Hi Everyone, Just popping in after a busy day to say hello and let you know the Inspection of the Presents went great! Spooky got a chance to get his voice back in shape by testing karaoke machines; Sally Ann looked over thousands of dolls, and only discovered one or two that had been packed with the wrong clothes and another tagged for the wrong little girl.

(Today her haircut was at 4:31 p.m.)

Right now we're loading the sleigh! Thessaly helped us roll her Present Compressor over to the garage, and region by region we're starting to compress every single gift and stuff it into my magic bag! The reindeer and I fly from east to west, so it's important to get the order right! I had Bill, our exchange penguin, helping us, but he got a few details mixed up -- he thought South Korea was next to South Dakota, and that "Florence" sounded a lot like "Florida."

He was also very excited that there is a place called "Turkey."

The reindeer are back from Finland, all refreshed and thoroughly excited to fly tomorrow night. They get to take tomorrow day off, for obvious reasons!

You're probably wondering what I've decided to do about Blitzen, our varsity leader who (as you recall) didn't 'fess up to hoarding candy in his stall during the deers' strict nutritional training a few weeks ago, and took a shortcut on the running course last week. Coach Bryan and I had a long talk about it and I've decided to put him (as Coach, a longtime hockey player) puts it, "in the penalty box" this year.

He'll still fly with us, of course, but I've also decided that because Cupid has worked so hard and shown such improvement at each level of reindeer training, that I'm going to promote her temporarily to Varsity Team Leader! It's unprecedented (usually a junior reindeer would never qualify for such a position) but she has such a great attitude, -- plus the fact that she single-hoofedly handled the whole situation with Rudolph's nose-cozy -- made her a shoo-in for the role.

I'll announce this tomorrow.

One more thing before I go: Last night's Solstice Parade was really beautiful. There were about 500 animals, each one of holding beautiful candles, or light orbs, or bells, moving in slow, elegant procession across the snowy landscape. For an hour or so everybody just stopped, and watched, and relaxed. It was super special and gave everybody a nice chance to breathe deeply before the Christmas craziness started back up again.

I'll blog again tomorrow before we take off!

Congratulations, Cupid!

Love,

Santa