When Grumps was about Jack’s age, his teacher decided that each member of the class would have an opportunity to perform in the school’s annual Christmas Program. They would put on skits, sing songs, read poems, tell stories, all to entertain their parents and grandparents who would be in the audience.

For Santa’s elves this had been a most stressful year. Requests for toys from the virus’s home-bound children were up forty percent. Then on the very day that demands for toys reached a new high, Santa heard unusual music from the toy barn. At first it sounded like Bing Crosby’s Mele Kalikimaka!  He listened and it was!  This was very strange!

Jack and Julia were playing video games when they happened to hear their father who was on the Internet say, “Hey, Liz, come here a minute!” When Liz walked in and looked at the screen Jack Hunter followed her. “Well this isn’t good,” his mother said as she read a big message on the screen: SANTA’S ELVES STRIKE---CHRISTMAS COULD BE CANCELLED!

Santa’s elves loved contests. During the spring and summer, when they were on vacation from toy making, they would watch TV and read magazines and newspapers and enter every contest they saw.