PUT IT ALL ON RED

8:00 AM – After getting very little sleep, I struggle to get myself out of bed, succeeding only by reminding myself that in 3 days’ time I’ll have a whole month’s paid vacation.

8:10 AM – I shower, dress, and eat a breakfast of figgy pudding with an Irish coffee.

8:50 AM – I cross-check the naughty and nice lists with our current inventory. We’re still 3,000 lumps of coal short of our quota because of the mining accident in mid-November.

9:00 AM – Daily status meeting. Pitnick, Santa’s Executive Assistant, snidely asks me if there are any new crises in my department. I mention the coal, say the matter’s under control, and then spend the rest of the meeting imagining him burning in the defective toy incinerator.

10:00 AM – Heraldine, the Toy Production Manager, gives me her status report. Apparently we don’t have enough wiring to finish all the toy robots. I tell her I’ll have to get back to her about a solution.

10:30 AM – Meeting with the Reindeer Handler, where he reminds me of Kicker’s peanut allergy. I assure him that all presents containing peanuts have airtight packaging this year. He goes on a rant about how difficult it was to train a new reindeer, and I agree to accompany him on a full inspection.

12:15 AM – I write a speech for Blitzen’s Memorial Service, which I had forgotten about until this morning.

1:30 PM – Over lunch, I talk to the Head of the Elf Union about getting the workers back in the coal mine. She stares at me silently for most of the meeting, but eventually pours her hot chocolate over my head.

2:35 PM – I take another shower and make another Irish coffee.

2:55 PM – Hibbles from IT comes to tell me that some of the security cameras in Toy Storage Unit 23 are malfunctioning. I tell him to pretend to fix them, but instead remove the wiring and send it all to Heraldine for the toy robots.

3:30 PM – I go over Santa’s route with Pitnick so that my department can load the toys into his sleigh accordingly.

4:20 PM – The Puppy Production Manager comes, ashen-faced, to tell me that one of the gingerbread puppy pens collapsed. I go to survey the wreckage. There were no survivors.

5:30 PM – I call for my dinner, and my assistant brings me a small gingerbread house from the kitchens. I decide I’ve lost my appetite.

6:00 PM – I check the list of children who said they wanted a puppy for Christmas, then call Heraldine in and tell her we’re going to need another 200 stuffed puppies made in the next couple of days. I make a mental note to give her a raise.

6:35 PM – I decide to take a breather. I run into Pitnick in the break room, and he makes a joke about how I’m “sitting around, as usual.” I manage to spit into his coffee while he’s not looking.

6:50 PM – I begin the long, arduous process of filling out the paperwork for the collapsed gingerbread puppy pen.

8:50 PM – I realize that I haven’t made any presents for my children yet. I go retrieve some from Toy Storage Unit 23.

9:30 PM – Heraldine comes to me with a toy-related crisis: the wiring I gave her for the toy robots was faulty, and about 3,000 units now burst into flame when you turn them on. I tell her to put them all with the toys for the naughty kids.

9:45 PM – I congratulate myself on killing two birds with one stone, have a nightcap, and go to bed.