10 Questions With Santa Claus

Stephen Guilfoyle, editor of The News & Reporter, sat down this weekend and talked to Santa Claus. The first part of his interview can be found here.

1) You've been doing this for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Does it ever get old, boring?
Well, it's for the kids. E-mail has improved some of the efficiency for kids in more urban areas. I don't know, however. Some of the text phone messages can be a little confusing. I don't speak smiley.

So how many years have you been doing this?
Are you trying to get me to admit how old I am? I'm older than a maple tree, younger than a smile. But I'm not going to say how old I am.

2) There was an internet gag that went around saying that if you were able to visit all the children on the earth in one night, you'd have to go faster than the speed of light and the friction caused would create a fireball that would incinerate the atmosphere? Calculations here. How do you pull it off?
I could cop out and just say, "Magic Dust." But many times, I work out with parents who gets what and when. The guys who wrote that obviously have never felt a reindeer's fur. Very slick. And the earth rotates, you know. I start at midnight Christmas Eve in Greenwich, but I have a few extra hours thrown in by rotation, so the "day" actually lasts more than 24 hours. By the way, some folks try to debunk that at this Web site.
As for those guys, who did the first page. They don't believe in me anyway. They were on the naughtly list long before that. After that, I put 'em down in ink.

So the naughty and nice lists are still handwritten, and in pencil?
Yeah, Bill Gates tries to get me to install Windows every year, but I'm old fashioned. Steve Jobs came up with a Mac for me too. Those were COOL. Then he did those iPod commercials with Will Ferrell, so I cooled to the idea. Those were a little irreverent. But yes, Hundreds of millions of names listed in pencil. A few really bad eggs are in ink.

Still, on the delivery thing. There are billions of kids worldwide?
Not that many. About 400 million. But yeah, a lot. The naughty list takes care of some, too. Though I'm a bit of a soft touch. You'd have to be pretty bad not to get something from me. But I can't really divulge how it works anymore than I already have. Trade secrets. Hanukkah Harry is making a real push into my market.

3) Is there one gift that stands out over the years?
Sometimes, kids can break your heart. They are so sweet. The ones who ask for world peace or to end world hunger always get a little extra something from me, but I can't give gifts like that. I'm in business to make kids a little happier, but I can't go solving people's problems for them. Superman and I talk about it all the time. We have to help people without making them helpless.

Superman? He's a comic book hero?
Yeah, and I'm a jolly old elf with a belly full of jelly. You just have to believe.

4) People like to decry the commercialism of Christmas, and some even attack it for diverting attention away from the birth of Jesus Christ. Care to comment?
That's a comment only a guilty rich person might make. Those who have joy to spread should do it. It's sad that perhaps a rich person will only make his own children happy when he could do much, much more and help others. But if he makes his own children happy, how can that be bad? There are too many children who don't get their letters to me in time and won't have a merry Christmas. Until every child gets something, and goes to sleep Christmas night with a full belly, you won't hear me complaining about overcommercialized Christmas.

About Jesus?
The name of the day does indeed come from Christ. Christ-mas. Christ Mass. You ought to be in church on Christmas, no doubt. But there are those who believe deeply in a faith that puts human kindness as a path to heaven. I think the so-called "War on Christmas" is in some circles a demand made by "Christians" who have too much time on their hands, insisting that everyone believe exactly as they do. Jesus himself talked about people like that. All form, no substance. Christmas is important, after all, but the church's focus is supposed to be on Easter. Christ may be the meaning of the season ‹ how cute, it rhymes, ‹ but Easter is where the rubber meets the road. I'm sorry. I shouldn't go off on this. Jesus and I have an understanding. I handle the kids, he handles the adults. I was so happy when I applied for this job and he gave it to me.

He gave you the job?
Sure. One of my "incarnations," St. Nicholas, was a Orthodox bishop in Asia Minor who was kind to children. We go back.

5) Incarnations? So there's more than one of you?
(Pause) Look, it's complicated, and, as above, the safe answer might be to just say, "It's magic." Or a miracle. Sinterklaas. St. Nicholas. Father Christmas. Why do people want to trash the idea of being kind to children? It's a good thing. Let's leave it that.

6) Is Donald Rumsfeld on the Naughty List?
You know better. I won't go into who is and isn't on the lists.

Not even a hint? Some people think he is evil incarnate.
The toughest part of my job is evaluating people who do bad things, but think they are serving a greater good, or who don't really think what they are doing is bad. But it's not even an issue. The last toy Donnie asked for was a Betsy Wetsy doll.

Rumsfeld? A Betsy Wetsy doll?
Whoops. You can edit that out. That is another thing that cuts down on the work Christmas Eve. I go to the places where kids send a letter and have been good, and ASK for something, or someone asks for my help for a child.

7) What about coal in the stockings for the naughty kids?
Well, I shouldn't say this, but. ... Here's your Christmas present early, A bona fide scoop for Stevie. I've outsourced that assignment to the South Pole. You'd be surprised how much coal they have down there, and they work for nothing.

Outsourcing?
We did it in order to remain competitive. I told you, Hanukkah Harry is making real aggressive moves, so to shore up the cost of doing business, we located some redundancies in the Elf Resources area that we were able to eliminate.

8) What's the toughest part of your job?
I said already, not being able to give a kid something when he asks for a present for someone else. If what I do is magic, than I don't have enough magic to rebuild a war-torn country or a burned out urban ghetto. Breaks my heart. You do what you can do and hope it's enough.

9) If you do all your deliveries on Christmas Eve, do you celebrate Christmas Day?
We do, we do. Everybody understands, however, that I'm beat after the long night's work. So I get in and hit the sack right away, sleep for about four hours, and around noon, we shut everything down for a week. But we have a big dinner. Turkey and ham and haggis this year.

Haggis?
Yeah, haggis. This year, anyway. We change the menu every year, three main courses from all over the world. There was one time, man, I shouldn't say. I love Indian food, but I'm not into curry so much. Whoa boy was that a rough one. Spent the latter part of that Christmas Day running back and forth to the little Elf's room. Now, last question.

10) What advice would you give to people, children and grownups, at this late stage?
The easiest thing in the world is to be nice to people. Treat them like you want to be treated yourself. Golden Rule, after all.

Just one more? Bush, Cheney? How about Tom Cruise? On the list.
I said I wouldn't do that. Tom does need to stop bouncing around so much, but that doesn't get you on the naughty list.
Anyway, ho ho ho, Merry Christmas to all.

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