The Blazing Yule: a Holiday Timeline

Preface: This timeline was written between the dates of November 28th and December 24th, 2014 on alternatehistory.com as a holiday special.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Mrs. Claus to her husband, the eminent bringer of gifts, on that frigid Christmas Eve, frigid for even the North Pole.

“You know what I do,” Santa Claus responded, solemnly. “It’s going to be more dangerous than normal, without a doubt. I have changed my mind about nothing.”

“But you’ll be mocked if you survive at all,” his loving wife responded. “Knowing what the mortals down there are doing makes this all seem not worth it. Do they deserve it?”

“The innocent children did not choose to bring this war. The adults, who are generally not my immediate concern, did. It is frustrating, yes, but I have to do it.”

Mrs. Claus sighed, and looked her husband in the eyes. “I guess I cannot persuade you otherwise,” she said. “Just be safe.”

“I will,” responded Santa.

He trudged out into the biting cold, to the reindeer stables. He was going to be mocked by the other reindeer for this choice; many would hate him for months if not years afterwards. But the future of Christmas depended on it.

It was disconcertingly quiet. He could hear his feet make markings in the snow that covered the cobblestone roads and cottages-turned-offices’ thatched roofs.

This quiet was shattered when he heard a rabble coming gradually into hearing range. There were footsteps, and voices, and a large amount of both. He looked in that direction skeptically; what did the elves want?

There were several of them, waving signs and chanting angry songs. “No, no, no! to Elf Abuse!” one of the chants went. “Elves=Slaves” said another. The chanting crescendoed as it approached Claus.

“What do you want now?” he enquired.

“Actual freedom of choice,” one of them responded, a disgruntled elf said as he came forward. “We work for the annual joy of whiny children of another species,” said this elf. “And for your own feeling of self-importance, our rights are trampled upon!”

Claus was irritated. He had seen this kind of protest, but they were inconsiderate enough to make it on Christmas Eve. Out of the rabble came a song: “Arise, ye workers from your slumber, arise, ye prisoners of want!”

“I don’t have time for this!” Claus exclaimed, and pushed his way in the direction of the reindeer stables. One elf tried to stop him. Claus grabbed him by the arm and moved him to the side. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Vincent Evergreen,” responded the protester. “And you care about this now why?”

“You laid hands on me. That is in itself offensive. Trust me, I will not let you do this again,” he snarled.

Evergreen sneered at Claus as he made his way to where his beasts of burden were. He coughed; his most formative years were damaging to his health, to say the least.

Claus opened the gate to the reindeer pen, where the reindeer frolicked and made merry, jumping over and chasing one another, laughing and singing. They looked over to him with some worry, but he ignored them. There was one particular reindeer he wanted.

He went to a more secluded spot, a known place where reindeer offended other members of their kind. He saw five of them over a lump in the snow. That pile of frozen water glowed a faint red. Out of the pile protruded another reindeer body.

“All of you, get off of him!” Claus called.

The bullying reindeer backed away, and slumped down. “You should all be ashamed. It turns out that this unique quirk of his will be useful to me.”

The reindeer in the pile thrusted his head out of it and shook off the snow. His red nose illuminated the area.

“Rudolph,” said Claus. “this is going to be a shock. I know you are used to mockery and scorn. I do not ask you this to make you feel better; I do so because I need it for my own purposes.”

“So what is it?” asked Rudolph, half scared and half skeptical.

“With your nose so bright, will you guide my sleigh tonight?” asked Claus.

The reindeer were silent. Donner, he recognized one of them, gave him an angry glare.

“I guess,” said Rudolph. “What for?”

“You remember from twenty years ago, when the humans began using their flying machines. You remember when I remarked that we were no longer alone in the skies. Now, over Britain rages a battle with these flying machines. I need illumination.”

“Okay, sir, I’ll do it,” said Rudolph, nose glowing with glee.

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The spitfire’s propeller whirred through the frigid air over Manchester. The droning noise had become almost normal to Christopher Atherton, the aircraft’s pilot, who had signed up to defend his country. There was really no further thinking than that; the pictures of ravaged France under the Germans appalled him; the bombing of London had removed all doubt in his mind that his country was in the right. Imperialism be damned; Britain was the victim of this terrible attack.

He was scouting; other pilots had already downed several German craft, and he was looking for his own. Bombers, fighters, whatever. He didn’t care. He knew that the Nazis were intent on taking down England and bombing Manchester, his home city, and he was going to defend that.

He saw a black mass in the dark of the night. He approached it, unsure of its allegiance.

The mass began to swerve downward towards the ground. He heard a screeching noise coming from it. It was a Junkers. A bomber.

He pulled the trigger and opened fire on the Junkers. The cockpit glass on the plane shattered, and the pilot’s head exploded like a rose. The flames began to consume it, and it fell down to the ground, the screech of its wings still audible.

One down.

Christopher continued flying. He scoured the skies for more Germans.

He saw through the clouds a faint red light. He didn’t know of any planes, British or German, that had red lights on them. He flew towards it to take a closer look.

“Do any of our planes have a red light on them? I’m seeing one obscured by the clouds. I can’t tell whether it’s hostile or not,” Christopher said through the plane’s radio.

“Not that I know of,” said another pilot.

“No, no we do not,” said the air base command. “I can’t think of any possible reason why a civilian aircraft would be over this city.”

“So should I assume it is German?”

“Make your best judgment.”

He brought forth the plane towards the light, which dashed through the skies and began to slowly descend. As he got closer, the rate of descent only continued to increase.

It had to be another dive bomber. He hadn’t the faintest idea as to why the Germans would put a red light on a Junkers, but they had, obviously. He opened fire. The red light began to descend rapidly and haphazardly, so he assumed it was dead. The light vanished, and Christopher continued his patrol.

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This was impossible, thought Santa Claus. His sleigh had been hit by … something. He heard a buzzing through the gales of wind.

He twisted his head to the left, then to the right. He saw a sky blue plane with a blue-white-red roundel on its side and wings, swerving away. Claus assumed it was British.

Nevertheless, parts of the sleigh were rapidly falling off of the chassis. One blade jettisoned itself off; then a large chunk of the side, and then some bags of toys for the good little children. There was only one thing to do, something Claus had prepared to do but never had done:

Make a landing on the ground.

He could smell smoke. The bullets must have set it aflame.

He brought the sleigh down to the ground into a field, somewhere outside Manchester, he assumed. He got out, and immediately began tending to the reindeer.

They were mostly fine. “Is everything okay back there?” asked Blitzen, one of the reindeer.

“No, I can’t say that it is. We got hit by bullets in the battle that is raging overhead. Are all of you fine?”

A chorus of “yes'" echoed from the reindeer. He then began to hammer the sleigh back together.

“Now, isn’t someone committed to acting silly?” said a voice. Claus turned his head.

There stood some soldiers who had clambered out of an armored car, with rifles at the ready and aimed at Claus. He put his hands up.
“Now just who the hell do you think you are, with all your reindeer. Why aren’t you either hiding or evacuating?” said one of the soldiers inquisitively. “We can’t have dawdling in such a time of crisis.”

“I’m Santa Claus,” he said, not really expecting to be believed. “I am delivering Christmas presents. You can see the reindeer and everything.”

“Very funny, you old fool,” smirked the same soldier, apparently the commander. “Men, restrain him and bring him into the car. We’re taking him into protective custody until we can sort this out.”

Two of the men dashed towards Claus and grabbed his arms and unceremoniously stuffed him in the car, some sort of Rolls-Royce. They slammed the door shut, and drove off. Radio chatter mentioned the reindeer and the sleigh; by the sound of it more soldiers were to retrieve them.

After some time, they entered what appeared to be a military compound: a sign near the entryway said “RAF Ringway.” He was shoved into several rooms, subject to the mockery of soldiers that thought he was some delusional old man. Finally, he was put in a holding cell.

After some time, a decidedly intimidating man with large muscles in his arms and legs wearing some sort of military uniform with badges came into the room.

“So, my men found you out in a field. Care explaining why?” he said, not sugarcoating the occasion at all.

“I’m Santa Claus, don’t you see?” said Claus, throwing up his mitten-covered hands. “The beard, the hat, the buckle, the boots, everything!” he exclaimed.

“What a bunch of baloney,” said the interrogator, smirking. “If you really are Santa Claus, what did you give me for Christmas when I was eight years old?”

“Depends,” Claus responded. “What is your name, and where are you from?”

“Irving Bates, from Old Trafford” the interrogator replied.

“A Hornby clockwork train,” responded Claus, confidently.

Bates just stared at him, shocked.

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Claus stepped off the train in London. The meeting with Bates resulted in the entirety of RAF Ringway believing his story. On the train, in boxcars, were the sleigh and the reindeer; he had negotiated for them, and the leadership agreed to send them with him. Livestock cars were acquired for the reindeer and the sleigh was loaded onto a flatbed.

He was told he was going to see Churchill, the Prime Minister. What for, he was uncertain. All he knew was that millions of children were not going to receive their presents.

A man approached him, flanked by armed guards. He introduced himself: “I am Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Prime Minister is very interested in speaking with you, Mr. Claus.”

“Before I do so, would be so kind to explain to me why you are so interested in so?” Claus responded.

Eden looked at him with a slight smirk. “You have the ability to deliver large amounts of goods to different locations with speed that humanity cannot hope to muster within my lifetime or even the lifetime of the average British soldier. You can either be hostile to us, or beneficial to us.”

Claus’ eyebrows hardened. “So you want me to help you in your war. I have always made it clear to people I do not want to interfere in your conflicts. War is a terrible thing, and I want no part in it.”

“Are you not the judge of naughty and nice, Mr. Claus?” asked Eden. “If you truly are the man that you claim to be, you could plainly see the dying innocents in France and in Britain and in Poland are suffering due to the wrath and megalomania of Hitler. Is that not naughty?”

“I guess it is,” responded Claus.

“Well, then, I suppose you will be quite cooperative,” said Eden. “Unless you need anything, we will be heading to Mr. Churchill’s bunker.”

“I believe that it would be good for both of our sides for me to call my Minister of External Affairs, an elf by the name of Cornelius Candycane, and I would presume your opposite number. I will summon him here and then negotiations can proceed.”

“Very well,” replied Eden, nodding. “Go call him. Guards, follow him.”

Claus made his way to the sleigh and pulled out the telephone that was connected to the radio that would enable him to contact the Foreign Ministry at the North Pole. He put his finger in the rotary dial and shuffled it around to get the Foreign Ministry’s number. He heard it ring.

“This is the Foreign Ministry, Minister Cornelius Candycane speaking,” he recognized the Minister say.

“This is Santa Claus,” he said.

“What is it? You’ve been taking a little long. Where are you now, and what has happened to you?” he said, with the slightest tinge of worry.

“Mr. Candycane,” said Claus, “this is a bit of an odd request.”

“Go on,” said the Foreign Minister.

“I need you to get a sleigh and fly down to London. I have been shot down over Manchester by one of their fighter planes and now am being held by the British government in their capital. They want to negotiate with us.”

“With respect, Mr. Claus, have you gone mad? You’re violating the most sacred tenet of our entire operation: never contact the humans!” exclaimed Candycane, suprisedly.

“Well, I’m due to meet Churchill soon, and their foreign minister Eden is with me.” The armed guards put their hands on their rifles, not cocking them but seemed as if they were prepared to do so.

Candycane took a deep breath and sighed heavily. “Very well, Mr. Claus. I’ll see what I can do.”

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Claus and his Foreign Minister sat in the uncomfortable armored car that drove through the streets of London. The city seemed like the bleak predictions of a science fiction author; rubble strewn everywhere as if attacked by some sort of fantastical creature.

But that was the case. This was Exhibit A in the court case examining man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.

“I do not like this, Mr. Claus,” said Candycane. “Are you seriously considering working with these people? Involving yourself in this terrible conflict?”

“Perhaps we need to intervene,” said Claus. “Are you comfortable with giving presents to the people who fly these planes over London, destroying large swathes of the city?”

“No, I can’t say that I am, but nevertheless the children in Germany have done nothing.”

The ride continued in silence. As they perused the rubble, a small child was crying in a basement, clutching a stuffed elephant. An officer of some sort was consoling him, but the child would not stop weeping. Behind them, there seemed to be about five dead bodies: a man, a woman, and children of various ages. The corpses were being loaded onto a lorry, presumably to be driven off to a morgue.

Both Claus and Candycane winced at this. “Perhaps you’re right,” said Candycane. “Perhaps we should be on their side.”

Claus opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a droning noise, which then morphed into a mechanistic almost-scream. They peered out of the window, and saw a Junkers Ju 88 diving right towards them.

“Brace yourselves!” yelled the driver, who slammed his foot on the pedal. Claus and Candycane put their heads down as the plane roared down towards them.

Anti-air guns slung their bullets at the plane, punctuating the siren call with a rhythmic beat. The bomb dropped, sending dirt and smoke into the air, temporarily blinding the two dwellers of the North Pole. Fortunately, the car was able to escape.

As if on cue the Junkers exploded and careened towards the ground, exploding when it collided. The anti-air guns must have succeeded in their mission, thought Claus.

The car eventually pulled into a compound, and the two of them were whisked into a bunker with concrete walls and a variety of rooms, many with tables, maps, and other equipment. They were brought to a room where a balding man in an overcoat and a helmet not unlike those worn by the soldiers. To his side was Anthony Eden.

“Mr. Claus, Mr. Candycane,” said Eden, “May I introduce you to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the right honorable Winston Churchill.”

Churchill nodded, stood up, and shook both of their hands. “It is an honor to meet the giver of gifts to the little children,” he said. “However, it could have been at a much more convenient time, although convenience is not exactly something we have in abundance now.”

“An honor to meet you too, sir,” said Claus, confidently. They were equals here, he remembered. They were both leaders of sovereign states and peoples and accorded each other that respect. Similarly, Eden and Candycane were both foreign ministers.

Eden and Candycane made their introductions. “So the question is, and I won’t mince words, will you join us in this war? I was told that you saw quite the demonstration of Nazi brutality on your way here.”

“We just might, Mr. Churchill, we just might,” said Candycane, inquisitively. “What will we get out of it?”

“Defense against the Nazis, for one,” said the Prime Minister.

“And yet he was shot down by a British plane,” responded Candycane.

“We’ll have them be aware, I’m certain,” said Churchill.

“Well, then, Mr. Churchill, why should we support you in your war? You have your own colonies in shackles. Now why would we want to support you?”

The room was silent. Eden glared at Candycane, then at Claus, then lightened his gaze and turned his head towards Churchill.

Churchill broke the silence. “You remember that child, crying as his parents and siblings lay dead on ground. I was told, don’t you worry. Not supporting us means that you condone, no, openly support such butchery. By not joining with us, you say that you are happy that child lost his family, that he will grow up an orphan after this terrible war. Am I understanding correctly?”

“No,” said Candycane. He was cut off by Claus.

“So be it then. Candycane, I cannot ignore this anymore. If North Pole aid will put an end to all this suffering, then we are morally obligated to intervene.” He turned to the Prime Minister. “Inform your government that I am now an ally to the United Kingdom and to France and to Poland.”

“Good, very good,” said Churchill. He turned to Eden. “The war may yet be won.”

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“Mr. Claus,” said the hapless aid dispensed to inform him, “I have information from Prime Minister Churchill himself.”

“What is it?” asked Claus, sitting in the hard wooden chair of the uncomfortable concrete-walled room in Churchill’s bunker that he had been assigned.

“Your first task, as a member of this alliance, is to aid our forces in Operation Compass in North Africa. General Iven MacKay, an Australian, is leading the charge. As a test if nothing more, you are to aid him in capturing the fortress of Bardia near the Egyptian border from the Italians. Since you have sleighs that can fly, we are sending you personally with equipment down there.”

“When will this be?” asked Claus.

“January 3rd, a week from now.”

“Have you informed my foreign minister?”

“Yes,” said the aid. “He has sent word to the North Pole to prepare an expeditionary force. Your elves are mustering, or so I’m told. Nevertheless, we sent some armaments up there to get you on your feet and some men to help with organization.”

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Clarence Giftmaker woke up in the bright light of the sun over the North Pole. He had been working diligently for the past few months making all the toys for the good little children of the world. He prepared his daily meal of venison and peppermint milk.

He heard some noises outside. Something being put somewhere. The hatch of his mailbox being closed. Mail? He heard about what had happened to Santa Claus, but he thought it would sort itself out.

He was worried for Santa. It may jeopardize the secrecy that the North Pole prided itself over. He hadn’t shown up for a while, and then Minister Candycane departed for unknown reasons.
There was a letter in the mailbox, he noticed, after opening it and removing the contents. He ripped it open and found a yellow card. On it was the following:

“North Pole Ministry of Defense Draft Order.”

He was being drafted? The North Pole now had a military? The North Pole was now involved in the human war? So many questions, so few answers.

He was ordered to go the local market square at noon. He did so when the time came, and was met with a swathe of elves surrounding a central podium. An elf and what appeared to be a human were at the podium, and behind them several sleighs equipped with weapons and staffed with reindeer.

“As your cards stated, the North Pole is at war with Germany and Italy. We have joined the war for the purpose of preventing needless loss of life to humanity. We are not being hypocrites. We are acting in the service of the North Pole’s mandate. We bring joy to the nice and punishment to the naughty; is that not what we are doing now? Those of you summoned here will be our soldiers, our pilots, our sailors, if need be. Those who have not will be assembling weapons, not toys. This is for freedom worldwide. This is the spirit of giving.”

The human stepped up, and proclaimed in a Liverpool accent, “all of those assigned for the ground service, to the left, all to the air service, to the right.” Giftmaker glanced at the card, revealing that he was to be a soldier. He got in that line.

He was escorted onto a sleigh, larger than normal, intended to carry many elves. He got into the crowded vehicle, and the hooves of the reindeer began their steady clop-clop, pulling the sleigh away to wherever it was to go. He happened to be next to an elf that he knew by the name of Quirinius Eggnog, a local restaurant owner and operator.

“Quirinius!” exclaimed Giftmaker.

“Clarence, what odd circumstances we meet,” said Quirinius. “I never thought I would be put in a situation in which I may die by human hands.”
“Neither did I,” said Clarence. “But times certainly are changing.”

The ride was quiet, perhaps too quiet, but nobody bothered to speak. They didn’t want to discuss the fact that they were being sent to some place far from home.

The sleigh stopped, and they left the sleigh in single file. Clarence was handed a folded uniform and a rifle by an elf.

“Prepare yourselves, gents,” he said. “In a week you’ll be in North Africa!”

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Claudius Bellringer sat at the bench at RAF Biggin Hill in Bromley, Kent. Next to him sat an old friend, Audley Peppermint, another elf from the same part of the North Pole. They had known each other for an amount of time neither of them remembered; they bantered about the good times they had making toys for the children.

“I can tell humans are angry folks,” said Audley, puffing on a peppermint cigar.

“Name one incident when an elf rebelled against Santa Claus,” remarked Claudius, he too with a cigar. North Pole cigars were made of mistletoe and pine leaf in about equal measure, infused with the taste of various candies. Claudius preferred gingerbread.

“I can’t, I can’t!” exclaimed Audley sarcastically. “But they make very good cookies and milk - and very good beer!” he opined, then let out a hearty laugh. Claudius did the same.

Their banter was interrupted by an RAF airman. “Ready your sleighs. You guys takeoff in twenty minutes.”

They hurried to their sleighs and prepared everything. These sleighs were outfitted as bombers; others were fighters. All of them were modified for these roles by engineers working for Vickers-Armstrong; they were designed to emulate RAF standard fare, mostly Spitfires and Wellingtons, in their capabilities in combat.

When the call sounded to takeoff, Claudius began whipping the reindeer, who objected quietly. But they began their trot, then sprint, off the runway, and then ascended, pulling the sleigh into the sky.

Their destination was Bremen; they were to bomb the city in retribution for the bombings of several cities throughout Britain. On the night of New Years’ Day, they would unleash hell on those that enabled the hell over another country.

The Netherlands passed under them, and then they came to western Germany. They came under fire from anti-air guns. “Claudius, pull us left!” called out Audley. Claudius jerked the reins to the left, forcing the reindeer to move in that direction. They narrowly missed the shells being blasted into the air.

They heard the screams of elves falling to their graves. They saw the red remains of reindeer made mincemeat by German interceptors, and those interceptors wrecked by North Pole fighter sleighs.

Then they saw the city below. Bremen.

Without much conversation, but with a subtle nod and glance, Audley took the bombs in the back of the sleigh and dropped them over the city. They could both see the lights of the bombs igniting and consuming whatever was below them.

Audley was right. Humans were violent. And so were elves.

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The Australian planes and the North Pole sleighs took off jointly from the air base in Egypt towards the Italian-held fortress of Bardia, in the far northeast of Libya. Clarence Giftmaker and Qurinius Eggnog both waited in the small subordinate camp to the rest of Allied force, composed mostly of Australians and the occasional Briton. The North Pole commander, subordinate to the Australians, was a longtime helper to Santa Claus by the name of Augustus Caroler who had been selected for the position on the sole basis of seniority. He had no military experience, but neither did anyone else in the expeditionary force.

"This whole damn thing is a joke!" exclaimed Quirinius. "Why would Santa Claus want to help these people? I know all the political nonsense but when you get down to it? It's going to get innocent elves killed!"

The both of them had their rifles ready to fight, which would come not too soon in the future. It was the early morning hours; they were due to attack within the hour.

"Elves!" called a voice. It was Caroler. "Be ready! General Mackay has informed me that we are moving out! Don't dawdle, move!"

The elves got in formation, and listened to the pounding of the artillery barrages. Three artillery sleighs, equipped with guns given to them by the British, had their reindeer trot forward and prepare their attack. The barrels rose, and their operating elves were loading the cannons.

They were awaiting the explosion of torpedoes hidden under the Italian lines. After the detonation of the torpedoes, they would rush into the fortress of Bardia and take control of it.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Those had to be the torpedoes. "Forward, elves, forward!" called Caroler, his nasal voice only making it clear that he was the North Pole's equivalent of an aristocrat.

The elves ran forward, and heard the firing of their own sleigh-mounted guns. However, it was not to last; whoever had had the bright idea of mounting artillery guns on sleighs had not accounted for the force of the gun as it fired. All the sleighs snapped in half, throwing splinters in all directions, gruesomely wounding the elves operating them and causing the reindeer to scramble away.

As they ran forward towards the fortress, Caroler took the lead. As they joined ranks with the Australians, who snickered at the sight of their comrades, Caroler took something out of one of his pockets, and something that he had apparently stowed inside his uniform. It was a short flagpole, and on it he strung the flag of the North Pole.

"That idiot is going to get himself killed!" exclaimed Eggnog.

The green-white-green with red fimbriations and a Christmas tree in the center wove over them, in haughty imitation of the knights of old. It looked almost valiant, almost heroic, with emphasis on the 'almost.'

A burst of rifle fire felled him dead.

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April 1941, Tobruk, Italian Libya

Olaf Steffen, Unteroffitzier in the Heer, now deployed to North Africa as part of the Afrika Korps, crouched in the hastily dug trench outside Tobruk. He had been deployed here from the rats, a rather uncreative nickname for the Australians that were coming ever closer to the city that they had to defend.

He manned the machine gun, and told Klaus Rier, his assistant with the gun, to begin loading it. He did not fire, even though he saw the advancement of Australians coming towards him, with their tanks and their infantrymen. He heard the buzzing of propellers over him, their planes partaking in another bombing run over the city.

The Australians came closer and closer, their weapons brandished and their turrets pointed towards his line, and began firing.

The battle raged on and on, and Olaf fired towards the clustered infantry, and occasionally at tank crewmen foolish enough to peek out of the turrets of their vehicles. The latter would hardly ever worked but he saw it necessary to try, so he did. He wounded one Australian by blowing off his ear, so that was something.

One of the Australian tank's machine guns ceased firing, which was odd given the need for suppression fire. He continued firing at the infantry who scrambled around and fell like flies being swatted.

However, from the sky, he saw what appeared to be a plane rapidly descending towards the tank. It had no wings, however, and this made him immediately suspicious. Was it some prototypical design that the British were using to hopefully win the war?

No. It seemed to have some sort of four-legged animal, many in number, pulling it downwards. It landed by the tank, revealing said animals to have large antlers and armor on them to protect from machine gun fire; Olaf tried and it got him nowhere.

Out of the vehicle jumped a rotund old man with a long flowing beard and red clothing, with a silly-looking tasseled cap on his head. He handed the Australian tank commander some bullets, or what appeared to be bullets, and what appeared to be tank rounds for the gun.

The old man glanced around the area, eventually locking his eyes with Olaf.

His eyes widened. So did Olaf's.

The two recognized one another. From where, Olaf could not say.

"I know that man, and I know that vehicle," he said to Klaus.

"Really," remarked Klaus. "I did not know the British gave you access to detailed files of their weapons programs."

"No, it's not that, but I know him and have seen him before."

"We need to tell the command, Rommel even."

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It had been about a week and a half since Olaf and Klaus told their commanders of their sight. Initially, they were laughed off. But as the stories of Olaf having seen this man before, the commanders took much more note of him. Eyewitness accounts only confirmed what he said.

He was escorted into a small room in an official-looking building. Armed guards were at both sides of the door. He was brought in by an assistant.

At a desk sat General Erwin Rommel himself, the commander of the Afrika Korps. He stared at the officer in front of him.

"Unteroffizier," said Rommel, "I have been told, no matter how ridiculous that the claim may be, that you have seen Saint Nicholas aiding the Allies out on the battlefield. The British call him Santa Claus, but we prefer the more formal name."

"So he's real, and I'm not deranged."

"Not enough to be deemed asocial, anyway," said the General. "I have received a call from Reich Commissioner Himmler himself. He says the Ahnenerbe is keenly interested in your findings."

"A plane will be here to take you back to Berlin. You are now very, very important to our war effort."

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Olaf Steffen stepped off the plane as it came to a landing in the airport in Berlin. He was due to meet, of all people, Heinrich Himmler. The leader of the SS. He was brought to a car by some members of the SA and was driven out of the city over the span of several hours, eventually reaching a location of which he was unsure.

He got out and was escorted to a building by two SS guards. They gave him salutes, and he returned the stiff-armed gesture.

He made his way through security, was identified, and did all the bureaucratic things that Germans were famed for worldwide.

He entered a room, fancily decorated and far from the Spartan comforts of Rommel's headquarters. In there stood some guards, some bureaucrats, and the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Nation himself, Heinrich Himmler.

"Herr Steffen," said Himmler, his glasses magnifying his steely eyes. "Heil Hitler," he said and gave the salute.

"Heil Hitler," responded Olaf, worriedly. He did not want to appear less than patriotic in the presence of one of the most powerful men in Germany.

"It is good to have someone here who has had information relating to Saint Nicholas, having seen him, even. Our information about him has been rather lacking, especially regarding our lack of opportunity to go on scouting missions to the North Pole."

"I'm afraid you have the wrong person," said Olaf. "I've only seen him twice in my life, once more than twenty years ago and once just a few weeks ago."

"And how did you go about that?" asked Himmler, inquisitively, seeking to take as much information out of this middle-aged soldier.

Olaf began to speak.

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Ypres, Belgium, 1914

Olaf Steffen, only a young man, barely out of being an adolescent, was shivering in the December cold. It was Christmas, and he prayed with all his heart to God or whatever ran the universe that it would be a peaceful day.

He looked out to the no man's land and saw some of the German soldiers moving out into the area so commonly called a place of death. He wanted to yell at them, call them mad, but that would let the British know that they were coming.

British soldiers were too coming out of their trenches. Were they absolutely insane? Olaf told his fellow soldiers and they stared at the soldiers, British and German.

They were standing together. They were shaking hands.

They were giving each other gifts.

"A truce?" said Hans, another one of his fellow soldiers. "Are you seriously telling me we are at a truce with the British?"

More German soldiers came out of their lines, and more British soldiers came out of theirs. They talked with each other with whatever scraps of the other language they knew, and offered each other food and tobacco and other things that they could enjoy.

Olaf climbed out of the trench and began making his way towards the area with the wide-scale fraternization. It was amazing. All the carnage of the war was gone, replaced with a spirit of brotherhood.

He ran into a British soldier, apparently Scottish from the accent, and began making motions with his hands to communicate. Through this, he was able to gain some chewing tobacco for some water he had on his person. They nodded and walked away.

For a good deal of time he made his way among the central lines and bartered for his own pleasure. During this time, he heard something come down onto the ground slowly and with the sound of the clop-clopping of horses or some other hooved animal.

Such a noise sufficiently attracted his attention to take a look. He made his way to the landing and saw it was a brightly red colored sleigh pulled by reindeer.

It could not be. Saint Nicholas.

He walked there; he was tired of walking and really wanted to sleep. Perhaps Saint Nicholas was simply a figment of his imagination. He heard a ration tin being kicked around in the no man's land. Maybe a game of football.

Saint Nicholas looked him in the eye. Olaf looked distraught and malnourished. He had eaten some food but was still hungry.

He looked the Saint in the eyes, thereby attracting the latter's attention. The jolly, bearded, rotund old man smiled, and reached back into the sled and gave him a basket of something.

Olaf looked into it, and found it was full of various foods, meats, berries, a cake, so many wonderful things. By then, more men had noticed the sleigh and were congregating around him.

"Danke," said Olaf.

"Bitte Schoen," said the Saint.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"A charming story," said Himmler. "How peaceful, what a reminder of the barbarity of war."

"Indeed it is," said Olaf wistfully.

"If you were not so useful I would have you shot for treason. Fraternizing with the British, with the enemy, with the people who humiliated us at Versailles. But you have a use. You know about Santa Claus. You can describe his sleigh, as you did in your questioning in Libya. You know relative speed, what he delivers, who he delivers to. You are too valuable to kill."

"Then what are you going to do to me?" asked Olaf.

"You'll see," said Himmler. "But I must say that Santa was not nearly as liberal as he is now some decades ago."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

North Pole, June 1941

"Are you seriously asking us to help the Russians?" asked Jeremy Yuletide, a longstanding member of the North Pole Police and among the closest thing to a military that Santa Claus had up until this point. The elves serving in North Africa were mostly conscripts; these elite forces were not being used until now.

"You know I care for the humans, no matter their home country," said Santa Claus, standing at the podium of the central police headquarters' auditorium. "Is it not the spirit of Christmas to help these people?"

"Was it not the spirit of Christmas that you sent good elves of this force to die in the wastes of Arkhangelsk in 1918? In Vladivostok? In the Ukraine?" shot back Yuletide, a renowned commander of the North Pole police. "It struck me as simple economics; keep Russia a country that celebrated Christmas, and there would be more good little boys and girls wanting presents from your honor!"

He turned to the gathered elves. "And now you want us to aid the humans that our brothers fought to defeat? The men who killed our brothers in cold blood? Have you gone mad, Mr. Claus?"

The crowd escalated into a clamor. "The world has changed in the past twenty years; do not forget that. Now, we face a regime that is even more evil than the Soviet Union: the German Reich. They want to replace the spirit of Christmas with their own bastard religion, and this we cannot allow."

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Vincent Evergreen was absolutely elated. He had received in the mail a draft card, finally, and it was not to aid any bourgeois oppressor state, much like that of Santa Claus; he was off to fight the most progressive state in the world: the Soviet Union! A true workers' state dedicated to the laborers like himself!

He was prancing around his home with glee when there was a knock on his door; he opened it and saw an elf in an industrial uniform. It was a good comrade of his by the name of Bromley Snowflake, a fellow leftist and former antiwar protestor.

"Did you receive a draft card, too?" asked Snowflake, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.

"To Russia?" asked Vincent.

"Yes, indeed."

"We actually get to fight on the side of the workers this time!" exclaimed Bromley. "We will fight against the Fascists and the bourgeois and help to establish the North Pole as part of a world liberated from capitalism!"

"It is only a matter of time," said Vincent. "Only a matter of time."

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Vincent Evergreen and Bromley Snowflake both waited in the armored sleigh that would take them to the Soviet Union; it was already in midair over the Arctic Sea. The unit commander, Jeremy Yuletide, formerly an eminent chief of police of the North Pole, was by happenstance their own leader for this war.

"The Russians and the Germans are fighting at Smolensk, in the western part of the Russian Republic. This may actually give them hope to beat back the Nazis if they so can. We have been dispatched by Santa Claus himself; if you peer out the windows you can see the rest of the force inbound."

It was a quiet flight. "I know many of you are veterans of our incursion against the Bolsheviks. Do not worry about having misgivings about this, for I have had the same reservations and brought them up with Santa Claus himself. All we have to do is make sure that butchery does not happen on either side. That, after all, is the spirit of Christmas."

Vincent so wanted to say something to object to the Soviet Union as some sort of evil; it was not. Rather it was the defender of workers' rights in this terrible world. He wanted to speak up. But he would not.

He did remember fighting in Archangelsk during the war against the Bolsheviks; he was already something of a leftist, but was persuaded to be even more of one when he was wounded, lying with a bullet in his leg in the snow, outside of the town of Belogorsky, southeast of Archangelsk.

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March 1919, Belogorsky, Russian Empire

Vincent lay in the snow, blood oozing from the garish wound in his veins. He had been shot by what he believed to be a Bolshevik; given the fact that he hated the rest of his comrades, it would not be surprising that one of them would have shot him instead. They had abandoned him, retreated to Santa Claus knows where.

He fell unconscious, letting the blackness of sleep, or perhaps death, envelope him. He woke up in a cold dungeonlike enclosure, seemingly underground as there were no windows.

"He is awake," said a voice in Russian, a language that he had learned to speak while at the front.

"He is obviously not a man," said another voice. "But he was holding a gun, so we think you may gain something useful out of him."

"And so I might," said a third voice. "Get him some food, some water. It will help him be endeared towards us."

"Who are you?" asked Vincent, rubbing his eyes.

"My name is Savely Krupin. I fight for the Red Army. I, first of all, want to know what you fight for."

"I am from the North Pole. I am an elf!" said Vincent, stammering. He was acutely aware of the men with rifles behind Krupin.

One of the men who had spoken before laid some bread, some eggs, and some water at Vincent's feet, and then scampered away.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"You are certainly not a man, so I am open to the possibility of you being an elf," said Krupin coldly. Two of his assistants looked at each other hesitantly.

"Tell me, elf, what is it like on the North Pole, serving, I would presume, Saint Nicholas? Do you make toys for children?"

"All year, sir."

Vincent went on a detailed tirade about the North Pole and how he thought the very institution of serving the children of the world reeked of aristocratic nonsense. Krupin listened attentively and interspersed their lengthy discourse with talk of workers' revolution, of Communism, of a stateless society in which there was no need, as the people were equal at last.

"So you would agree that there is an oppressed proletariat?"

"Yes, yes I would," said Vincent.

"Here, take this," said Krupin, handing him a book. It was entitled, in Russian, The Communist Manifesto.

"Read it, you will be most interested. Do so when you get home."

"You're letting me go?"

"Our conversation persuaded me that you do not mean any threat to the Revolution. We are letting you go."

Within the hour he was out on the streets of Belogorsky, where he was found by a scout sleigh. His injury, bandaged by the Bolsheviks, justified him being taken back to the Pole.

He was now a leftist, a Communist even. He saw injustice.

He would fight it.

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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, typed away furiously at his desk in his office. Outside of the locked door stood two armed guards, to defend him from any assailant that was trying to destroy the Revolution that he had fought so hard for.

He knew there were enemies everywhere, all throughout the Soviet Union, in every Republic, in every village, in every house, and in every nation in the word. They were tools of a ruling elite that hated the proletariat of the various nations of the Soviet Union, and they wanted him to die.

They wanted the Revolution to die.

That is why he was so scared of any possible threat. The very existence of a threat was considered unacceptable. Safety was his number one priority in running this Union; the safety of the revolution and the safety of the workers.

He heard two slumps, as if the two men outside were killed. He tensed up, and grabbed for something, anything, that could be used to defend himself.

The door burst open, and he jumped up and brandished a small knife. In that room stood an old man with a long, ice-encrusted beard, a brown and white coat similar to those worn in the north of Russia, and a similar hat. His skin was toned bluish, not like any man he had ever met. Behind this man Stalin saw that his guards were encased in large blocks of ice, and thusly unable to help him.

"What are you?" he asked, terrified.

"My name is Jack Frost," said the man who had burst into the door. "I am an elite commando working for the man you may know as Saint Nicholas, who lives on the North Pole."

"What do you want with me? What do you want for the Revolution?" asked Stalin.

"The Hitlerites, as you call them, are a threat to our operations," said Frost, coldly. Without warning, he lifted one of his hands and pointed it at Stalin's neck. Out of the fingertips emitted rays of cold, which shoved Stalin back and encased his neck in a small cluster of ice which connected to the wall.

"We have had the idea to dispatch forces to aid you. You will not disrupt their operations. They will work with your men on the ground; I will see to it that they will understand our intent. Do you understand?"

"Da," said the dictator. "Yes, but why must you make such an entrance?"

"To ensure loyalty," replied. "We cannot have you being uncooperative."

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Olaf Steffen was beyond worried. He was part of some sort of government project run by the Ahnenerbe, and that was official. He was now somewhere in rural Bavaria, in the alps. There was something hidden here, insisted the commander of this mission, a grizzled veteran of the World War as well as an early member of the SS before it became the instrument of national security that it was then, by the name of Lukas Speckmann. He outranked Olaf by many ranks, and wore the signature Totenkopf on his neck.

"We are almost here," said Speckmann, looking determinedly at this mountain. "What little records we can scrounge from local sources indicate that the prize is in here."

"What prize? You people simply will not tell me!" exclaimed Olaf.

"You know St. Nicholas; we interrogated you and you told us all you knew. That makes you valuable. But we cannot let you know all the secrets that we know of him until the right time," snapped Speckmann.

The small squad of troops had rigged a certain place on the mountain with explosives, and so they were standing back from the blast site. Speckmann gave a signal with his hands; without ceremony the charges exploded, causing a roar to echo throughout the mountain range.

The explosives had yielded a tunnel into the mountain, with steps leading into a cave. "Will we enter?" asked Olaf.

"Ja," said Speckmann. "We will enter. Go along."

The soldiers, accompanied by an armored truck with machine guns sticking out of it, entered the mountainside. In there was the sparsest of decoration, with green-white-green tricolors with red fimbriations and the silhouette of a pine tree in the center of them draped from the walls. Olaf had seen something similar on Claus' sleigh in Egypt.

They continued in silence. As they made their way through the winding route, they could hear noises, as if some wild beast was trying to escape an enclosure, panting and growling for a reprieve from imprisonment.

"This is what Herr Himmler meant when he said Saint Nicholas was not nearly as benevolent as we make him out to be several decades ago," said Speckmann. "It is a shame. If he were not as weakened by the corrupting influence of the British and the French and the Jews, he would likely be on our side during this war."

"You mean the moaning?" asked Olaf.

"Behold, I will need to explain it no longer."

At a clearing in the cave, there was a large beastlike being chained to the walls of the cave, doing whatever it could to break the chains, but had done so to no avail. It had two large horns protruding out of its head and a beard dangling down from its chin. Its eyes were red, and its teeth filthy.

"Who are you?" growled the creature, chucking bile from its mouth at the cave walls.

"We want you to help us," said Speckmann. "I assume you are still quite angry at the man who imprisoned you."

"Yes. I want him dead," said the beast. "I served him, and then he decided I was not worthy of his support. Thusly he locked me down here to avoid leaving the prison of his own conceptions."

"We have ... crossed this man," said Speckmann. "If we free you, will you aid us in taking him down, forever?" he asked, slyly.

"Yes, yes I would help you."

"Men!" ordered Speckmann, "fire on the clamps holding the beast down!"

Four men brandishing panzershrecks moved towards the beast and unleashed their rockets on the clamps, shattering them. The beast stretched his muscles and began to walk forward.

"Thank you. I will serve to gain my vengeance on Santa Claus."

"Rise, Krampus," commanded Speckmann, "Sieg Heil."

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"Herr Steffen," said Lukas Speckmann, "welcome to Ravensbruck, a place of purification and of punishment, of liberation and servitude." He said so as he got off the train that had brought them there from the Bavarian Alps; in a boxcar behind the train that they had taken in the ride northwards was Krampus, waiting for his reward.

They entered the camp, receiving clearance; they had been arranged to be at the camp in an official visit; German bureaucracy was incredibly efficient as always. They walked in with their small entourage, and Krampus took a vehicular entrance. The men there were stunned, but persons of authority calmed them.

Olaf lost track of where they were; the camp was winding and confusingly laid out. He saw women exercising and doing hard labor. Speckmann insisted that it was for "crimes committed against the fatherland." Olaf felt uneasy about the whole thing.

"Is this too cruel? Does the Reich truly need these people to suffer to gain revenge for Versailles?"

"We need to grow stronger!" exclaimed Speckmann. "We must purge the impure elements from the people, ensuring that we will become more and more powerful until we truly rule the world as we so rightly deserve."

They came to Krampus' enclosure in a small building, and Speckmann greeted him. "Herr Krampus," he said coldly. "I am more than willing to provide you with sustenance so long as you assist us."

"Ja, Herr Speckmann," said the beast. "Where is it? I crave to fight St. Nicholas for abandoning me like this, but I need to feed to be strong enough."

"It will come in due time, Herr Krampus," said Speckmann, "in due time." He shut the door. "Wait here."

"Olaf," he said as he pointed his right hand's pointer finger into the distance. "Do you see those children over there?" In that direction were some children, happily playing amongst each other, blissfully ignorant of the fact that they were imprisoned.

"Ja, I do," said Olaf. "What about them?"

"Bring me one of them," ordered Speckmann coldly.

"Why?"

"Just bring me one of them. Don't question me."

Olaf trudged over to the young children. Were the rumors about Krampus true? The rumors about how he fed?

"Excuse me," he said, stuttering to the little ones. They collectively looked towards him with curiosity. "Would one of you like to come with me for something special?"

"Special? Special!" exclaimed the children with glee. Olaf noticed one child that was at his knees, wanting to go with him, eager to jump in his arms so excited was he.

"Okay," said Olaf hesitantly, "I'll take you. What is your name?"

"Elias," the child said, a smile on his face.

He carried the child back to Speckmann, whose eyebrows rose with anticipation upon the sight of him. "Come now, little one," he said, "go into this room here," pointing to the room in which the beast was waiting.

Olaf put him down, and Speckmann gently pushed the child into the pen.

"Your loyalty is now known to me," said Speckmann. "I had doubts, given your fraternization with the enemy all those years ago."

Olaf heard the child asking someone something; it sounded like "who are you?" followed by "why are you coming closer to me?"

"After all, we cannot have any treasonous Bolsheviks in our ranks, now can we?" he continued.

Olaf heard faint whimpers from the child in that room, and footsteps on the metal floor.

"Your have proven yourself to me, Olaf. Be proud."

A child's scream erupted from the enclosure.

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In Leningrad, Vincent Evergreen felt a power that he had never felt before. Here he was, fighting for the Workers' State, not for the bourgeois oppressor Santa Claus. Nevertheless, he would maintain the pretense of fighting for that man for the sake of winning the war. He knew Premier Stalin was not fond of King George or Prime Minister Churchill, but an alliance of convenience was in order for the sake of survival. So would Evergreen comply with that.

He mounted the machine gun that was on the sleigh operated by his good friend, Bromley Snowflake.

"Do you see Germans coming up on us?" asked Vincent, trying to find a piece of the action, to feel the exhilaration of being part of a spirited fight.

"I might," said Bromley, and peered into his binoculars.

"I'm definitely seeing something up there. Most definitely seeing something up there." He repeated himself.

"I heard you the first time," uttered Vincent. "Are they German or Russian?"

A shot whirred towards them, causing Vincent and Bromley to duck down, the bullet blowing off part of the back of the sleigh but keeping everything functional.

"German," said Bromley nonchalantly.

"Then move up!" ordered Vincent.

Bromley whipped the reindeer, causing them to charge towards the Germans. Vincent manned the machine gun turret, raised to prevent his bullets from grazing the reindeer, and fired off. Several Germans were hit, falling to the ground. He fired in short bursts as the instructors had told him to.

They were winning. The reindeer were scuffling with soldiers and a lightly armored command vehicle was lying destroyed. Before they could celebrate, they heard a low roar in the distance.

It was some sort of tank, some formidable piece of German engineering, rumbling towards them. Its cannon was poised to fire at them; Vincent could faintly hear the chatter in German of the operators. "Bromley! Send us back home!" he cried.

Bromley jerked the reins to the left and began whipping. The reindeer winced and ran as fast as they could back to Leningrad. The tank shuffled its turret towards them, its turret-mounted machine gun taking potshots at the sleigh. Vincent swiveled the gun towards the tank and fired away. The bullets ricocheted off.

Were they going to make it? worried Vincent. "We will not go down without a fight, fascist," he muttered. But he was still worried.

And then there was a frightful explosion in the area of the tank. Vincent jerked his head leftward and saw another sleigh, manned by elves and pulled by reindeer, with a tank turret atop of it, its barrel smoking.

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Out of the Leningrad line rolled a T-26 light tank. Inside was its gunner, Dmitri, its driver, Valentiy, and its commander Yuri. They had seen the elves from the North Pole among the rest of them when not actively fighting; commanders had ordered them not to directly fraternize with them on the basis of the secrecy that they had to maintain. The North Pole did not want the fire of war erupting on their shores, and the three understood that. They had all lost family to the Germans.

They saw in the distance German tanks, and prepared to fire. They noted behind the lines Soviet and Elvish artillery, the latter heavily adapted from the former. The tank they themselves drove was of an initially British design. The entire Soviet Union was a hodgepodge of ethnicities and equipment, and they were very aware of that.

"Dmitri," yelled out Yuri over the rumble of the tank engine, "are you ready?"

"Da," responded Dmitri. "Ready to fire when you are ready."

Some seconds passed. A German tank was visible in the distance. "Fire!" ordered Yuri.

The round went blasting through the barrel, shaking the tank. It made its home in the turret of said German tank. "Very good, very good," said Yuri.

Behind the wreckage of the tank was a black mass with two large hornlike structures penetrating from it into the air, rambling towards them with worrisome speed. "Dmitri, prepare to fire again. Valentiy, prepare to evacuate if necessary. This looks like some new kind of tank, but I couldn't tell you what."

"That's no tank!" remarked Valentiy, looking out from one of the viewing slits.

It was some sort of beast, animalistic in appearance, stepping on the burning wreckage of the tank, crushing it. Its eyes were intent on the T-26.

"Valentiy," said Yuri apprehensively, "Veer left and get us out of here, I don't give a damn where. This thing does not look pleasant."

Without saying anything, the tank swerved left to avoid the beast, moving ever closer to the tank. The beast increased its pace, leaving footsteps in the dirt.

The tank tried to evade it, but it had no luck; soon it was in the claws of this abhorrent thing.

Yuri heard Valentiy's screams as its claws pierced through the armor as if it were paper, and the engine block fell off, engulfed in fire. A thumb claw descended into the turret.

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Cornelius Candycane sat at a desk face to face with Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Between them to the left was Vyacheslav Molotov and on their right Stafford Cripps, ambassador of the United Kingdom to the Soviet Union.

"What assurance do I have that our secrecy will be maintained?" asked Candycane, more than willing to be less than cooperative.

"Why do you insist that secrecy be maintained? Why do you not want to let the people of the world know that you exist? After all, your existence is widely denied among the world," said Cripps. "My government is admittedly perplexed by the entire idea."

"It is a security measure," replied Candycane. "The last thing we want is to have our own homeland be enveloped by the devastation seen here."

"You sound awfully ... American," said Stalin. "You seem halfhearted in your pursuit of secrecy."

"Besides," chimed in Molotov, "the Soviet Union is bearing the front of the war right now. If you could start your own front it would be most convenient."

"We are aiding you at Leningrad, Mr. Molotov; do not alienate us." He turned his head towards Stalin. "Do remember, General Secretary, I was the one who authorized Mr. Frost to do what he does best." Stalin's eyebrows tensed but he did not let on anything.

"Also, to Mr. Cripps in particular but to all of you in general," said Candycane, the conversation's focus having been shifted to him, "Mr. Claus is considering on reneging on his earlier promise of not delivering toys to German children."

"Are you saying you want to help the Germans?" asked the dictator in the room. "Are you saying that you justify the deaths of our good men out on the front?"

"No, but the children of Germany are not responsible for it," responded the North Pole Foreign Minister.

"Each and every German child is a member of one of the myriad German youth organizations, which help their war effort, which is actively killing good Soviet citizens. Your argument is inherently flawed."

"Then, Mr. Stalin, our philosophies fundamentally disagree. We believe in innocence, unlike of your own state. You, after all, have the Komsomol, and yet we feel that despite your own transgressions the children of your country deserve presents."

He looked in the eyes of all of them, and he had their attention. "Perhaps we can work out a compromise, but we will continue our mission even in wartime."

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"Herr Speckmann," said the Fuhrer himself, "I must say that the deployment of Krampus in Leningrad is more than genius." Speckmann lowered his head to such flattery; Hitler himself had praised him.

"It was only because of the inspiration that your movement gave me, Mein Fuhrer," responded Speckmann, blushing.

"Yes, yes, it is all well and good, Herr Speckmann, but I was thinking that Krampus could be deployed somewhere more effective," remarked Himmler. Hitler looked at him suspiciously.

"And this would be?" said the dictator.

"The North Pole itself, Mein Fuhrer," responded Himmler, coldly. "We need to knock Saint Nicholas out of the war if we want to win it," he said. "The North Pole is a major arms supplier for the British and the Russians, and we have detected their reindeer-pulled sleighs all across the North Sea."

"And the Kriegsmarine is not trying to shoot them down?" asked the Dictator.

"Do not ask me about that, Mein Fuhrer. Ask Admiral Donitz," responded Himmler nonchalantly. "I am not the leader of the entire Wehrmacht."

"This is true," responded Hitler. Speckmann nodded.

"I believe it would be in the Reich's best interest for the Wehrmacht and the SS to jointly launch an invasion of the North Pole. Krampus in particular joined us on the basis of getting revenge on Saint Nicholas and thusly we should appease him. Once the Saint has been dealt with, he will serve us faithfully on the Eastern Front or in France or wherever we need him. We have the opportunity to create a loyal servant of the Reich, Mein Fuhrer. It is not an opportunity that we should dispatch."

"I can agree with this," said the dictator. "Would Herr Speckmann be willing to lead the charge?"

"I suppose if the leader wills it, I cannot object," responded Speckmann.

"Very well," said Hitler. "You will lead the invasion of the North Pole on the ground, Herr Speckmann. I will assign one of my generals to provide strategic guidance."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mechanization was the key to the new operations of the North Pole, and the various elves were at their stations making munitions for the Allied cause. The conversion of toy factories into weapons factories was one that was deeply controversial with the population of the North Pole. Mrs. Claus herself had even objected to the idea, but Santa would have no other way. There were protests by leftist elf groups but their ranks had been thinned during conscription.

Stanley Fruitcake, an elite bureaucrat and factory manager, was escorting two important figures throughout the factory they were in: Mrs. Claus and Cornelius Candycane. "Do not worry about the possibility of us losing the war. We have this, and now that the Americans have entered the war we simply have too large an industrial base to let the Germans overtake us at all."

"I suppose you're right," said Mrs. Claus. "But I cannot help but worry that our faith in these humans was misplaced. They are violent beings, certainly."

"And what does that matter?" asked Candycane. "I stand by your husband, Ma'am. He was right in aiding the Allies; such aggression and such hatred of the spirit of Christmas will only harm, not help, us!"

"The Nazis even want to stop Christmas in their country entirely. Some nonsense about Blood and Soil," spat Fruitcake. "Instead of yuletide presents they get military service and then get to go die in Poland or in France or in Russia or wherever the hell Hitler wants them to go die."

The industry below the platform on which they stood was an impressive one indeed. Elves were securing bullets together and pushing them into crates, or assembling armored sleighs and various types of rifles and machine guns. There were no native North Pole weaponry; all of the designs were from Vickers or Avro or Vauxhall or Harland and Wolff or some other British firm. After the war, noted Candycane, the defense force would have to start designing its own weaponry. It could not remain in the clutches of London any more that it absolutely had to.

A muffled sound, gradually ascending in both pitch and volume, made its way through the windows. "What are those?" asked Mrs. Claus, curiously.

"I'm guessing air raid sirens being tested," said Fruitcake. Candycane nodded. "The British need them."

The roof came crashing down, and the room was coated with dust smoke. The elves ducked to the floor, wheezing and coughing. A whirring was heard and then faded away.

There was silence.

Too much silence.

Said silence was pierced when they heard footsteps and rumbling engines some place in the distance. One set of footsteps in particular was very loud and very dull, a deep pounding in the snow.

More whirring came from the sky. Candycane peered upward and saw multiple bomber planes, propellers rotating furiously, heading towards other factories.

"They're here!" exclaimed Candycane. "The Germans are invading!"

"They can't be!" yelled Fruitcake. "It's impossible!"

"Tell that to Hitler!" replied Candycane over the noise.

"All elves! To the loading bay! There are enough assembled weapons for us to fight back!"

Everyone ran to the loading bay. Only some survived; German machine gun teams and infantry had already made their way into the factory, supplemented by artillery from the distance. Many elves died in those minutes.

Candycane grabbed a rifle and some bullets; Fruitcake had a machine gun. Mrs. Claus ducked behind a crate of munitions and hoped that they would survive.

Still others had rocket launchers and other weapons, and a few had jury-rigged a fort out of an armored sleigh without any reindeer. Bullets were everywhere. German soldiers and elf laborers alike fell to the ricochets and blitzes of little pieces of metal.

Some soldiers had flanked their way to the left of the mass of elves and began creeping towards Candycane and those around him. He noticed them, turning himself slowly to avoid detection.

He had little military training but this seemed obvious to him. He raised his rifle and fired. It hit one of them in the leg, knocking him to the ground. Other elves joined in the assault and began firing. Fruitcake took his machine gun and opened up on them, causing the remainder to fall dead.

"And that's what you get for invading the North Pole!" called out one of the elves.

Such cheering was made only louder when the fighting died down. Soon, they were all gathered around Candycane and Fruitcake and Mrs. Claus, who was congratulating all of them.

And then the rest of the roof came tumbling down.

Into view came a large, two-horned beast walking into the loading area. The elves opened fire.

"Krampus..." uttered Candycane.

"He's back, isn't he," responded Fruitcake, who wasted no time in unloading another clip.

"I'm back, ungrateful fools," bellowed Krampus. "Your punishment will be swift, for you will cease to exist along with your worthless holiday!" His thick skin only absorbed most of the bullets, even withstanding a rocket launch.

It was pure terror. Krampus was supposed to be gone, but obviously that was not the case. The entirety of the elves opened fire, and Mrs. Claus huddled in the back.

And then came the rumbling of more engines. Candycane looked back and to his horror witnessed the countless Panzer IVs and infantry, barrels of their guns pointed at their position. One of the Germans stepped out:

"My name is Obersturmbannfuhrer Lukas Speckmann. You currently have two options: surrender or death. Take your pick."

The entire battalion of elves looked towards Fruitcake and Candycane apprehensively. They did not know whether they were going to die in a camp or to die in battle.

Fruitcake walked up to Speckmann without consulting Candycane. "In the name of the North Pole and for the sake of sparing innocent elf lives, we surrender to your forces."

Fruitcake then looked towards Candycane, and used his eyes to gesture towards the latter's right. Candycane's eyes hardened in skepticism. What did he mean?

He looked in that direction. There was Gingerbread Avenue, on which Santa Claus' office was.

In his office was a telephone.

Which could contact Santa Claus.

He nodded, and then fell to the floor as if dead. He then crawled on the floor as Fruitcake continued to negotiate and banter with Speckmann. He did so into the snow, piercing his cheeks and the rest of his face.

But miraculously he made it out alive. Once out of the view of the Germans, but still hearing bombers ahead, he sprinted towards the office, opened it, and ran towards the telephone.

He put his finger in the dial and called that one number. The number that could save so many lives.

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Santa Claus cracked the whip on the reindeer that were pulling him over the North Sea towards the North Pole. Candycane had informed him of what was going on: the Germans had launched a full scale invasion of his homeland, apparently taken from specially modified Uboats launched from a base in Norway.

He had negotiated with the British, the Americans, and the Soviets: all Elvish air force pilots would be requisitioned back to the Pole until this threat was dealt with, and many infantryelves stationed in Britain were brought back as well. If it came to be that bad the RAF was willing to provide support from bases in Scotland. He hoped that was not going to be the case.

Behind was an aerial armada of all the elves that had either volunteered or been conscripted to fight in the air over Britain and Germany and France. Among them was Claudius Bellringer, who was piloting his own bomber. Other sleighs were carrying troops for the coming firefight.

As they were over Norway, some of the elves maneuvered out of the formation. Claus peered over his shoulder. They had to be over Norway.

He came to this conclusion after seeing several fighters, Messerschmitt Bf 110s mostly, attacking them. A dogfight ensued when the North Pole's own fighters began to break from formation and intercept the fighters. Both elves and humans went down in flame.

It was gut-wrenching to see the sleighs get shot down; unlike the human planes, which were crewed by only a few men each, elven aerial sleighs had full crews plus reindeer. Even though some reindeer remained in flight and made their way back home to the Pole, most of their remains came tumbling down into the sea. When the planes carrying troops were shot down, the screams were unbearable.

But the Germans were either killed or dissuaded; Claus was still within the cluster of sleighs moving en masse and it was hard to tell what exactly was going on. Nevertheless, they moved on forward.

The cold was blistering; there was a reason why he grew his beard out. His nose was bright red from the cold, much like that of Rudolph, who was leading the way, providing light for the massive squadron of planes.

They came down to the North Pole and saw a scene of absolute carnage. Down there were familiar buildings in ruin; tears began to well up in his eyes. His own home, in flames.

He signaled down to the elves in the sleighs to move downward to gain a better look, but not to drop bombs; he did not want to destroy any more than what had to be wrecked. What he saw horrified him.

Elves were lined up, hands over their heads, besides a deep trench dug on the outskirts of this village. German soldiers with heavy weaponry stood by the elves, and what appeared to be corpses had fallen into the trench.

This was mass murder.

One figure in particular stood out to him. It was ... feminine, taller, in bright red clothing.

Mrs. Claus.

"Sweetheart!" yelled out Claus, trying to get her attention.

She looked up, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. She wanted to believe.

"I'm coming for you, and for all the elves down there!" he called out, and signaled for the sleighs to begin bombing.

Without hesitance, the officer with the machine gun shot her dead.

In his silent agony, he saw that there was another entity. A beastlike entity with two large horns.

Krampus.

If they had thought that the North Pole was weak, Claus was now determined to break that illusion.


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The elves mustered at the clearing outside of the major inhabited settlements of the North Pole. Santa Claus stood alone at his sleigh, supervising everything. All the sleighs carrying elf soldiers were landed and their armories being unloaded. A small army was being raised, and it had to be enough; the elves in Russia had to be there; the German advance was relentless. Britain was holding her own and so those troops could be withdrawn.

He felt beyond guilty. He should never have intervened in this terrible, terrible war. Humans were barbarians and he knew that, and it was only made clearer now that he had to fight them. He had never actually fired a shot against the Germans, but he did have to supply elves and other humans with ammunition. He knew what war was like.

He saw the local commanders giving orders to the various elf formations. The highest commander of the British front was Cholmeley Stockingstuffer, another elite elf who had been in a position of power for decades if not centuries; he could not remember the full scope of the North Pole bureaucracy. He was barking out orders to the infantry elves, ensuring they were armed and prepared for battle.

Nowhere near them, but still in the vicinity of the North Pole, the North Pole Air Arm was mustering for an attack on any German encampment that they may find. They were commanded by the newly eminent Claudius Bellringer, who had become a renowned bomber over Germany as well as taking up the art of being a fighter pilot, rapidly becoming a fighter ace and then rose through the ranks to become the commander of the North Pole Air Arm in Britain.

Claus sat worriedly at his sleigh. His stomach was tense due to the stress of coming battle; he smoked on a peppermint-infused licorice cigar to dull the stress.

"Mr. Claus," said a voice, "wonderful to see you're back." It was Cornelius Candycane, his de facto foreign minister. His cheeks and arms were grazed with bullet wounds.

"Good to know you're alive, Mr. Candycane," said Claus. "I'm sorry I did not return sooner."

"All we can do now is fight for our home," said Candycane. "I know you are sincere in that belief," he said without hesitance. "I have faith in you."

They were interrupted when Stockingstuffer approached Claus. "Mr. Claus," he said, "I hate to burst into your conversation, but I think you will need this."

Stockingstuffer handed Claus a Thompson submachine gun. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, sir." He looked Claus in the eye. "I know you don't want to kill anyone. Neither did we." He stepped away, but turned his head one more time and said, "the troops are ready to march."

"Very well. If it involves saving more innocent elves from death, so be it," replied Claus. He took the gun and prepared to walk quite a distance with it. He noticed Candycane had his own rifle.

And so they began the long march towards the administrative centers of the North Pole. They looked almost elegant trudging through the snow, rifles and submachine guns and anti-tank guns at their shoulders ready to march towards victory or death. In front of them marched one lone elf with a North Pole flag on a flagpole, waving it in sheer defiance of the German invaders. Almost gallant. Almost.

Candycane was with him on one side; Stockingstuffer on the other. Around halfway through the march they were joined by armored sleighs with tank barrels, machine guns, mortars, howitzers, or anti-air guns mounted on their chassis. Their commander saluted Claus; Claus saluted back. They joined in with the formation.

There was a buzzing noise overhead; they looked up in fear.

It was a Stuka, the cross on its wings seemingly insulting their gallantry.

It began strafing, forcing the elves and Santa Claus to flee. Claus and Candycane fired blindly into the sky hoping that the bullets could stop the plane. It was a vain attempt but it was something to keep them in fighting spirits.

The anti-air guns pounded in the distance, firing at the Stuka. It was hit, one of its wings, severed, fell down to the ground. The rest of the plane collided with the icy surface, exploding in a burst that looked unnervingly like a Christmas light display.

A muffled cheer erupted from the elves, but it was immediately quieted. More whirring came, and the sound of diesel engines. A whole squadron of Stukas came from the encampment, dropping their bombs and strafing the area. Elves died in red puffs of blood-tinted snow. German soldiers came pouring out of troop carriers, and machine guns and tank guns fired.

This was chaos.

He was separated from Candycane in the chaos. It was all just a blur to him; dodging, shooting, dodging, shooting. It was exhilarating in a guilty, exhausting manner. He was defending his homeland but he was taking lives.

One of his myriad bullets struck the driver of a halftrack while it was still moving; it had a machine gun on it and was making mincemeat out of elf soldiers trying to fire an anti-tank round at it. The driver's head was absolutely annihilated by the hail of Claus' bullets, causing the halftrack to collide into a Panzer IV, erupting in a firestorm. Men screamed, some attempting to climb out of the tank while on fire. One of them brandished a pistol and shot himself in the head to escape the pain.

There was more blur, more seeming chaos. He heard commanders barking out orders, but he could barely hear them. His focus was first and foremost to survive.

It seemed like hours. He was going delirious. The world seemed to be in a haze.

"Herr Claus," a voice said to him.

"You are a voice in my head. Why are you speaking German?" he sputtered to himself.

"No, Herr Claus, I am very real," said the German voice. "We met many years ago."

Claus rubbed his eyes. There was a human standing there, in a German uniform. His gun was on the ground and he was stretching out his arm as if to shake his hand. "My name is Olaf Steffen. Many years ago you saved me from starvation.

"Olaf," said Claus. "I remember. Ypres, 1914. The Christmas Truce."

"Yes, that is it. I just wanted to say thank you."

"It is part of the spirit of Christmas, Olaf. To be able to bring survival to people on that day is part of my mandate. I gave a good deal of food to other men, British, French, Belgian, German, on that day. You do not need to thank me."

"But I do," said Steffen. "Without you I would be dead in the trenches or buried in whatever war cemetery that they created postwar. Just, thank you," said Olaf, tears welling up in his eyes.

"Steffen!" called out yet another German voice. "What are you doing?" He paused.

"Fraternizing with the enemy!" he called out. "Herr Himmler was right about you! Traitor!" This man was in what appeared to be an SS uniform, brandishing a rifle.

"You should have killed Claus back at Ypres, or at least right now!" he screamed. "But no. You cry to him and wait for him to give you more Christmas presents," he said in a mockingly childish voice.

"This man saved my life," said Olaf. "I owe him, just as you would owe any man who saved yours."

"I know the feeling, Herr Steffen. I was saved in France by a good old soldier. I was his friend during the period of shame that befell our country after the Great War. I failed him. One night we were travelling through Bavaria and some Communist thugs attacked us. I survived. He did not."

"But Speckmann!" yelled out Steffen. "Why do you not see Claus and myself in the same light?" he asked. "I do not want to fail him!"

"He is an enemy of Germany and you are a traitor, Olaf," growled Speckmann. "You deserve no mercy."

Before Olaf could respond, Speckmann took his rifle and shot him in the chest. His innards ruptured out at the impact of the bullet, and he fell to the ground.

"Why do you fight against us, Claus?" asked Speckmann. "Why? The Allies are the naughty ones, not us! We are fighting against an unfair peace. We love peace. It is the spirit of Christmas that you espouse, is it not?"

"Yes, yes it is," said Claus, still in German.

"Well then you understand me perfectly! The Allies fomented this war in 1918 and 1919. We only did what was rational! We did what was right."

Claus looked him in the eye. Speckmann smirked. "Are you saying that I am wrong, Herr Claus?"

Claus said nothing.

He took his tommy gun and unloaded an entire blizzard of bullets into Speckmann. "Hail" was simply not an apt enough description.

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Santa Claus heard the commotion of valiant elves doing battle with a former companion, a former comrade, a former friend. Krampus was unleashed by the Germans from his prison in Bavaria, where a confrontation had taken place decades ago. Now, he was in this small camp, where two commanders, Stockingstuffer and Bellringer, as well as foreign minister Candycane, were consulting with him in a hastily erected tent with a small fire. They were all drinking alcohol-infused eggnog, trying to dull the pain of their wounds. Claus, Stockingstuffer, and Candycane were all grazed by bullets or grenades, while Bellringer had been hit by anti-aircraft fire, not dying but not getting out of it scot-free.

Candycane looked in Claus' eyes intensely. "Are you sure you want to do this? I thought you did not believe in killing."

"If this war has taught us anything, it is that killing is justified in some cases," said Bellringer coldly. He rubbed his eyes, with the marks of his goggles around his eyes still obvious even when they were perched above his forehead. "I am certain that you would find the British defense against the Germans permissible. The children rendered orphans is proof enough. Would any of you disagree?"

Nobody had the courage to do so. "Again, Mr. Claus," asked Candycane, "Do you really want to do this?"

"Yes, I do. It is the only way to defeat Krampus. If my understanding is correct, most of the German forces are either dead or retreating. He, however, will not, and he is causing the deaths of so many elves, innocent and soldier."

"As if anyone in this war is truly innocent," remarked Stockingstuffer. "Should I give the order for our forces to retreat?"

"Yes," ordered Claus, quietly but firmly. "Please do so."

"Attention all forces engaging Krampus," barked Stockingstuffer into the radio. "Prepare to retreat to fortified locations. We are beginning the operation."

"And so it begins," mused Claus. "I will go out there myself. He wants to see me, and so he shall."

Without any more words, Claus walked out of the tent, the command elves staring at him in awe. Some of the infantryelves and other enlisted elves gave him salutes as he walked outward, clutching a submachine gun and with grenades in his belt should they become necessary. He wore a field telephone on his back.

He left the encampment, elves cheering him on, and entered a world of silence and death. There were faint fires in deserted homes and shops, and the stench of dead elves, corpses of which were strewn across the streets, in addition to the cadavers of German dead. Destroyed sleighs and armored vehicles were common.

After such lonely travelling, he saw his target: Krampus, nurturing his wounds. The beast growled and sputtered.

"Claus," he spat. "It has been too long."

"Not long enough," said Claus.

"I always knew that you were a naïve fool, Claus," growled Krampus, contempt evident. "Even if I were too much of a fool to realize that I knew that." He began slowly hobbling towards Claus.

"I know now that you are a killer and a sympathizer with killers. That is why I deemed it necessary to imprison you: so you could do no more harm."

"These children were naughty!" cried out Krampus. "They were rude to their parents and to society at large! They had to be removed and I had to be sated! Reindeer were not enough; you know I craved human flesh, and the naughty were the best for this: humanity no longer had to deal with little brats, I was fed, and we all were happy."

"You could have eaten murderers, rapists, terrorists, not children. Once I found out about this, you lost all legitimacy in my eyes. You, Krampus, are in no way faithful to the spirit of Christmas."

With that, Claus raised his submachine gun. Krampus roared, and began charging at him.

Claus ran back into the streets in which he came, firing his submachine gun. After some time, he ducked behind a wall, temporarily obscuring himself.

Krampus was hardly injured; he had quite the natural armor. "Where are you, Claus?" he snarled.

Claus revealed himself from the wall and opened fire. Again, the bullets just bounced off of Krampus.

He was at his last clip, and the bullets were running low. As Krampus lumbered toward him, trying to ascertain his exact location, the bullets stopped.

"You only have so much time until your own demise, Claus," he spat. "And now you have run out of ammunition. Goodbye, Mr. Claus. It has been an honor on this field of battle."

Claus unhooked his field telephone and barked into it.

"Stockingstuffer! Now!"

He burst off and ran back towards the base. In the faraway reaches of the pole, he heard pounding noises.

Then the world exploded around him.

Artillery shells hammered the ground around Krampus. For good measure, Claus threw grenades into the deadly mixture. It was a horrifyingly beautiful symphony of shells and fire.

As if that were not enough, the North Pole Air Arm's bombers zoomed down from the sky, and unleashed their payloads. More fire coated the air.

Claus still ran. Then the fire subsided.

He made his way towards where Krampus was.

Once he was there, he could confirm where that place was where Krampus was.

Emphasis on the past tense of "was."


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Santa Claus, Stockingstuffer, Candycane, and some other elven soldiers warily walked into the cratered, dust-whipped village, where elves had once made their home. In there was Krampus, dead or alive. They could not tell. Overhead flew scouting sleighs to hunt for any German that may have still remained on the North Pole. It was quiet, and it smelled of activated explosives and detritus.

They were all armed; one of the elves, a burly one by the name of Quintus Toycraft, carried a rocket launcher. Claus had his submachine gun and the rest had rifles.

They heard something moaning, something trying desperately to move.
It was Krampus in deep pain. He had crawled away from his original position and was trying to escape to somewhere, anywhere.

“Krampus,” said Claus. “I am honestly surprised that you survived.”

“How did you do this, Claus?” asked Krampus, rasping. “How did you gain such weapons?”

“We were associated with the powers that fight the Germans, and were able to get a good deal of weaponry from them. You obviously chose the wrong side.”

“So I did, so I did,” Krampus responded. “Would an offer to fight the Germans be enough for you?”

“No. You must never eat children again. It is that simple,” said Claus, exactingly.

“I refuse. I will not surrender my own survival to your own bizarre morality.”

Claus raised his gun, and motioned for the rest of the elves to do the same.
“So be it.”
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December 1886, Bavaria

“You mean to tell me this is what you were doing?” asked Santa Claus, to his erstwhile ally Krampus. “You were not merely punishing children, you were devouring them?” he said, betrayed.

“Why do they deserve to live?” Krampus asked, innocently.

“Because they are human beings. Because they are self-aware and able to dictate their own actions. You have no reason or right to dictate their rights.”

“Selfishness, anger, dishonor of the family!” called out Krampus, in chains being pushed by elves. “You tolerate this?”

“They are multitudes better than being complacent in murder!” responded Claus, pointing into the hollow cave that had been dynamited specifically for holding him. “They can redeem themselves if they get nothing, or as I have recently decided coal. They cannot redeem themselves if they are dead.”

Krampus futilely tried to resist the elves, the first time being off the North Pole in several decades, were succeeding in chaining him to the cave walls.
“Krampus, I’m sorry,” said Claus. “But the lives of innocents are worth far more.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The elves in Russia had been pulled out of Leningrad and ordered to the city formerly known as Tsaritsyn, now known as Stalingrad in a bizarre attempt at the deification of the leader. The commanding elements of the North Pole Expeditionary Force in the Soviet Union were puzzled by this decision, but it was allowed to remain for little could be done.

Jeremy Yuletide, the ultimate commander of the mission, was meeting with the leaders of the Soviet forces in this river city. General Zhukov was known to find Yuletide’s company quite interesting, and would discuss strategy in depth with him for many hours.

The forces provided by the North Pole in Russia were bolstered by the fact that Krampus had been defeated and the invasion of the North Pole by the Germans was repelled. There was this common sentiment of a lost opportunity by the elves in Russia; they wanted to defend their homeland, not a foreign land. Nevertheless, they would do what needed to be done.

Very little of this mattered to Vincent Evergreen or his accomplice Bromley Snowflake. They did, however, strongly object to the fact that their sleigh had not been replace after it had been destroyed when in combat with a German tank around Leningrad. The North Pole bureaucrats insisted that the new sleighs were to be manned by experienced veterans form the invasion of the North Pole, and so any sleigh crews deprived from their vehicles in Russia no longer needed to do so and thusly were reassigned to infantry duty. The two of them, much like the rest of the elves who had been Russia for the duration of the war, carried Russian weaponry rather than the British-designed weaponry of the new arrivals.

“The North Pole needs a purge,” remarked Vincent in his downtime. “Stalin got rid of all the incompetent fools in the military after he came to power. Claus needs the same. Hell, we should purge clause.”

“So you want a coup on the North Pole? Is that what I understand?” asked Bromley, inquisitively. “This seems most unwise. Do you really want us to undergo even more violence after the invasion?”

“Violence is necessary to the establishment of a workers’ state! And once that is done, we can abandon humanity entirely. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, Bromley? No longer having to work for this pathetic species?”

“I still do not believe that we should cause such death. Can’t we petition Santa Claus?”

“Believe me, we tried, we tried,” muttered Vincent. “But he will not listen; he is a rightist lord, ultimately, who wants us in servitude.”

“Everyone! Prepare to scramble!” called out an elven voice. “Artillery fire incoming! Repeat: artillery fire incoming!”

Bromley grabbed his rifle and dashed away from their small encampment. He was terrified by artillery barrages. He lost track of Vincent and of the other elves; he was just simply disoriented. He could not help it, he told himself halfheartedly.

The pounding of the artillery into where he had been standing moments ago shook him deeply, and he tried to find shelter in whatever he could find.

He came upon a ditch, and jumped in there, and heard the pounding of the shells into the ground, the scream of fellow elves. He stood up when it was over, and breathed in.

He heard whimpering behind him. He turned around, and saw a human family, a father, a mother, an older son, a younger daughter, and an infant daughter. They were all staring at him as if he were some kind of monster.

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Bromley Snowflake simply stared at the family whose dwelling trench he had intruded upon. They simply stared at him back.

He wasn't supposed to reveal himself to humans. This was an order from Yuletide himself, operating with direct orders from Santa Claus. This was no local idea; it was a modus operandi of the North Pole.

Bromley often thought it frivolous and paranoid; getting involved in Earth politics would allow the North Pole to be a liberal, tolerant influence. He saw the terror of the war being acted out in front of him; Stalingrad seemed to be becoming a new circle of hell. Elves and Humans could share the benefits of cooperation, and technologies could be shared.

He did agree with Vincent in opposing working for the Christmas spirit as the only occupation of elves. They should have the same rights as humans to choose their occupation so long as they were not criminals. This was tantamount to slavery. Claus has refused all attempts at unionization and was very conservative in that regard; the Christmas Spirit was everything.

"What are you?" asked the father. "Who are you?"

"My name is Bromley Snowflake," translating 'snowflake' into Russian, scraping together whatever of that language that he knew, and transliterated his first name literally. "I am an elf working for Santa Claus on the North Pole."

The entire family burst out laughing. "You are a funny fellow, Bromley," he said. "Too funny for such dismal times."

"If only we could find such joy in such abject misery," quipped the mother. The children were still laughing.

"I am not joking with you!" Bromley pleaded. "Here, look." He rotated himself leftward to reveal the patch of a North Pole infantryman on it: a snowflake with a green Christmas tree on it, on a red and white shield with the border in the colors of a candy cane. "See? Don't you know the symbolism?"

"Comrade Stalin doesn't want us celebrating Christmas," said the older of the daughters. "But we do anyway."

"Comrade Stalin doesn't want us doing many things that we want to do, Katarina," said the father. "He was the one who moved us here to Stalingrad out of the village. He was the one who put us in families."

"He is the one who is going to win us the war!" said the boy excitedly.

"He is the one who got us into this terrible war!" screamed the mother, slapping her son on the face.

"But he will help advance the cause of Communism!" opined the child. "Don't you see how better off we are?"

"We are not better off than we are before," raged the mother. "We had food back at the village, and now we do not! All the food is going to the soldiers. All of it! And you are too young to join the army, Konstantin. Do not trick yourself into thinking that you are!"

"It must be terrible out here," said Bromley. "I'm fighting alongside the Red Army here." He paused. He did not know what to say, honestly. Such abject suffering was obvious; no food, no water, obviously no house. They must have fled from their homes in the fighting.

"It is," said the father. "I am afraid I have not introduced myself. My name is Yulian Lagunov. This is my wife Praskoyva, my son Konstantin, and my daughters Katarina and Matrona."

Matrona was the baby, Bromley concluded. "So, what made you live in this trench?"

Yulian related his story. His family had lived in the countryside before the mass collectivization and industrialization imposed by the Communists, and had been forced to move to Stalingrad to work in the factories. He had been hesitant about the whole thing; the murder of successful farmers under the New Economic Policy, dubbed Kulaks, was something he found deeply distasteful. Their home had been destroyed when the Germans attacked Stalingrad, and his family had been living in this ditch for about two weeks.

Bromley talked with the family for several hours, learning about their personal lives and their struggle for survival. Konstantin was a hellion who did poorly in school, Katarina was a very quiet child, and Matrona was still a little girl, blissfully oblivious of man's inhumanity to man. Praskoyva was a gardener in the countryside in addition to helping with the wheat farming. They seemed like a completely respectable family. Bromley told them about life on the North Pole, working for Santa Claus, fighting on the side of the Red Army (which fascinated Konstantin), and other things.

This interesting yet often demoralizing chatter was interrupted by a voice. "Bromley? What in hell are you doing?" Bromley jerked his head around. It was Vincent Evergreen and some other elf soldiers.

"I was fleeing from the artillery fire and found them! They helped keep me alive!" They had given him whatever modest food that they could spare and kept a small fire going.

"How much did you reveal to them?" asked Vincent, angrily. "We were supposed to tell nobody."

"So what can they do?" asked Bromley. "They are not Stalin! They are not the truly influential people in the country! So what does it matter if they know about us?"

"Any knowledge of us could lead to the oppressive bourgeois of the world to come to our homeland in the North Pole!" Vincent responded angrily. He brandished his rifle.

"You!" he barked at Yulian. "What did he tell you!"

"That he made toys for Santa Claus," said Yulian nonchalantly.

Vincent walked into the trench. "He was not supposed to tell you that about our lives back home. He was not supposed to let you know that we even existed!" he snarled.

"He told me about fighting!" said Konstantin gleefully. "He told us about how you were going to kick out the Germans from Russia!"

"Quiet, child!" barked Vincent.

"No! I like Bromley!" responded Konstantin defiantly.

"Be quiet, I said!"

"No!"

Without warning, Vincent cocked his rifle and shot the child in the chest. Blood splattered everywhere. His father gasped. His mother screamed. His sisters shrieked in terror.

"You monster," said Bromley, incredulous. "I thought you were a decent elf, Vincent! I thought you had a sense of decency! I thought you were a friend!"

"I care for the North Pole and its inhabitants first and foremost. I see that you think differently."

"They did you no harm!"

Vincent chuckled cruelly. "Without a doubt the Red Army would interrogate these people for not aiding the war effort. It would then spread among the people, then to Europe, then to the United States. The peoples of the world would know, and they would try to interrupt the tranquility that we are on the verge of realizing!" he orated.

"That does not justify slaughter, of children no less!" exclaimed Bromley.

"My old friend, I had no idea you were so naïve. Any leak is the opportunity for a raging torrent of enemies interfering with our homeland!"

He gave a signal to the other elf soldiers. "Fire at will, but spare this traitor."

Shots rang out. Screams came from the humans. Shrieking from the children, who died along with their parents.

"Listen here, Bromley," rasped Vincent after the grisly deed had been done. "I want no more of this. I want you to fight, and I want you to remain secret. It is, after all what you believe, is it not?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

July 1944

The war looked like it was going to be won by the Allies, and the North Pole was grateful that the carnage may just come to an end. However, it was not at an end and so they would have to continue the fight to the last.

Claus had resources at the disposal of the Allies that they did not previously. The desires of the various governments of the Reich were known to Santa Claus in his massive database of what people wanted, and these were shared with the intelligence agencies of the various powers. Additionally, Claus had ordered elf pilots to help raid Japan and airdrop supplies to China; however, beyond that, their participation in the Pacific and Chinese fronts was minimal. Europe was where Claus had invested most of his resources, and so that is where the fight was.

Through this knowledge of people's desires, the Allies were able to uncover something: a plot to kill Hitler. Conceived by the aristocratic conservatives who had been supporters of the Kaiser's regime, they wanted to kill Hitler and bring an end to this war. Since Claus had the technological superiority and the intelligence to do so, it was his elite commando who was to aid them.

That commando's name: Jack Frost.

On this day of July 20th, 1944, he would help these aristocrats assassinate Hitler, or die trying.

He did not like these men; they wanted no popular role in the government, rather a Bismarckian strongarmed authoritarian state; better than the Nazis, granted, but not by much. He had talked with the leaders of the plot, von Tresckow, Goerdeler, Beck, Oster, and, after the surprise had dulled, he offered them his services. They agreed.

"It as if our childhood is telling us to do what we must," remarked von Tresckow, the time they met.

Frost was within the corridors of the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's hideout in Rastenburg in East Prussia. He had a job: to neutralize security. After that, if the bomb were to fail, he would kill the Fuhrer.

He saw a few guardsmen standing watch, marching in step. von Stauffenberg, the man who would detonate the bomb that would hopefully kill the dictator, was confirmed to already be inside.

He snuck by them, and saw Hitler and his entourage, Stauffenberg included, entering the critical conference room. He waited for Stauffenberg to exist with his adjutant, von Haeften. His task was to ensure their exit from the bunker. After that, the bomb was timed to explode.

He wasn't going to wait, and the ice could freeze them for that long. He snuck towards their guards when their back was towards them.

He conjured an icicle out of his hand after putting said hand on one of their necks. It erupted out of the soldier's neck, killing him. In their shock, they spun around and brandished weapons. Frost sent bursts of ice out of his hands around their heads, pinning them to the wall. This got all of them but one.

This one opened fire, grazing his arms. To counter the bullets, he conjured a shield of ice in front of him, and then sprinted out from behind it. The bullets shattered the ice, but left the soldier vulnerable. Another icicle came from his hand, and he was dead.

"Wonderful job, I see," remarked Stauffenberg, having exited the conference room. "Cover us. The bomb will go off at any minute now."

"Don't just stand here, then, move!"

Stauffenberg and Haeften made haste out of the facility, being watched over by Frost, who made sure to neutralize any guards. They were eventually able to leave the compound, leaving in a car.

"Good luck, Frost," said Stauffenberg, saluting in a more traditional manner.

"Thank you, Herr Stauffenberg," replied Frost, returning the salute.

He dashed back into the compound, waiting to strike.

BOOM!

It went off. Smoke filled the air.

He ran to the conference room, making his way through the heat and smog.

"Damn it!" he swore to himself. Anger consumed him.

The entire Nazi leadership was still alive. Including Hitler.

They looked at him with disbelief. He, without thinking, let out several bursts of cold from his hands. They all ducked. Some of them were frozen, but not dead.

"Hold your fire! You are under arrest in the name of the Reich!"

He was surrounded by what seemed like hundreds of guards, all pointing rifles at him. He put his hands up.

"Freeze," he quipped, and unleashed a large amount of ice. It got a lot of them, and he put up a shield to defend himself. It shattered before he could get out.

He stopped. He stared at them, mustering his energy.

The bullets erupted from their barrels.

The envoy of frost was dead.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

July 1944

It was the final hour in the European War, felt Vincent Evergreen and Bromley Snowflake. They were marching through Poland and fighting the Germans as they fled towards their own homeland in vain struggle; the Red Army was making its way towards Berlin and it seemed that nothing could stop it.

“Attention!” boomed a voice in the North Pole camp. “I have terrible news for you today. Our esteemed generals Yuletide and Stockingstuffer have both died in combat against German armored divisions.”

Silence was in the crowd. Vincent and Bromley, along with other leftist elves, were secretly overjoyed; the eventual commanders of the bourgeois North Pole forces would be felled to make way for the Revolution.

“General Georgy Zhukov of the Soviet Union will be put under direct control of our divisions, with North Pole Air Arm Commander Claudius Bellringer will take over as assistant for elven divisions. We will be used in tandem, not in opposition to, Soviet forces. The drive towards Berlin is at hand. Be ready, my friends, be ready.”

Muffled excitement went through the crowds of elven soldiers. Up to the microphones that had been used to address the elves stepped another elf.

“This is North Pole Air Arm Claudius Bellringer, now assistant to General Zhukov in coordinating the actions of our own forces. What we have learned, if anything, during this terrible conflict is that humans are inherently very naughty individuals. Our allies are cruel but our enemies are crueler. Ask a Briton or a Frenchman about the various territories in Africa that they rule. Ask a Belgian about what goes on in the Congo. They will act as if they are being very nice to the people down there. They are terrible.”

“But the Germans and the Japanese are even worse. You have seen the destruction that they have wrought upon the Soviet Union. You have seen what they have done in China. You have seen the terror in Britain. Like it or not, this madness is a sign of our times.”

“This is why you must fight: to end it. Humans are naughty, greedy beasts, but there are those who are indisputably better than others. We hopefully fight on the side of those who are better; whether that is the case or not will be debated for centuries to come. But nevertheless fight on. We are on a crusade to end world naughtiness, for the preservation of the Spirit of Christmas itself. Do not waiver. Do not falter.”

They were coming upon the city of Lublin, in Poland. This would have to be one of the greatest feats of conquest in the war; Operation Bagration would be a success yet.

Vincent and Bromley were in the heat of things when it finally came. Their rifles were being used with great frequency, and they jammed now and then. Killing Nazis was something that the two of them both felt was absolutely necessary. They were enemies of the revolution.

The two of them were stuck in a basement; there was a large, blocky German tank in front of them; Vincent believed it was a Panther but he was not sure. As far as they could tell the drivers could not see them crouched beneath, but that was subject to change at any minute.

“We need to take them down,” whispered Bromley.

“Of course,” responded Vincent.

“Who should distract them? Me or you?”

“I did it last time,” remarked Vincent. “You do it.”

“No problem,” said Bromley nonchalantly.

Vincent darted behind the tank, hiding himself behind the remaining walls of the husk that was once a home. Bromley jumped out with his rifle, and began taking potshots at the tank.

He could hear muffled German in the tank, mostly obscured by the thunderous engine of the machine. The turret shuffled towards him and the treads crawled over dilapidated shreds of wood and glass. It lurched into the basement. Bromley continued taking shots.

Vincent jumped onto the back of the tank. A member of the crew had jumped out of the hatch and manned the machine gun, and was orienting it towards Bromley. Vincent knew he had to act fast.

He cocked his rifle and aimed squarely at the crewman’s head, splattering brain and blood over the front of the tank. Vincent grabbed a grenade, hurled it into the tank’s turret, and leapt from the back. Bromley clambered over the basement wall and onto the street.

There was panicked screaming from inside the tank, and then an explosion.

“Good work over there,” yelled Bromley over the crackling of flames and the screams of the men.

“Same to you,” responded Vincent.

The fight continued into the heart of the city. The pounding of Soviet guns, backed up by experienced North Pole artillery, was focused on the wall of a German fortification in the outskirts of the city.

The two of them rested for a while, as the elvish forces had been ordered to stand down. Soon, Soviet aids to the commanders were being dispatched to the elvish encampment. News of something big, Vincent concluded.

Soon, General Bellringer came marching down to the encampment. “Attention to all of you,” said Bellringer. “You are to help with a task that I sincerely wish that was not necessary.”

The elven soldiers listened.

“Nazi Germany has been engaged in what has been among the most barbarous acts towards a fellow sapient creature in all of history. What that camp was in Lublin was no simple prison camp, as our dispatched may have led you to believe. They were for nothing less than the destruction of those of the Jewish faith, one different from our own but nevertheless possessing dignity and worthy of respect. This was industrial murder in a whole new capacity.”

“What I am asking you to do is to help the Russians escort them out of the camp. There are subsidiary encampments to which they will be put. Assume operating procedure when around civilians.”

Dealing with human civilians had its own protocol; they had to put their pointed ears into their helmets and curl their noses as to appear less pointy, enabled by special ointments developed by North Pole scientists. The ears and the nose were the only things separating them from humans.

The time came and Bromley and Vincent found themselves stationed not far from where Bellringer was overseeing the operation. The former prisoners were haggard and beaten, and were obviously starved. Elves disguised as humans occasionally gave them food, which was not stopped by Bellringer or by any of the officials, human or elf. It was charity, most thought, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Bromley handed venison to one man, who was starved to the point of looking almost skeletal.

“Thank you,” he said, and bit into the venison.

He sat down and began eating it more thoroughly. “Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Bromley Snowflake,” he said. He glanced towards Vincent and Bellringer; they didn’t seem to object. “I am an elf from the North Pole. I work for Santa Claus.”

“Absurd,” remarked the man, visibly old. “Absolutely absurd.”

“Excuse, soldier,” remarked a stern voice. It was General Bellringer. “Are you violating your orders? Are you telling this man here who you are, and where you are from?”

“I am pretty sure he is, sir,” remarked Vincent, angrily. “I caught him doing this once before, in Stalingrad.”

“So what does it matter?” asked Bromley. “I have never really understood such a policy. Why do they want us secret?”

“Because, soldier,” stated Bellringer condescendingly, “Claus does not want us embroiled in Earth politics any more than we have to. It is absolutely simple.”

“We have already started interfering with human politics; what do you think we are doing right now?”

“This is an exception and not the rule.”

“Vincent, you became what you are now because of an intervention. Why do you, of all elves, support such an arbitrary rule?”

“Because it was due to the terror of human conflict, not despite it, that made me into the elf I am now. I may have my disagreements with the North Pole government,” he said while looking at Bellringer, “but I am in full accord in the necessity to remain cordoned off from their own savagery.”

He raised his rifle. “You, old man,” barked Vincent, “did he tell you anything about us?”

“You fools say you are from the North Pole. I find that grimly amusing. Either the world has changed utterly during the course of this madness, or I am going insane due to the absolutely inhumane conditions in these camps. I think the latter. Anyway, it’ll make good conversation with anyone who bothers with me after all this.”

“See?” spat Vincent. “He is going to spread the word!”

“He thinks we’re hallucinations! How can he be a threat?”

“Ideas are dangerous things, Bromley,” said Vincent coldly. “Ideas of revenge drive this war. Ideas of supremacy drive this murder.”

He pulled the trigger. The old man was shot dead.

Bromley was aghast. “And you, General approve of this?”

Bellringer said nothing.

“See? He agrees with me. I would have thought that you would learn, Bromley. I thought you were a friend of all of the elves.”

“I have no support for needless killing, Vincent!” proclaimed Bromley loudly. “You have just done the Nazis’ work for them! Have you any sense of what you are doing?”

“I know what you are, Bromley,” said Vincent, “a traitor to the North Pole and to all elves.” He reoriented his rifle to face his former friend.


“Why, Vincent?” said Bromley desperately. “Why must you kill your own countryman?”

Vincent looked at Bellringer. The General nodded.

Vincent pulled the trigger.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
April 1945

Santa Claus flew his lone sleigh over the ruins of Berlin. The Red Army, as negotiated by Candycane in Moscow, would provide him with support as he went on this dangerous, harrowing mission over enemy lines. Many elves had offered to do this mission in his steed, but he felt that he needed to do this himself.

He was somewhat frightened at himself as he now had very little compunctions about killing enemy combatants; the death of that German officer who had been abusing his underling who wanted nothing but peace during the invasion of the North Pole was not something he regretted. Indeed, it showcased how downright naughty humans could be. No, he thought, not naughty. That word is too weak to describe the evil that he had seen during this war.

There were elves manning his sleigh. “Mr. Claus,” said the navigator, “I can see it coming up. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” he said without fanfare. “It is best that I get it over with.”

Another crewman handed him a parachute. He strapped it on his back. He grabbed his rifle and pistol and his other supplies. “Godspeed out there,” he said to the crew. “Thank you,” they all said, incongruously and in the exact opposite of unison.

He jumped out of the parachute and pulled the cord after falling some distance; the parachute blossomed.

He broke his way into the compound and jumped in. He cocked his rifle and prepared for combat.

There was very little security in the area that he landed. He would have to be quiet; Jack Frost, while still alive, had taught him many things about stealth for sneaking into homes and chimneys. These skills greatly helped him here.

When he did see a guard, he would sneak up behind him, put his arm around the poor man’s neck, and slit his throat with a knife.

He saw the dictator himself, Adolf Hitler, the man who had caused such misery throughout this continent, hurrying to a side room. Claus pursued him, ready to fire.

“Stop!” cried out a guard in German. Without thinking, he brandished his pistol and fired at them. Hitler and what appeared to be his mistress fled.

Two more guards fell down.

He followed the route that the dictator and his sweetheart took, and came upon them in a room on a bed, conversing worriedly.

“You,” said Claus.

“It is the almighty Saint Nicholas himself,” said the dictator. “I thought the Allies thought of me so incompetent that being alive would only help their cause.”

“Your reign of terror ends here and now,” said Claus. “I know what you have done. I joined this war over Britain to stop your rampage.”

“And so you have come to end it,” responded the dictator. “It is a tragedy, really,” he responded. “Had you accepted the advice of your old ally, you might have been on my side during this war and with good reason.”

“You refer to Krampus, correct?”

“Indeed I do,” affirmed the dictator. “Before you imprisoned him in the Bavarian Alps I thought that you might just embrace the cause of discipline and of leadership. But no. You weaken yourself with the joke that is parliamentary democracy.”

“Better that than tyranny.”

“So corrupted by the Jews. How sad. You could have been an honorary Aryan.”

“You could have been something other than a mass murderer,” responded Claus.

He took his pistol and shot Hitler dead.

His mistress was terrified, hands by her mouth and almost fetal in position.

“I have no desire to kill you,” said Claus. “Just know that you have been in the company of a madman.”

He left the room for extraction.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
July 1945

Santa Claus touched down his sleigh in the deserts of New Mexico. It was blistering hot; his traditional garb was too insulating and so he had changed to the clothing that he would normally witch to when delivering presents to places like Australia and South Africa. He had precious, dangerous cargo; he did not know what it was, but it was classified as being of the utmost importance by the Allied Powers. He was accompanied by Candycane, his most trusted advisor, and several armed escorts.

He landed.

“Mr. Claus,” said a well-dressed man to him, “an honor to meet your acquaintance.”

“And your name may be?” responded Claus respectfully.

“J. Robert Oppenheimer,” said the man. “You may have been briefed on us as existing under the name the ‘Manhattan Project.’ I assure you, Mr. Claus, that your efforts in bringing us this cargo could very well win us the war.”

“And how may it do that?” asked Claus, inquisitively.

“I cannot tell you as of now, but if you were to stay at Los Alamos for a while I could certainly ensure that you could bear witness to the fruits of your labors.”

And so Claus stayed at this base, Candycane with him to coordinate with the generalship. The war in the Soviet Union was going well; the Red Army, with North Pole support, had begun rapidly advancing into Poland. The war was going to be won, certainly, but the United States and United Kingdom had insisted that this project was necessary for victory.

“What do you think it might be?” asked Claus to Candycane idly.

“I don’t know, sir,” responded the elf, “but I do know it could be something absolutely horrifying or absolutely amazing. Knowing them and their amazing ability to fight amongst themselves, I would venture it could be both.”

“It just might be.”

Claus would eventually have to leave, but was later called back some months later to finally reveal what he had been instrumental in in completing. He returned with Candycane and with General Bellringer, newly appointed Minister of Defense, to witness this test.

He was taken to a specially fortifying emplacement with Oppenheimer and with other select scientists and engineers, along with Candycane.

“If all goes well,” remarked Oppenheimer, “our efforts, yours and those of the human nations, will be rewarded.”

There was an anxious wait. Nobody seemed to know what was going to happen.

The sky was set alight, or so it looked. There was a harrowing silence in the bunker.

And then a furious rumble.

“This is what you have helped us create, Mr. Claus,” remarked Oppenheimer.

“This is madness!” exclaimed Claus.

“It is the most powerful explosive ever developed,” responded Oppenheimer. “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Claus stared at him in horror.

“It is a quote from the Vedas, the Hindu holy scriptures. I have to say that we are all thinking some variation of the idea in that quote.”

“This is what we have helped create, Mr. Claus,” remarked Candycane sullenly. “We have helped humanity create the most destructive weapon in history.”

“But we can certainly know that the war will be over soon,” said Bellringer remorselessly. “All the carnage, all the hate, all the suffering will be gone.”

“But is it worth this cost, Bellringer?” said Claus, shocked.

“The Japanese are being very, very naughty. Have you not seen what they did at Nanjing? In the Philippines?”

“I know exactly what they did-“

“But you have not seen them. I saw with my own eyes what the Germans were doing in Poland. Had we had this weapon I would have happily supported its usage on Berlin.”

“Bellringer,” said Claus, “I get the impression all of this bloodshed has led you astray.”

“Not astray, more realistic.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
August 1945

Santa Claus furiously whipped his reindeer. Candycane operated the radio, and tried frantically to contact the plane coming in. He knew its name; the Enola Gay.

“I think we’ve found them,” remarked Candycane. “Should I try to get on their frequency?”

“If we can spare innocent people from nuclear destruction, we have an obligation to do so,” said Claus. “We have to. Christmas is a celebration of life, and death is antithetical to it.”

Candycane fiddled with the antenna. “Enola Gay, come in. This is Santa Claus’ personal sleigh; he is onboard. We implore you to cease your trajectory towards Hiroshima and not drop this terrible weapon on them.”

“We know who Santa Claus is and we know that he is supporting the Allied war effort. We will not waste your time with frivolous faked confusion. However, we have also been told that you may try to stop us. Just head back to the North Pole, old man. We are not stopping.”

“But the innocents you will kill in doing this!” Claus practically shouted into the microphone after grabbing it from Candycane.

“We remember Pearl Harbor. We remember the Rape of Nanking. We remember the Bataan Death March. Are you really trying to apologize for things like this?”

“They do not justify doing the same!”

“These bombs will force surrender from the Japs. And they will stop the goddamn Commies from taking Japan. We can’t let them do that, now can we?”

“Politics does not matter to me!” responded Claus.

“So the ideology that has caused so much suffering in its home countries is irrelevant? I thought that you wanted to nip that regime in the bud! Don’t play dumb with us, it’s common knowledge among the armed forces that you tried to stop the Reds from taking Russia!”

Claus inhaled. They were right.

“Go home. There’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

He paused.

“I’m sorry.”

“I understand,” said Claus, tears welling up. He grabbed the reins and steered his crew northwards.

Within a few minutes it was as if the sun manifested itself on the ground.

“We created this monstrosity,” said Claus sullenly.

“The fault is not yours alone, sir,” said Candycane.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Claudius Bellringer, Minister of Defense of the North Pole, sat in the chair provided for him in the Oval Office in Washington. There sat President Truman, looking less than cordial, as well as General Tibbets, Admiral Parsons, and other important American officials.

“I understand that you are quite proud of your accomplishments at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” said Bellringer. He nodded to Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay during the bombing.

“I understand that your government is less than pleased with such an accomplishment,” said Tibbets. “I heard him pleading to us to not drop the damned thing.”

“Well, I must say that my leader and I disagree on this crucial issue,” said Bellringer. Tibbets, Parsons, and Truman all looked much more attentive. “I say that it was a good thing that you used this weapon. The postwar world, as decided at Yalta, will be a far more stable one with the ability of our side to use this weapon.”

“President Roosevelt spoke positively of your leader at Yalta,” said Truman. “However, I can understand why General Tibbets and Admiral Parsons have reservations about him. He reminds me of Henry Wallace; too trusting of the Russians.”

“That is exactly why I am here, to ask you for something important and dangerous.”

“And this would be?” asked Truman, skeptically.

“The North Pole needs its own atomic bomb,” said Bellringer. “If the Russians do something stupid towards us, and they undoubtedly will, I want to be able to have the same leverage with them that you will. I would much rather live in a world dominated by you than them. You support the spirit of Christmas. You are nice. They are naughty.”

“And you don’t intend to share this with Claus?” asked Parsons.

“Your government kept the nuclear program secret from Mr. Truman here,” said Bellringer. Truman quietly sighed but said nothing. “I don’t see why my government can’t do the same to our leader.”

“Very well,” said a man who walked forward. It was the Secretary of State, Henry Stimson. “We will work with you to give you a bomb. But what do you offer us?”

“Support in the coming struggle with the Russians, of course. They despise Christmas; the choice is obvious.”

“So if war breaks out you are on our side?”

“Yes sir,” said Bellringer. “You have my word.”
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The war was over. The war was finally over.

The elves had all withdrawn from Europe and from China and from all of the other places that they have been deployed. They now had to rebuild a ruined sector of their towns on the North Pole; the forests burned, the mines destroyed, the houses reduced to rubble. Krampus’ corpse had been cast into the Arctic waters, hopefully never to be seen again.

Claus was scheduled to give a speech in one of the great meeting halls of the North Pole, and it was miraculously not damaged. It was in fact safe; the bombers had not gotten this far. Reclamation had gone on to a degree during the war but most of the available workers were shipped off to Russia, where they fought valiantly in that country and in Poland and in Germany.

“I feel that it is now necessary to involve more elves in my government,” said Claus. “It would be a great disservice to deny those who fought so hard to defend me a voice in how things are run here. I got us into this war, and I do not want to be involved again without your permission.” The crowds cheered. Beside him sat Bellringer and Candycane, now the highest ranking authorities in the North Pole besides Claus himself.

Among those cheering was Vincent Evergreen.

“I will be holding elections for a council of deputies chosen by the people to legislate on my behalf. I have been your effective autocrat for far too long. The people of the North Pole deserve better than me.”

It was at that moment Vincent decided that he would run as a leftist member of this new assembly. He would much rather spare lives; he could not have a workers’ state if there were no workers. If there were to be a revolution, it would be later.

“Again, I must say thank you to all of you for your service, either in the field or in the factories. You fought for liberty and the spirit of Christmas. For that you deserve the highest praise.”

Among this entourage were human officials, from all the major Allied powers, who were listening intently and who congratulated the elves for their efforts.

And none of the elves noticed the Signal Security Agency men setting up listening devices in the offices.