Hello Everyone,

Santa here, and I'm sorry to report I've caught a terrible cold -- I usually get only one a year, although with any luck it's rarely around Christmas. Last weekend Mrs. Claus and I took a sleigh-ride down to Candy Cane Ranch, to check on this year's crop, and because my red hat was at the cleaners', I went without, and my head and ears got cold. I think I caught it then.

Oh, sorry: Candy Cane Ranch is a 100-acre farm an hour south of the North Pole (though I guess everything is south of the North Pole) where we grow candy canes! Early in the season, the farmers (a pair of easy-going elves named Candice and Canin) harvest the tiny canes for dipping into hot chocolate; then, about mid-November, they pluck the mid-sized ones for hanging on Christmas trees. They leave a few to grow into those monster canes you see every now and then -- you know, the size of walking sticks, with enough peppermint to last until next Christmas.

Anyway, as I said, I caught a cold and yesterday it caused a major malfunction in the wrapping department! The mix-up went like this: I'd instructed the elves very carefully to put extra 'knots' in their wrapping ribbons, so they wouldn't come loose, but with my stuffed-up nose, it must've come out as 'dots' because this morning, hundreds of presents were covered with dots! Gold ones, green ones, silver ones, rainbow-colored ones -- it was a dotstravaganza! Mrs. Claus said it looked like as though all the presents had the measles.

I was in a panic. I finally found Snoop Puppy Dogg, the Master Wrapper here at the toy factory, who helped me figure out the mistake. We laughed about it, then corrected the problem, and I think we managed to catch all the dotted, ribbon-less boxes. But if your present arrives this Christmas bearing dots instead of ribbon, you'll know what happened!

Maybe we could use them as giant dice.

Okay, more soon! I'm off to brew up a pot of Echinacea tea.

Love and sniffles,

Santa