On December 7th, 2016, at 11:28 p.m., Christmas was skating on thin ice. Actually, it wasn’t cold enough for that, but the point is Christmas was in trouble.
I was burning the almost-midnight oil in the McGregor Room cramming for my Intro to American Studies exam, desperately fighting the urge to write “America is awful. The end” on my study guide instead of answering the essay question. Sitting in a cushy red leather chair by the fake fireplace, I looked to my left and right and saw the other three students still in the library were either sleeping in defeat or curled into the fetal position with a crazy look in their eyes. Since I had yet to fall asleep or suffer from a pre-exam panic attack, I decided to hedge my bets and call it a night.
I packed up my stuff, relieved McGregor was more empty than usual so I wouldn’t incur the wrath of the silent studiers when I zipped my backpack, and left the mahogany floors of McGregor for the drab stairwell of Alderman. Transfixed by the glow of my phone as I finally allowed myself to check Facebook, I didn’t notice the one and only Santa Claus until I bumped into his squishy stomach.
Assuming he was a chubby frat bro in a red fleece, I prepared to shoot him a passive-aggressive glare and move along when I looked up and saw a beard too white and well-kept to be that of a hip student or aging professor. I had just knocked into Santa Claus – the only old man who can make a red fur ensemble not creepy – while looking at my phone.
“Excuse me, is there a fireplace in this building?” Santa asked me with a voice that sounded weirdly reminiscent of Tom Hanks.
After hurriedly processing that my life had devolved into the plot of a mediocre ABC Family (or is it Freeform now?) Christmas movie, I decided to help Santa because there was only a 5-10% chance he was a lunatic. And I was really bored with studying.
“Technically, but I think there’s a fake plant in it.”
“Well, there goes my toy sack.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I dropped my toy sack down what I thought was a chimney, but I’ve just realized that it was probably a garbage chute.”
“Oh gosh, can I help you find it?”
“It should be fine. The elves always make plenty of duplicate toys to sell to Target for their after-Christmas sales. Helps offset our production costs a bit, if you get my drift.”
“Sure. Of course… Wait, why are you here on December 8th? Isn’t that a little early for Christmas?”
Santa let out a large sigh, as if he had been asking himself that same question all during his trip to Virginia from the North Pole.
“Well, my Scheduling Elf invited Mrs. Claus’ relatives to come up on the 23rd. You'd think he would have realized his mistake and fixed it, but I guess he's been having a bit too much egg nog on the job. I submitted a request for him to reschedule the visit – there’s so much bureaucracy nowadays, I can't just call people on the phone or even ask them in person like I'd been doing with no problems for the last thousand years or so – but he does this weird thing where if a request is accepted, then he doesn’t email you, so I assumed the visit had just been rescheduled. But it wasn’t -- he just waited to email me back until yesterday! By that point we had finished all the toys, but it was too late to redo the schedule to fit all the deliveries in on Christmas Eve, so I had to start deliveries early this year.”
Santa was flustered and I had no idea what to do about it.
“That’s really annoying, Santa. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Santa paused and scratched his beard, which looked more like whipped cream dotted with mini marshmallows than facial hair.
“Well, I’d hate to inconvenience you – I know finals are stressful and all – but would you be able to give me a ride to the airport?”
“Sure, but don’t you have a sleigh or reindeer or something?” I asked, wondering if I had been too ignorant to realize that Santa always traveled by jet.
“Yes, but it crashed here. I’m not sure why, but my guess is the misery around colleges this time of year caused a drain in Christmas spirit, which fuels my sleigh.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I figure I’ll just get a connection from Charlottesville to Chicago O’Hare and have one of the elves pick me up there. I'll send another elf back to UVA with an extra tank of Christmas spirit to refuel the sleigh and get it up North in time for Christmas.”
“But will you have enough time to deliver all the gifts?” I worried, feeling almost more stressed about the fate of Christmas than my exams. Almost.
“Sure. I’ll just have to miss my in-laws, but they’ll get over it” Santa said with a wink.
“Okay. Alright. Wow, I guess we should walk to my car?”
“That would be lovely, thank you.”
As Santa and I exited Alderman and entered the chilly December air, I tried to sneak a selfie. He just chuckled and covered the screen with his white glove.
To Be Continued…
