Christmas Up North

It was uncomfortably warm. A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead, narrowly missing my eye. What do you know, I thought to myself. You’re in the Arctic and you’re sweating. I allowed myself a slight chuckle, cringing when I heard how high pitched my voice sounded. 

“Something funny?” Jacob asked from his station to my right. “Tell me, I could use a laugh.” He set his hammer down on the workbench and looked at me, the bell at the end of his cap making a slight jingle as he turned. His serious face, juxtaposed with his goofy hat and pointy ears, almost made me laugh again.

“Nothing,” I replied, maintaining my composure. “I was just thinking they probably don’t bother with air conditioning up here.”

Jacob grunted. “Step outside, that’ll cool you off.”

“You there!” a voice rang out. “Number 387 and Number 388! You’ve got 15 more minutes before end of shift! Quit chatting! This is a warning, next time I’ll deduct points!”

“Yessir! Sorry sir!” we both rang out in unison. Jacob quickly snatched up his hammer and resumed work on the wooden horse in front of him, pounding pieces into place. I picked up the small screwdriver and started tightening screws on the toy robot which had been sitting in front of me. 

“They really crack down come Christmas time,” I muttered under my breath, just loud enough for Jacob to hear. “Is it like this every year?”

“Yes,” he replied. “It gets worse the closer it gets to the big night. Now stop distracting me. I can’t afford to lose any more points.”

“Oh stop complaining, you two,” Martin whispered on my left. “At least here we get to build things. Last week I was on stable duty, and Donner has been having digestive issues recently.” He lowered his voice further, muttering under his breath, “Plus, I’m pretty sure the points are phony. We stay here as long as they want us here.”

It was later that night. The day shift was mercifully over, and I was back in the barracks stretched out on my cot. I didn’t get a whole lot of space to myself, but I guess I didn’t really need much. Jacob lay on the cot underneath me, and Martin was in the one above.

“Psst,” Jacob whispered from below.

I rolled over and wedged my ear into the space between the bedframe and the wall. “Yeah?”

“Just checking in. About our . . . Christmas Eve plans.”

“Yeah? What about them?” I whispered.

“You still in?”

“Absolutely. This place can go to Hell.”

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I shouldn’t have done it. I know that now. If I could jump in a time machine, go back and tell myself to just stay home, go to the movies, bake cookies, anything, I would. But I went along with Jesse and his stupid, stupid plan. Oh sure, it sounded great. It had the potential to be the easiest score ever, assuming everything went right. Which, of course, it didn’t. The regular security guard at the charity foundation was sick, and his replacement was a younger guy who wasn’t completely over his line of work (yet). Long story short, what was intended to be a quick in and out job ended up being much more complicated, the guard heard us, the cops were called, and who should happen to be the fall guy left behind? That’s right, yours truly. Left high and dry while Jesse spirited off into the night. 

Not that I hadn’t been to prison before. Of course I had. Except it turns out this wasn’t just any charity foundation. It was a childrens’ charity. A childrens’ Christmas charity. One with very . . . influential benefactors. 

It turns out, the justice system has secretly made special arrangements to punish those who commit so-called “serious crimes against Christmas.” It was a win-win: the prisons didn’t get any more crowded, the perpetrators were removed from society, and one of the world’s most important (and most secretive) production facilities got new workers.

So, after (in my humble opinion) a sham of a trial, I find myself with a one-way plane ticket to Anchorage. Why Anchorage? No one would tell me. It was a small plane, just me and several other prisoners. And then once we landed, there was another plane. “Am I being sent to a gulag?” I remember asking one of the guards. He had smirked. “Sort of,” he said.

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Christmas Eve Day - I don’t think I have ever been more exhausted in my life. Not when Mr. Montgomery made Garrett and me run an extra mile in 8th grade for mouthing off. Not when it turned out that Mrs. Carbonelli was home after all, and Jesse and I had to book it down the street before the cops arrived. No, this was definitely the most exhausted I’d ever been. It didn’t help that I had the lung capacity of a small child. 

Jacob and I made sure we were on our best behavior all day long. We worked diligently, we started and ended our designated break times promptly, and there was nary a grumble nor eye roll between us, even when Twizzle (yes, our manager’s name was Twizzle) so delicately informed us that our output needed to increase by 30% to meet quota before takeoff time. 

Finally, at long last, the bells rang. Literally. The end of the busiest work day of the year was signaled by the ringing of thousands upon thousands of jingling bells. All of our fellow workers shouted out with glee (oh my God I’ve already been here too long). Jacob and I hooted and hollered too, trying our best to act merry and jolly and all that. Then it was time to be shepherded through a crowd of bustling elves (or is it a herd? A pack? It’s probably something lame like a jingle of elves or something) to the massive hangar to witness the grand departure. 

But Jacob and I were not going to witness said departure. At our soonest opportunity we ducked away from the diminutive hoard and turned down a dark hallway. 

“You’re sure you know the way?” Jacob asked.

“Yes I’m sure,” I replied, annoyed at being asked this question yet again. “I know this place seems like a maze at first, but it has its own weird logic if you pay attention.” I tried to sound confident, but there was no denying the fact that logic could only get you so far when you were trying to stage a prison break out of Santa’s workshop. 

After countless twists and turns through the labyrinthian corridors, we finally found it. The door that I had located several months before, when I had been assigned to the team in charge of mopping all of the aforementioned labyrinthian corridors. It didn’t seem like much from the outside, but, well, the elves in this place don’t have much to do besides gossip. There were likely guards posted inside at most times, but if my hunch was correct they too would be out watching the big guy’s departure. We had a small window of opportunity to find what we needed to find.

Thankfully, Santa’s facility was notoriously low security. Saint Nick didn’t believe in investing in things like alarms, laser trip wires, guard dogs, and the like. After all, we were in the middle of the North Pole, hidden behind a magical veil that kept the facility safe from prying eyes (and radars). He had only started taking, ahem, “exchange laborers” relatively recently, and no one had attempted to escape before their sentence was completed. After all, even if they succeeded, where would they go? You had to be a special type of crazy to attempt what we were doing. Hi, my name is Ben, have we met?

The door swung open and the first thing I noticed was a blue glow emanating from the back of the darkened room. Jackpot. We stepped in, letting the door close behind us. There they were: shelves upon shelves of snow globes, glowing with ethereal light.

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“You are here because you have been found guilty of committing a serious crime against Christmas.” The man in the Prisoner Processing Center, I’m sorry, the “Exchange Labor Force Orientation Center,” had the unmistakable air of a drill sergeant. Except for the snowman tie that he wore. That was a bit out of place. “Lucky for you, we have made special arrangements that will allow you to atone for your crimes in a way that will allow you to make a positive contribution to future Christmases. Your assignments will be forthcoming. They may vary week to week, but all will be important tasks for the operation of the facility.”

One of the other prisoners held up his hand. There were eight of us that day, crammed into a windowless room with one door, out of which the drill sergeant man had emerged moments prior. The man with his hand up was Ralph. I had sat next to him on the second plane - his crime had been attempting to vandalize the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. 

“Yes?” Sergeant Snowman asked. 

“What exactly is the facility that we’re working at?”

Sarge grinned. “Glad you asked. You, my friends, are being given the opportunity to experience Christmas magic. Real Christmas magic. We’re talking flying reindeer, bottomless toy bags, the whole shebang. The facility is the busiest toy production facility in the world, located in the beautiful North Pole.”

There was an awkward silence. Ralph was finally one to break it with a snort. “You expect us to believe that? This ain’t the North Pole and we’re sure as hell not going to Santa’s workshop. You’ve sent us to some work camp in Siberia or something.”

“I understand your skepticism. I think it will all become much clearer after processing. Mr. K, if you please?” Sarge stepped through a doorway. The moment he disappeared past the threshold and out of sight stands out in my mind as the last time my life made one lick of sense.

Next thing I know, a hideous, horned, thing had come into the room. It stood on two thin, furry legs, each one ending in a hoof. Its face sort of resembled a man – if that man had been on the losing end of a game of chicken with a demonic goat. In its clawed hand it held a bag, out of which it had pulled a small, glass orb.

The group of us had broken out into horrified shouting. We attempted to back up against the wall of the room, bumping into each other. The creature grinned, and without a word held up the orb in its hand and pointed it at Ralph. A flash of blue light temporarily blinded me, and Ralph let out a surprised scream. And then . . . Ralph was gone. Or rather, the Ralph we knew was gone. In his place was . . . a small man, with pointy ears, hopelessly tangled up in a heap of Ralph’s clothes. Then in another flash, the clothes were gone, and Ralph stood dressed in a ridiculous red and green get-up, complete with pointy toed boots and a pointed hat with a bell on the tip.

Before any of us could process what had happened, there was another flash. I had the distinct sensation of falling. But not just falling down. It was like I was falling in, into myself. And before I knew it, I was climbing out of what had become a vastly oversized prison jumpsuit. Ralph, or what had been Ralph, stood nearby - and I looked right over into his confused eyes. We were the same height.

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“There! Third row from the bottom!” Jacob called out. My gaze moved to where he was pointing. Sure enough, there was a snow globe with the name J. Marley on it. I inched carefully toward it, my frustratingly small hands gripping the shelf above while my tiny booted feet moved along the shelf below. Finally, I arrived at the target globe, carefully reaching out my hand. 

“Easy! Easy!” Jacob called. “Who knows what we’re dealing with here . . .”

My fingers brushed against the shiny orb and I winced, expecting an electric shock or something. But there was nothing. The glass felt cool to the touch, almost like it contained real snow. But I knew it was a lot more than that. 

Suddenly, my other hand slipped. With a shout, I tumbled off the shelf, the globe still clutched in my hand. Jacob ran to try to catch me and I landed on him, the globe flying out of my grip and colliding with the floor. I heard the sound of cracking glass, and then a flash of blue light illuminated the room.

When my vision cleared, there was Jacob, towering over me. He was clearly back to his old self; his ears were no longer pointed and his features had hardened. He certainly could no longer be described as “cute.” Unless you wanted to be punched in the face. Thankfully in addition to his human identity, the globe had apparently been storing his human clothing as well. His orange prison jumpsuit clinged to his stocky frame.

“It’s about damn time,” Jacob said, his voice having dropped an octave or two.

“Um, what about me?” I asked, self-conscious about how squeaky my voice sounded in comparison. 

He looked down at me with an amused smirk. “What about you, little man?”

“We have to find my globe now. Then we can get out of here!”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the time for that. The reindeer stables are right down the hall from here. I made sure that Donner had to sit out for the big ride tonight, but I’m afraid he can only carry one of us. Bye bye Benny boy.” 

He grabbed me, easily picking me up. I struggled, but I was no match for his strength. He picked up one of the bags that had been lying against the wall, and next thing I knew I was in darkness. Left as the fall guy. Again. 

By the time someone found me, it was Christmas Day. Twizzle, of all people, had been cleaning up the broken glass in the snow globe room when he heard my muffled screams. He let me out of the bag, immediately docked me 1000 points (which is more than I had, so now I’m the first elf to have the dubious honor of a negative point total), and sent me to explain myself to the big guy. 

Santa himself had arrived back at the facility less than an hour before, clearly exhausted from a night of, you know, flying around the entire world. Instead of in bed, where he certainly preferred to be, he was instead glaring down at me from his candy cane throne (yes, you heard that right). 

“Explain to me,” he said in his booming voice, sounding anything but jolly, “What you were doing in the snow globe archives, and where my precious Donner has gone?”

I could have tried to lie. I could have told him that Jacob had threatened me. Forced me to show him where the archives were. Hit me over the head with the snow globe. But . . . I mean come on, this is Santa Claus we’re talking about here. You try lying to the patron saint of Christmas.

“We wanted to escape,” I said, my head down. “I wanted my life back. My body back. It’s wrong what’s going on here. You can’t just force people to be your elves. I don’t care what they’ve done.”

Santa’s expression softened, just slightly. “Ah yes. It sounded like such a good idea at the time. Give people who have made some poor choices in life a chance to turn things around, without spending time in some dark prison somewhere. Allow them to experience a little magic, contribute to the joy of millions. I had hoped that the Christmas spirit would be enough to prevent any . . . incidents. But clearly I was wrong.”

I frowned. “So . . . so what are you saying, Mister . . . Mister Claus?”

“I’m saying that I think the experiment that was the Exchange Laborer Force is a failure, and I’m shutting it down effective immediately. Merry Christmas.”

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That was last Christmas. Sure to his word, Santa shut the E.L.F. program down. All of the inmates-turned-elves were returned to their regular human selves and shipped across the world to the prisons they should have been sent to in the first place. 

Including me. Don’t get me wrong, I was beyond ecstatic to be back to my old, five foot eight body. Well, at least until I realized I couldn’t just eat milk and cookies and expect not to gain weight anymore (not that the standard prison would provide us such a diet anyway). 

And well . . . I still have dreams about the North Pole. Dreams of the snowball fights that would sometimes erupt at breaktime, of the reindeer air shows that would be put on in the slow season, of the friends I had made - I wonder where Martin is these days? 

Now I spend most days manufacturing license plates, which I gotta say, doesn’t give quite the same creative fulfillment as some of the toys I made at the workshop (I’m especially proud of the robots - I’ll bet there’s some really happy kids out there playing with those).  

Oh well. Another couple years and I’ll be out of here. And tomorrow’s Christmas. I don’t know what your plans are tonight, but I’ll be looking up at the sky.