Santa's Twelfth Night Party

I had planned on writing yesterday to fill you in on my dinner at the House of Claus (and it is quite a story...I...well, I have to save it for later) but I got caught up in the current on the way to Santa's Twelfth Night party. And there is PLENTY to talk about, regarding last night's party. In fact, I don't know if the word "Party" really covers it. And I myself did not stay until the end...it was getting a little debauched for my taste (drunken elves after a play in a dinner theater which is itself a piece of the party...or at least it must have looked that way by the time it was disassembled and repurposed for the new set of the new play that took place...but I only heard about that last part.)
I don't think I even want to see the aftermath -- but I guess that's how one would think after turning away from the crazed finish to a celebration, no?

It was quite a nice party, though. It's just that absolutely EVERYONE was there. So then you have the people who don't like parties talking in groups or sulking, and you have the people who are extremely excited about this particular party excitedly being excited (also sometimes in groups)(or in pairs -- one excited person plus one who's trying to keep up). After a few hours of something like that, I'm always ready to move on. But the PLAY was worth watching, and the awards were great, and the overall mood of the party was beautiful.

The theme of each year's Twelfth Night party is the play (the evening culminates in a performance put on by various actors, who rehearse during the later days of Christmas) written by the returning employee who submits the best proposal at the start of the season. This year's play was a fascinating read on movement, tradition vs. change in movement, and changing location. It was set in a church (that looked like a traditional church around the outside) with a dance floor. There was also an elaborate baptismal font, bordered by a railing, with stairs down to an area where I think the actors changed costume...it was very interesting. At a high point in the production, the roof of the church opened, making visible the much higher ceiling of the rotunda at the center of the North Pole complex, which was also decorated.

There were also awards, very funny awards...not for people but by each Department...there were awards for Best New Creation in cuisine from each of the Break Room Kitchens, awards for costume, imagery, religious imagery, decoration scheme design (indoor and outdoor), Christmas Spirit, best new toy, strangest new toy, best defective toy that everyone adds defects to until the end of the season -- NICE!...and the awards from the Library. I wish I had the letter that was the winner from Disingenuous Requests...it was hilarious. It was a letter requesting the companionship of the person in an image on an old party flyer -- the flyer was for a party called "Unforgrezzable", and it featured a tanned, hairy man with a Euromullet wearing nothing but fringed boots and a bit of gold jewelry, holding a painted or artificial green pumpkin (that was a matter of minor debate amongst the Committee) in front of himself at hip level. Unfortunately I don't have the flyer, because some of my colleagues were wildly protective of it and were joking about who would get to take it home and sleep with it. If I can get my hands on it, I will post it!

Frankly, I might have had a better time at the party if I hadn't still been thinking about my dinner at the Claus house the night before. I am packing for tomorrow's departure, and looking forward to getting home and working my way into the new year...it feels like it should be a nice one. But I have to admit: what they say about reading your employee file is true!!

Tea in Santa's Office

I have just returned from having tea with Santa in his office. He gave me a formal invitation from Mrs. Claus for dinner this evening, at their house. On a card. She sends an invitation on a card for dinner on the same day...and it's a beautifully written invitation. Wow.
But anyway, I went to talk with Santa about the robot. As I was sitting down, I noticed this book sitting on his desk. There were various papers peeking out from different places in the book, and I had the feeling I really wanted to know what was written on them. Sometimes it's like that with objects at the North Pole -- they just exert this gravitational pull, and it always feels like it would be a mistake not to look. For that reason, this book was a major distraction to me, sitting there on the desk, right within arm's reach.... Then Santa noticed the direction of my gaze and moved the book into a desk drawer.

Santa told me that the robot is definitely known for its lecherous behavior, and also that the staff is trying to figure out what its triggers are (apparently it will act strangely toward the same people over and over again, while leaving others alone) so that they can attempt to reprogram it to behave properly. He told me it would help the effort if I could retrace my steps and try to tell him the story as accurately as possible, from the robot's point of view. I thought that sounded ridiculous, but was willing to give it a try if it was going to help.
"I walked in. I hadn't been wearing a cap, and was shaking my head to get the snow off. I said hello. I took off my scarf and my gloves. I unzipped my snowsuit and took down the top half. I took the googly eyes from my pocket. I said I have a gift for you. And right about then I started to get these printou...oh wait. 'From the robot's point of view'...oh no! I understand this better now. 'Please let me hold your beautiful head' -- which I was shaking around wildly. 'Let me acknowledge all that you have to give' -- when I announced I had a gift for it. Oh dear." "But the rest WAS a bit perverted, coming from a robot!!" "Santa...I am not meant to infer that I was asking for it...am I?"
"No," he said. "Not at all. However, to the robot, it might have appeared that way."

Mrs. Claus -- A Snapshot

I find myself thinking and thinking and thinking about how to ask Mrs. Claus about the truth regarding the Jippy rumor, but my mind keeps reeling back to a moment during the hour I spent with her at her New Year's Eve Party.
Now, first of all, I wish I'd known that Mrs. Claus actually throws the New Year's Party, that the whole thing is really her event. Had I been in possession of that knowledge, I would almost certainly not have wasted my time trying to look for her in the 2 days immediately preceding it. I guess that's what you get for being new here, though...you do basically have to figure things out on your own, as you go. And of course it now makes sense that Mrs. Claus stated so honestly to me in her note that she was aware I'd been unsuccessfully looking for her, but had been busy.
Mrs. Claus is an exceptionally honest person. She is so honest that people, when they are near her, know exactly what she thinks of them without her having to say a thing. However, personal details around HER remain a mystery. I don't doubt, for instance, that she would tell any querent the exact date of her birth, but no one seems to ask, and it is very difficult to determine how old she actually is. If she is old, she certainly doesn't look it. (But I wonder whether she isn't using some of her gracious and charming personality to distract from the asking of these very questions.)

I saw her soon after I'd arrived at her party (and for the record, Mrs. Claus throws a wonderful party). She was sitting on a couch at the end of the room, on an elevated platform in an alcove, and she asked me to come up and sit with her. I did so, and instantly felt quite comfortable sitting next to her, looking out at everyone and watching the conversations and the goings-on. Her presence had a relaxing effect on me, which was welcome...especially as I was in possession of a rather awkward question to ask. Of course, the longer I sat with her, the more I knew that it was going to be very, very delicate to ask her this question.
I was wearing the dress she'd chosen for me, and she was sitting back against a dark red and black fur coat. At one point she put her arm around me and adjusted the fur (it was very soft) so that it wrapped around my back as well.
As we were sitting there, talking about people at the party, she touched my arm and brought it onto her lap. She was running her fingers over the inside of my arm, almost absentmindedly, and the feeling was pleasant, so I did nothing but continue the conversation. A couple of minutes later, I began to notice that she was actually making designs -- almost like writing -- on my arm.
I watched. I read, "People are defined by their secrets" "Inside their own minds".

I am hesitant to tell you what happened with the robot

I have not actually spoken to Santa about this yet, and for that reason I'm hesitant to report on it, but I think I probably should just make a note of it so that I can quit thinking about it and get on with my evening.

What happened is this: I did pick the Miley Cyrus robot in the gift exchange. I guess that's no great surprise, especially since I was dead last in the department to choose from the hat...and because I was thinking "this is the robot; this must be the robot; I think this is the robot" as I was pulling out the slip of paper. This robot, currently residing in a bunker about 3/4 of a mile down the road, away from the main North Pole complex, answers the letters that come here addressed to Miley Cyrus instead of Santa. We do receive letters addressed to various other celebrities, but for some reason the volume of "letters to Miley" is excessive, and for that reason the Cyrus robot's workload has not been expanded to include letters addressed to anyone else.
The robot used to sit on a recessed windowsill in Santa's Library (downstairs), but it was moved out into the hallway (again under a window) when it began to exhibit sentient behavior -- attributed at the time to everyone in the department feeling so bad for it. I wonder now whether some of that behavior is not the result of processing the emotional content of those letters, though. I mean, a robot probably has limited emotional intelligence, and limited agency over its functions in general since it's running on a program...and those letters are intense.
Anyway, my assessment here may falter under my own canopy of shock regarding what took place when I went to deliver the gift in the bunker. The robot is in the bunker now (as of I think last year, or two years ago...I'm not certain...) because it was operating so strangely around people, in the hallway of the Library. Apparently it would light up an alert button and then spit out correspondence that made little sense to passers-by.
Well, I got quite a dose (MY GOD THAT ROBOT NEEDS SOME LOVE) when I visited. We choose names for the gift exchange on the night of December 23rd, and we're expected to exchange gifts at any time and as often as desired between the evening of the 24th and the afternoon of January 5th. And customarily, if you pick someone you are related to, or if you pick a close friend, you give an additional gift or an encouraging letter on January 6th (Epiphany) in order to signify the potential of new growth in the coming year. Most people leave the North Pole on the 6th or 7th of January....
I trekked out to the bunker with a gift of a stapler for the robot, and I thought I would stick some googly eyes on the head of it, so the robot could have someone to look at and maybe to talk to, in the absence of people. This robot basically looks like a copy machine. It has arms, and is set on casters, but essentially we are talking about a copier with auto-input and auto-output. The whole process is automated (the letters come in via chute and are collected and sent out through another chute...using vaccuum technology kind of like Roosevelt Island, or Disneyworld), but I think there's a daily process check by an elf from the Maintenance Department.

Oooh. I really don't want to talk about what happened. It was traumatic. I'll just get it over with as quickly as possible. I got there, approached the robot, said hello (why...I don't know), and started pulling the googly eyes out of my pocket to put them on the stapler, and immediately the robot started handing me printouts. This is what they said, one after another: "please let me hold your beautiful head."
"please let me stroke your hair, and your neck, and your arms, and your breasts, and your back."
"please let me rest my hand on your stomach while I kiss you."
"please let me kiss you deeply and honestly."
"let me acknowledge all that you have to give."
"please let me love you."

At first I looked around, thinking, 'This must be a joke. Who is sending me these?', but I quickly realized, as the robot crept toward me and extended multiple arms in my direction, leaving them to linger within millimeters of me after handing me each sheet of paper, and as it started to play strange music featuring standard copy machine sounds, that the messages were actually and indeed coming from the robot.
I quickly slapped the eyes on the stapler, bunched the papers together, placed the papers on a table and anchored them with the stapler, taking an instant to be sure the eyes were facing the robot, and fled.
Luckily I started laughing by the time I was 5 steps outside, but damn. Seriously...celebrity obsession (especially among children and the vulnerable) has some horrific and absurd side effects.

I am going to go visit the Break Room now. See you.

I found these in a box on my desk when I returned just now

"But you can keep the shoes."

The Dress

My meeting with Mrs. Claus today was very brief. I had barely made it into the anteroom of her study when she came brushing in from the other door with a garment bag in her hand and instructed me to sit on a bench under a large painting of her with a reindeer.
She said, "It's lovely to see you. I apologize for the brevity of this meeting, but I'll see you for a moment later tonight. In honor of your success with Old News, I've borrowed this dress for you. I'll send for it in the morning."
And with that, along with a quick unzip and re-zip of the bag, she handed me the dress and ushered me out the door and down the staircase.

"The List"

I swear, the drama around this place MIGHT be almost enough to match the magic. But then again, I work in Inappropriate Letters, so maybe it just depends on where you look.
My time over the last two days has been spent
(a) reading letters to Santa that are either rants about people's dislike for what Santa brought or didn't bring, including threatening messages to Santa (or any part of the establishment here at the North Pole); also reading letters to Santa that are basically thank you letters, probably written on Christmas, while drunk, which include a few lines of "and Santa, I'd also like to throw you up against the chimney and make out with you, pressing my...up on the...of your...until you can't stand it any longer and are forced to...", and
(b) looking for Mrs. Claus.

I'm a pretty good judge of what is true and what isn't (actually Santa pointed that out to me in a conversation that we had out in the gardens a little over a week ago -- not that I didn't already know that -- we were all taking a break in the daytime hours watching a game of cricket in the packed-down snow...I was laughing to myself that the match is really just about which team's magic is stronger, as "technique" seems like a bit of a joke when you're watching a leather ball bounce over a snowy pitch), and I had a strong feeling that something in that last blackmail letter wasn't a lie. But I also know how Santa responds when you ask him a question, and I thought the swiftest path to an answer would be through Mrs. Claus. But she isn't easy to find!!

Earlier today (after I had exhausted nearly all of my obvious resources and ideas for getting in touch with her), I received a letter, typewritten on parchment, tied with this necklace. It read, "You haven't been able to find me because I've been busy preparing the New Year's Eve wardrobe for you and the others on my list. Come to my study at 5:00 PM. I have a dress for you. M.R.S. Claus"