over the latest report on productivity in front of him.  The numbers remained unchanged - Graden was a good 75% behind on his output again for this week, even after the warning he was given last week.  This just wouldn’t do at all, not with Christmas a mere 3 weeks away!  He picked up the phone and dialed up the workshop, then instructed MaryAnn, the workshop foreman,  to have Graden sent over to his office right away.

When Graden heard he was being summoned to the boss’s office again, he knew it wasn’t good.  He knew he had fallen behind again this week, but it wasn’t his fault!  Why was everyone always picking on him?  He began lining up his excuses as he trudged through the snow from the workshop to the Big House.  It wasn’t his fault he overslept on Monday, those darn reindeer kept him up half the night practicing their night take off procedures with the sleigh.  Then Tuesday he had misplaced his hammer and spent most of the morning looking for it.  And Wednesday, such a headache he had, how was he supposed to get anything done?  Yesterday it was all Santa’s fault, coming over to the workshop and treating them all with that huge lunch followed by cookies and milk, he just had to find a corner and take a nap.  

Graden reached the office door and tapped timidly.  Santa told him to come in and have a seat.

Santa looked sadly at Graden and said, “Graden, I know you come from a long line of workshop elves and your family was very excited to see you assigned to the toy line.  But I’m afraid that it just isn’t working out.  We have the big day coming up and we just can’t afford to fall behind at this stage of production.  You were doing fine all summer but your production has steadily decreased this last several weeks.  In our talk last week, I gave you expectations to improve and yet, this week has been the worst one yet.”

Graden opened his mouth to begin his excuses, but Santa looked at him and shook his head.  “No, Graden,” he said, “you don’t need to say anything.  This is difficult for both of us.  You are hereby relieved of your duties on the toy line.  Tomorrow you will report to the packaging department and assist in sorting the toys per the Children List and help with gift wrapping.  This is your last chance, if you want to remain a Workshop Elf.”

Graden gulped down his replies and bolted for the door.  All the way to the Elfitory he could be seen kicking snow and muttering to himself.  Thoughts whirled in his head, resentment and embarrassment warring for first place in his emotions.  What would his family say, him being kicked off the toy line!  And now he’d never get up the nerve to ask out Trinity over at the doll making line after being relegated to gift wrapping, of all things!  Never one to take responsibility for his own shortcomings, he was quick to come to the conclusion that this was Santa’s fault.  Always pushing those production numbers.  This wasn’t a factory, it was a magical place, and we are elves, not assembly line workers!

Lying on his bunk, his mind began to run along the lines of revenge, of mischief, instead of contrition and a will to do better tomorrow.  An evil grin rested on his lips as he dropped off to sleep.

The next morning, Graden was the first one to the workshop, ready to start putting his plan to work.  He went to the computer and pulled up the Nice Children List.  The famous list left off the “naughty” children and gave the details of what the “nice” children were to receive.  Next he pulled up the Naughty Children list.  Now you might think that the Naughty Children list would contain no associated gift list, that they would receive nothing.  But that’s not how Santa works, every child gets something for Christmas, but the good boys and girls got what their hearts desired, what they asked for on the knees of Santa, or wrote for in letters to Santa.  The naughty children got basic gifts in smaller quantities.  The whole year’s production schedule was based on the toys allocated in these two lists.

As Graden worked, the Naughty Children list got longer and longer as he added toy after toy to each name.  The number tallied at the bottom of the pager grew to 10 times its original number.
Now we’ll see how far behind Santa’s production numbers are when he sees this week’s report on Saturday.  The old fart will have a heart attack when he sees there’s no way he’ll be able to fill all these orders in time for Christmas.  Why, he’ll probably even have to put ME back on the line to help make up the numbers!

Graden saved his work and sauntered over to the gift wrapping section to wait for the work day to begin at his new job.  When MaryAnn, the foreman, came in and found him already at his appointed place, she sighed with relief.  She’d been dreading coming in this morning knowing that Graden had been demoted and fully expecting him to cause a scene.  Krump, who had been doing the packing and gift wrapping for the Naughty Children List, had been promoted to Graden’s job at the line.  Thus it was that Graden was able to assume the duties of the Naughty Children List with no one being the wiser that the list had grown tenfold.

Graden went cheerfully about his duties all day on Friday, probably putting forward his best honest effort since he had made it into the Workshop.  He went home that night and went to bed envisioning what was going to happen tomorrow when the weekly report hit Santa’s desk.

On Saturday morning Santa patted Mrs. Claus on the rump and gave her a peck on her plump cheek as he headed to his office.  He settled into his chair and pulled the productivity reports up on his laptop.  He suddenly sat up and scrolled through the report again, stopping at the bottom of the page that was dripping in bright red letters - WARNING!  WARNING!  TARGET COMPLETION DATE JANUARY 17 WARNING!  WARNING!

What the devil is this??  Just last week target completion date was right on schedule for December 23.  This can’t be possible, everything must be ready for delivery on Christmas Eve.  This must be a computer glitch, a report error, a misprint - something explainable.  But Santa’s heart was pounding and he could feel the anxiety racing through his body.  He jumped out of his chair and slammed the front door as he made a beeline for the Workshop.

Graden was watching gleefully from the Elfitory window as he saw a distraught looking Santa taking a shortcut through the snow packed yard.  He saw Santa pull out his cell phone and start jabbing at numbers.  Ha, thought Graden, he’s calling in MaryAnn to make her explain those numbers and I’m going to get over there and sneak in the back door.  I want to hear them try to figure out what went wrong.  Graden rushed to get dressed and make his way to the Workshop.

MaryAnn’s phone interrupted her breakfast and she was going to ignore it until she realized that the ringtone was Santa’s emergency number.  She snatched up the phone and the second she connected she heard Santa’s wheezing at her to meet him at the Workshop immediately, no time for questions, just get over there!

Graden slipped in the back door and sat in the corner by the Christmas tree next to a sack of presents already packed.  He rubbed his hands in anticipation of the display of panic that he was about to witness.  This was going to be so worth losing his job on the toy line to see Santa’s precious productivity reports turn him into a frenzy.

MaryAnn came into the lobby and found Santa pacing back and forth alternately pulling at his beard and shaking a fist into the air.  The moment he saw her he took her by the elbow and started leading her toward the office.  “What is it?” she asked worriedly.  

“It’s the reports” he blurted.  “Have you seen the new projection?  It says we won’t be ready until January 17th!  What the *bleep* could have happened?  This won’t do at all.  We’ll have to cancel Christmas!!  Think how disappointed the children will be!  I’ve never been late with Christmas before!”

“Wait a minute,” said MaryAnn soothingly.  “We were just on schedule last week and nothing has went amiss this week.  There has to be some kind of mistake.  Let’s look at the reports together and see what we can figure out.”

Just as they were ready to log into the computer they heard a giggle coming the corner of the room, over by the Christmas tree.  Graden clamped a hand over his mouth, horrified that he had let his enjoyment of the scene escape.  He tried to crouch down and make himself smaller.

Santa looked suspiciously in that direction and headed over toward the corner.  He peered closer and could see little green elf shoes peeking from beneath the back of the tree.  Hmmmm, what’s this?  “Come out from behind that tree and show yourself” he commanded.  Graden sheepishly stepped from behind the tree looking guilty.  “Graden, why are you over here in the corner eavesdropping?  Did you have something to do with this report disaster?”

Graden’s knees went weak and he sat down on a nearby package.  Suddenly his revenge idea didn’t seem nearly as satisfying while having to look Santa in the eye.  He had no choice but to come clean with his alterations to the Naughty Children List, that caused all the predictions to go awry.  Now what was going to happen to him?  He’d probably end up cleaning the reindeers’ stables if Santa didn’t kick him out of the South Pole completely.

Santa looked at Graden with a considering measured gaze.  “Well there’s no real harm done, we have a back up list so your mischief can be easily undone.  You probably took 10 year off my life though with this prank of yours.”  Then unexpectedly Santa let out a string of his famous “Ho, Ho, Ho” laughs and rubbed his belly.  “Maybe I have been a little too fixated on numbers and reports.  After all, this is the South Pole and Christmas is supposed to be fun.”  

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