OPINION: The Coarsening of Society at the North Pole Must Stop

It's time to restore decorum, writes one of Santa's elves in a guest column

Your paid support makes creative endeavors like these possible. Thank you.

The Christmas Festival by Thomas Kinkade Studios

Editor’s note: This is a guest column from one of Santa’s elves at the North Pole. It does not necessarily reflect the views of John Paul Brammer.

---

Three candy-coated days ago, the North Pole suffered a ghastly incident at Sugary Snowflake Square. Ernie Bernie Gingersnap threw a snowball at Wilford Whiskerwinks, striking the good elf squarely in the back and sending him tumbling into a snowdrift. Mr. Whiskerwinks, having been caught thoroughly off guard, spent nearly a full minute rolling about attempting to get to his feet while his assailant brazenly pointed and laughed.

The throwing of a snowball on any day other than Snowball Fight Sunday is appalling enough on its own, but even more shocking has been the rosy-cheeked public’s response: giggles, chuckles, and snickers. The tenor of popular reaction to the pelting is perhaps best summed up in a post from one Griselda Glitterpuff that went viral on Jinglr. “Whoa! Looks like Willy Whiskers got walloped!” she jangled, attaching a photo of the grisly scene. “#WatchOutWilly!”

This callous remark is in even poorer taste when one considers that Mr. Gingersnap was not even put in Tinsel Timeout for his violent act. Alas, Ms. Glitterpuff’s blatant disregard for Mr. Whiskerwinks’ well-being while pursuing engagement on Jinglr is but a recent example of a broader disturbing trend: the coarsening of society at the North Pole, a drift from decorum that we’ve allowed for too long. It’s time we sensible elves say, “Enough. This is not who we are.”

As I mentioned, none of this is new. Some marshmallowy months ago, I was among the vanishingly few elves who publicly pushed back against the now infamous events that transpired at the Holly Jolly Holiday Hut, wherein Peter Plumpudding pranked Poppy Peppermint, placing a piece of pickled pepper on Poppy’s pizza pie, knowing prior of Poppy’s profound prejudice against pickled produce.

The harassment I received for speaking out against this horseplay saddened and dismayed me. To my horror, Molly Hollywhisk publicly called me “the G-slur” (goody two-shoes), which resulted in all the elves in the room chanting in unison, “Na-na-na-na-boo-boo, you’re a goody two-shoes.” The foul expletive was later repeated when I again visited the Holly Jolly Holiday Hut for lunch: “What’ll it be today, goody two-shoes?” Needless to say, I’ll not be forgetting my treatment at the Holly Jolly Holiday Hut anytime soon, and I am currently pursuing legal recourse.

Once you start detecting this listing of our culture toward acerbity, you notice it everywhere. Look, for example, at Old Granny Maplebottoms’ Christmas display this year. Nestled among the familiar sights of the Christmassy Carnival Wheel and the Very-Merry-Merry-Go-Round is a chilling new addition: a wood cutout inappropriately depicting Blitzen tugging Santa’s pants down, revealing the latter’s candy cane underpants. Santa is portrayed as chuckling at the indignity.

Really? Old Granny Maplebottoms is glorifying being pantsed? Don’t even get me started on how we shouldn’t be encouraging the reindeers’ toxic behavior. Kris Kringle only knows what those cloven-hoofed bullies get up to in that frat house of a stable of theirs when they’re not busy biting elves on the rumps or shaking down local businesses for free goodies.

The point is, we must stop this madness before it gets totally out of control. Among the arguments against my position (nearly all of them vituperative and worded for maximum snideness) is the case that it’s all in good fun, that Christmas is a feeling that lives in our hearts and is stoked by laughter and joy, and that the rules don’t matter so long as there’s a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye. This is flatly untrue. Christmas is not about sentiments. Christmas is about adherence to norms.

Consider this fact for more than six sugar-sprinkled seconds, and you’ll find it to be inarguable. What is Christmas without rules and customs? Why, merely another day of the week, I suppose.

Think! Why do we wrap presents in wrapping paper when we could simply toss them naked down the chimney? Why do we insist on celebrating Christmas in December? And why, for that matter, do we not acquiesce to the mob and abolish the binary of “naughty” and “nice” altogether? Why not say everyone is nice and should get everything they want on their Christmas list? Why don’t we have the elves mining bitcoin for little Jimmy who steals money from his daddy’s wallet to spend on Fortnite skins? Ho, ho, ho, children! Here’s that crack you ordered in your stocking!

I do beg your pardon, but you see where all this leads. The Christmas project is held together by a meticulously tied bow, and to loosen it even a little bit is to risk its very existence. It begins with a failure to observe Snowball Fight Sunday, but soon snowballs into much, much more. Next comes the abolishment of beddy-bye time, then comes Santa making a list and checking it but once, and then, in two twitches of your pointy ears, Christmas has vanished like a snowflake in Miami during Pride Month.

You may hem, and you may haw, but that is precisely what awaits North Polesters at the bottom of the slippery-dippery ski slope of naughtiness, a slope we’re presently sliding down faster than Hungry Henry Sweet Tooth’s toboggan toward the fudge factory first thing in the morning. The uncomfortable truth is that, if we are unable to curb our basest instincts, there’s naught but lawlessness in our future, and no amount of mocking anyone as a “goody-goody” will change that.

Merry Christmas to all, while we still have it.

Mr. Sprinkly Cookiebuttons is an elf at Santa’s Workshop in the North Pole and a senior consultant at the McKinsey Global Institute.