It was not without some commotion that the onyx helicopter arrived on the snowbound helipad that November 21st. Notwithstanding, as contributing factors, that it was infrequent (though increasingly common) for helicopters to touch down at the North Pole, and that this particular flying beast blotted out the sun in blackness as it came to land, but what drew the most consternation among the elves, magic deer and abominable snowmen alike that day was the lack of announcement around its arrival and, most particularly, the name born on its side: Amazon.com

Few guests outrank the inimitable Mr. Claus in lore and stature though Mr. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, may be one – a fact which had many present sweating marbles: in particular, Mr. Bezos’ assistant - one O. B. Smarmsley - as he conveyed the online retail magnate into the great elevator and down to the factory floor far beneath the snow-wracked surface.

The musky smell of wood shavings and wet reindeer hung heavy in the workshop that morning however Mr. Bezos, friendly-faced yet bullet-like in demeanor, pierced it effortlessly on his march to the sound-proof meeting room. Confounded looks of shock, confusion, disbelief and betrayal wrestled for dominance on the faces of all elves present.

As policy dictated, there were no blinds in the meeting room to shut, but the door was closed solidly and the extensive sound-proofing - installed to limit cacophonous encumbrance from the expansive workshop that surround the room on all sides - did a peerless job in thwarting eavesdropping. Thus Grillo Peety, diminutive cousin of master lip-reader Yooki Glimhuk, was dispatched immediately to the far end of the labyrinthine sleep quarters to summon his kinswoman.

Yooki Glimhuk arrived with lean seconds to spare before the pleasantries between Mr. Claus, Mr Bezos and their various teams of lawyers, advisors and fitness trainers wrapped.

Until the moment of Ms. Glimhuk’s arrival only the signature laughs of the infamous men could be heard through the glass. Though buoyant and hearty in nature, the sentiment was leant a strongly ominous, perhaps even Machiavellian, aura by the CEO’s bald pate, by nature of his back being to the window and circumstances in general. Had the elves not been so fixated on parsing the meaning behind the mirth, they may have found the five minute exchange of dueling ho-ho-hoes hilariously absurd.

The perfunctory box of donuts, having completed its long journey of polite declines around the perimeter of the table, settled before Santa, who, well-initiated to the delight of Mrs Claus’ baking, took six and began the meeting in earnest.

“The thing is, not only have the times changed…” St Nick began again; the elves quieted. “But we’ve changed too. Sometimes that’s the hardest change to see, and even harder to swallow.

“I appreciate you travelling all this way to visit us, little Jeffer—sorry. Old habit. Mr. Bezos. Oh sure. Jeff. You can call me Nick, if you wish.”

Obscured as the CEO was from various angles by lawyers, the aforementioned donuts and Mrs Claus’ large and improbably cantilevered bosom, master lip-reader Yooki could only collect the words tumbling low from Santa’s winter white mustache.

“Yes. Minus 40 today about. That’s a warm one around here! I suppose it would make an excellent place for a server farm, yes!” One of the Amazon entourage scribbled upon his pad with some importance. “In four hundred and eighty years we’ve yet to pay for air-conditioning! Ho ho ho!”

“Why is Mr. Claus wearing a Hawaiian shirt?” interjected Wishlist Assistant Bingo Bogdoodle to a resounding ‘Ssssssh!’ from the rest of the onlookers.

“As I mentioned before,” Santa resumed, “there’s always been a need to change with the times. We may not be technological leaders here in Santa’s workshop, but neither are we laggards. I’m fairly proud to say that we’ve done an excellent job of keeping up while keeping to the basics.”

“I always saw that as part of our charm,” Yooki continued, echoing Mrs Claus’ added agreement.

“However, while our quaint ways have not lost their appeal, they have lost their…sustainability. Yes. It’s the nature of progress, I suppose. You sure you don’t want a pine-bourbon donut? They make tummies happy! Well ok. Anyway, mid-century we successfully transitioned our elves from master craftsmen to masters of the assembly line.”

Santa gestured to the vast expanse of workshop around them, its immense array of conveyor belts, presses and molds still and lonely in the darkness. “Now our assembly lines lay fallow in wake of the modern child’s desire for branded goods. Thank you. Yes. Did you know it can hold up to 10,000 elves? Oh, about 5,000 humans, I guess. Right. We’ve already shifted most of the wood toy production to China. These days our elves focus more on making money to buy toys than creating them.”

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Jeff Bezos spoke for a moment as Yooki jostled fruitlessly for a better lip-reading position, dipping under a sawtable and climbing up on a drill press. Onlooking elves took to their natural state of huddling over the issue at hand:

“We’re not bringing humans in are we?” asked Investment Manager Dilbo Peckwood.

The two captains of industry shared a laugh over something inaudible and a lawyer in a questionable mustache took another note.

“Are we expanding our supply chain?”

“Gotta be a procurement contract,” added Reddd Redears from the Credit Card department.

“You’re right. We deal with way too many middle-men," Santa continued. "Way too many contract, receiving and billing processes.”

“Hey! That’s not good!” exclaimed Hardisty Popgun, Director of Contracts, Receiving and Billing Processes.

“You don’t think it’s fulfillment, do you?” rejoined Dilbo.

A collective gasp enveloped the speculative conversationalists.

“No!”

“The thing is, not only have the times changed…” St Nick began again; the elves quieted. “But we’ve changed too. Sometimes that’s the hardest change to see, and even harder to swallow. The elves, though spritely in appearance, are hundreds of years old now. I myself am one-hundred-and-twenty-nine…I think. Haha. Thank you. Imagine if I shaved the beard!”

Yooki shook her head, then scrambled down a conveyor belt. Mrs Claus said something and Santa took her hand, smiling at her warmly.

“If they give our jobs to robots, where do we go?” asked Yerdil Dredleworthy.

“You can’t have Christmas without elves!” rebutted Goontherma.

“Oh yeah, when’s the last time a kid asked for an elf for Christmas?”

The horde of eager workers throbbed, blob-like, in quivering anticipation before the entrance to the lair. This waveform lay immediately flat as the two stalwart leaders appeared on the raised stage before them.

“Easy,” said the always helpful, ever-statistical Wishlist Supervisor Ladeeloo Fletcher as she ran her finger down the clipboard she just happened to carry with her at all times. “Robots: Two million, twenty six-thousand, four hundred and ninety eight requests this year. Elves…” She flipped to the next page, trailed her finger down its length, then flipped to the next page. Then again. Her lips drew down in an uncomfortable and discouraging manner before she flipped back to the first sheet and looked up, smiling as if she had never said anything.

“Guys. Relax! He’s probably just here to do some advising,” suggested the ever-optimistic and frequently disregarded Pooki Starshimmer.

“Sssh!” Yooki chastised them again before channeling Santa once more. “We’ve made attempts to modernize – including a significant skills retraining program “From Carpenter to Personal Shopper” – with limited success. We’re experts at making joy and magic, Mr. Bezos – Jeff! Sorry - not at the mechanics of modern day fulfillment, and our efforts have not been enough.”

“You know the previous Santa got out when the world’s population approached two billion. He said it couldn’t be done, not by any way he figured it. That it was a fool’s errand and frankly, the North Pole needed a bigger fool than he could be any more. He shook his head and my hand and said ‘Good luck!’

“I eagerly took on the work with youthful enthusiasm and folly. We changed everything. From top to bottom. Took a hard look at what we were doing right, what we were doing wrong and where we had to be inventive.

“Our efforts worked wonders! Our assembly lines were never the stuff of Frederic Winslow Taylor, but the exuberance of the elves, as always, worked miracles and has served us wonderfully over the last century. Magic really took a back seat unless it came to the spectacle of delivery. Too slow and expensive. It was a hard change – nobody wanted to see the magic go - but it worked! The shift from handcrafted goods to mass manufacturing made it possible for us to keep apace an exploding population.

“Online shopping has enabled us to further support the incredible demand for more gifts every year. But we’re still falling behind. It has increasingly become apparent to me that we are not up to the job. To borrow a phrase from Mrs Claus’ favorite movie, we have become ‘too old for this shit.’

“For over a decade now I’ve wrung my hands and wracked my brains on how to transform this shop. We tried a number of things - our appetite for innovation, magical or otherwise, has always been splendidly large – but multiple successive failures and half-hearted attempts have shown us to be amateurs at best in the matter of modern-day innovations.

“You must understand Jeff: Giving up on the impossible is not something I do easily. I’ve vision quested, fasted, read every management book from here to the sun in search of the Santa’s Workshop of the 21st century but could not crystalize it in my mind. I grew despondent. I could not sleep. I stared at the ceiling every night pouring over and discarding every possible idea.

St Nick looked warming, almost longingly at Mrs Claus, then back to Jeff.

“And then I had an epiphany! It’s not my job or responsibility to figure it out! If I could have, I would have done it. Just as my predecessor ‘ejected’ from his position with dismay, so too have I now come to his place in time. And like him, my only responsibility is to find a visionary to take my place. It’s a very high bar, Mr. Bezos. I don’t say so to float my own ability and dedication, but to be clear, as someone who has done this for 90 odd years: it is an enormous challenge.

A towering pile of documents was procured from some magical place as Mr. Bezos spoke for a moment. The entourage briefly reconfigured as Santa took out his long feathered pen, allowing Yooki a more complete, if not stilted, ‘listen’.

“You know, I was never sure whether to put you on my good or bad list, Jeff.” Santa laughed, applying his pen in flowering strokes. “But I always erred on the side of well-meaning.”

“You were always generous to me, Mr. Claus,” Mr. Bezos rejoined.

“It’s in my nature,” Santa replied. “Guess it doesn’t matter which list you’re on now, son, since you’re the only person who can do the job!”

“They’re shaking hands!” yelled one of the elves in disbelief. Overblown laughs emanated from behind the glass.

“They’re coming for the door!” Yooki yelled. “Scramble!”

Panic took over the elves as they dashed about. The chaos was quickly broken by an announcement from on high.

“Attention all elves!” the loudspeaker squawked. “Gather at the mount for a very special announcement from Mr. Claus.”

The broad swath of elvin green spread before the bunker entrance gave the impression of an early spring. Vacating every elf from the subterranean labyrinth of offices, workshops, kitchens and sleep quarters was no quick task, but was accomplished today with alarming speed, owing to the anxiety of the elves surrounding what in the hell was going on.

The horde of eager workers throbbed, blob-like, in quivering anticipation before the entrance to the lair. This waveform lay immediately flat as the two stalwart leaders appeared on the raised stage before them. Frenetic applause was thrown up by the sycophantic, clueless or intellectually diminished elves at the fore, which the superior, haughty and somewhat-clued-in hind majority smothered with grim silence.

“Thank you. Thank you,” said the CEO, waving away the anemic applause.

“You may all be wondering why I’ve called you to the mount today,” Santa began. He was now in his full Santa regalia, “And why Mr. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon-dot-com, is with me. Well, I won’t beat about the bush. After much soul-searching, a lot of planning and many, many meetings, Mrs Claus and I have decided it’s time to move on.”

Silence smothered the gathering like a blanket of new fallen snow. St Nick held up his hand as if to quell an eruption of dismay or jubilee, though neither sentiment could pierce the collective feeling of shock.

“And we have entered into an agreement with Mr. Bezos for him to take over North Pole operations.”

Some moron clapped heartily and if you’d bet that it was Gaby Withoutspoons you’d be a richer reader today.

“Before I continue, I’d like to let Jeff tell you about some of the exciting improvements you can expect over the coming months. Jeff? Or should I say Santa?”

“Santa Jeff will be fine.” They both threw up enormous laughs.

“First, I want to thank you for all the presents you’ve sent me and for your years of service. The Amazon tent is very large and I really look forward to welcoming you all into it. What you’ve accomplished over the years is amazing and has been a personal inspiration to me. I want you to know that I believe strongly in the Christmas spirit and want to keep it alive. In fact, I want it to be bigger, better and faster than ever!”

“You know, there is a lot of natural alignment between the North Pole and Amazon. For example, Christmas is also our busiest time of year, shipping product up here for you guys to fulfill, but also all over the world! And let’s talk about lists! You have long been the experts in this field, but with all due respect, our databases are unmatched. Together we can gain unprecedented insight into goodness and badness based just on users’ purchases or the ratings they leave. Little Jimmy’s purchase history will tell us what he wants for Christmas before he even thinks of writing a letter!”

A large commotion of indeterminate sentiment rippled through the crowd.

“And think from a delivery perspective! Reindeers! Yes, they’re charming, and part of your brand, but highly inefficient. Drones are an order of magnitude cheaper, and there’s no need to sneak around at night. People are used to seeing them flying about and they’ll easily fit down a chimney or onto a balcony. And with our fulfillment software we can guarantee a zero percent misdelivery rate!”

“Well, we already offer that,” chimed Santa.

“Haha. Ok. Well we’ll continue it!” Jeff laughed. “And shouldn’t Christmas come every day?”

Uncertain grumblings emerged from the crowd.

“When we’re not preparing for the biggest night of the year, we’ll deliver everyday items like toilet paper and batteries across North America, Russia and Northern Europe – from right here at the Amazon North Pole Fulfillment Centre!”

Santa clapped heartily and the elves, by nature of conditioning, joined in.

“I know Jeff is a very busy person, but I think he’d be happy to take a few questions from the crowd…”

Cindyloo Lulu raised her hand. “Yes,” Jeff responded. “The elves will continue to get health benefits and insurance.”

“Yes,” Jeff addressed another. “The question was, given that automation will help reduce your workload, will you get more breaks? The answer is yes.”

The first genuine round of applause erupted from the crowd.

“Some of you will even get full-time breaks,” Jeff continued. More applause…then then boos as that sank in.

Santa put up his hands and the crowd hushed, his domineering presence not yet faded in absentia.

“Well, that’s all the time we have for now. You’ll have lots of time ahead to get to know your new Santa and I hope you’ll extend him your passion, trust and dedication as you once did for me. Change is hard and sometimes we have to cut off the past to survive the journey to the future. I wish you luck, Jeff.” Santa stuck out his hand. “It’s a new future! And a fool’s errand.” They shook.

The roar of the helicopter starting up deafened the crowd and threw snow across the tundra. Elves coughed and blinked in the sharp mist.

“You sure you wouldn’t prefer to take the sleigh and reindeer? You can keep them,” Jeff shouted.

Santa looked nostalgically at the sleigh and deer who looked forlornly back. “No. I think it’s time we moved on.”

“Well don’t forget this!” Jeff motioned offstage. His assistant, one O.B. Smarmsly, struggled onto the platform with Santa’s massive red sack.

Santa’s face lit up. “Oh ho ho! Jeff! You naughty boy!”

Jeff laughed. “It’s a bag full of retirement toys in there for you, Santa. There’s a Kindle and an Echo… All sorts of our best stuff!”

Santa opted to say nothing, but gave a strong nod and another handshake before turning and carrying the sack as if it were filled with balloons to the helicopter. He helped Mrs. Claus up and then hopped in himself.

“Don’t worry!” Santa shouted over the whipping blades. Few could hear him. “Though we’re retiring to New Mexico, you know how close that can be. You’ll always be in our hearts and I’ll be back before you know it! Mr. Bezos has hired me as a part time consultant starting in October!”

As the bleak helicopter rose into the air he waved goodbye with both hands. Some elves broke the line, rushing forward with teary eyes.

“What is this bullshit?” asked the abominable snowman from the back.

“Merry Christmas to all! Ho! Ho! Ho!” Santa shouted before sliding shut the chopper door. Blackness descended over the brilliant sheen of snow as it passed over the sun. When light returned, the chopper was but a speck in the distance.

In unison, the stunned crowd turned to Santa Bezos, perched heroically upon the stage.

“Alright everybody, let’s get back inside!” He waved towards the entrance and threw up a hearty laugh. “It’s FUHREEZING out here!”



