Hello Everybody,

A quick post today, because we have a busy week ahead of us. The reindeer are completing their swim training, the elves are hosting the big monthly birthday party on Wednesday (the twELFth), and the factory is running at tip-top speed! With only two weeks before Christmas, we have no time to waste....

Yesterday we had a major screw-up in the baking department, however. I'd dropped by to taste-test a batch of sugar cookies (my job is rough, isn't it?) and when I popped one in my mouth, it tasted absolutely awful! I spit it out as gracefully as I could and took one from the batch over to the lab for testing.

Thessaly said that instead of being made with sugar, the cookies were made with salt! Can you imagine?! Luckily, we caught them before they went into packages. I had a talk with Stella and Harriet Berrybloom, the kitchen elves, who said they were pretty sure what happened: One of the young cooks, Deirdre, had evidently been VERY sleepy on the job earlier that day. As we suspected, she had inadvertently switched the salt and sugar, which were sitting right next to each other in big bags in the storeroom.

Things like this have happened in years past: Someone once mixed up a crate labeled "watches" with one labeled "matches" -- hard to light a Yule Log with a wristwatch! -- and a few years ago, one of the elves accidentally switched a box filled with Christmas stockings with one filled with women's stockings. We caught both of them before Christmas Eve, luckily! The stockings would have been a strange situation to explain....

Anyway, I gave Deirdre the rest of the week off to take a nap, and taste-tested some caramel popcorn instead. It was excellent!

More soon.

Love,

Santa