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!

And from behind her she heard her son say, “If strike says what I think it says—quit working--then this looks like the kind of thing that might keep us from our magic ride with Santa on Christmas Eve!”

And from behind Jack came the sad little voice of Julia who said, “What’s this about no Christmas?”

Jack Dennis and Liz sent the kids back to their video games with a promise that this just sounded like something on Fox News and probably wasn’t even true.

“You kids go ahead and play your father and I will look into this, not to worry,” their momma said.

When the kids went back to the TV their father and mother read the article on the internet.

NORTH POLE NEWS---December 9th

SANTA’S ELVES STRIKE---CHRISTMAS COULD BE CANCELLED!

A group of Santa’s elves led by an organizer elf named Jimmie, who goes by the nickname of Gimmie Jimmie, has formed a union or group of elves who will stop toy making as Christmas nears.

“We are challenging Santa for money, smaller tools to fit our little hands, buffet food served around the clock in the toy making barn, and fully funded vacations with airfare and spending money for us when this exhausting job of toy making ends on Christmas Eve,” Jimmie said.

Gimmie Jimmie went on to say that they were holding out on the toy making until Santa opened the books that showed how much he was making!

“We are what’s known as a union and since we are half his size, we expect to make at least half of what Santa makes every year,” Gimmie said.

The demands didn’t stop there. The Gimmie Jimmie Union was asking for:

·        A reindeer for each elf for recreational riding in the off season

·        A housekeeper to clean their sheets, make their beds and keep the elf bunk house spiffy

·        A heated swimming pool

·        Six new flat screen TV’s for the elf recreation room

·        A pool table, ping pong table, card tables and air hockey games

·        A dollar for the Union a bag for every mail bag that D. Liver, the mailing elf opened

·        A dollar for every reindeer that Reiny the deer exercised and fed

·        A dollar for every five feet of snow that the shoveling elves cleared

Their demands were so many that Gimmie couldn’t get them all on the letter that he convinced a sizable group of elves to sign. And sadly, these striking elves didn’t read the little message at the bottom that said half of their raises would go Gimmie, for organizing the strike.  

And the first thing on Gimmie Jimmy’s list was a demand that extra cash would go to Gimmie from Santa for keeping the elves working and behaving themselves.

“If we don’t get what we want then there will be no Christmas this year or next or the one after that. We are prepared to drop our toy making tools until Santa opens his wallet and comes through with our requests!”  Gimmie said.

Liz looked at Jack and said, “Well, this isn’t good and the very year when the kids won the letter writing contest and were going to get to ride in the sleigh with Santa back home to us here in Georgia!”

While Liz and Jack and the kids were thinking about this in Georgia things at the North Pole were wild!  Santa was standing at his frosty window watching a light dusting of snow fall on a small but angry mob of elves.

Jimmie was up on a snowbank with an electric bullhorn microphone shouting at the group of little elves he’d stirred up!

“What do we want?” he shouted.

“Money to toy make,” the crowd of elves shouted back.

“What are we going to do?”  Gimmie shouted into the loud microphone.

“Put down our toy tools, quit toy making until we get what we want! No Christmas this year!” Terry the tool making elf screamed.

Mrs. Claus walked to Santa and said, “Well, this is just like Gimmie Jimmie and after all you’ve done for him.”

Santa just stood and watched the wild group screaming and thought about the day he’d found Gimmie Jimmie working for an awful man who had a reindeer farm.  He remembered how Jimmie had cried to Santa and begged him to take him to the North Pole because he was working day and night for the reindeer farmer, had no boots, raggedy clothes and was about to starve because all he got to eat each day was a bowl of cold porridge!”

“And this is the thanks I get for taking him home with me and giving him a great job, nice elf clothing, a warm bunkhouse, and a chance to do something good for others!  This is the thanks I get!” Santa said.

With that Santa pulled on his boots and slipped into a warm leather coat, put on his red Santa cap and walked out on the porch to what was a tremendous surprise.  “Get him!” Gimmie Jimmy shouted, and the little group of angry elves, threw what must have been a hundred snow balls at Santa. One knocked off his big red hat.

Now as Santa bent to pick up his cap, Gimmie threw an ice ball that hit Santa right in the hiney.  When Santa turned around he saw a SNOW TV truck coming down Reindeer Lane and several snowmobiles with newspaper reporters from the North Pole Gazette.

Before Santa could get himself together the reporters were interviewing the elves and of course, the one they were getting all the chatter from was Gimmie.

But now it was Santa’s turn to talk and he just happened to have a bullhorn microphone of his own. As he clicked it on and held it up there on the porch a few stray snow balls hit in and around him.

“Now, since the TV people from SNOW are here and the reporters from The North Pole Gazette, I know that this has been and, thanks to Gimmie, will continue all over the world on the internet.”

“So, what do you have to say for yourself, Santa,” a reporter from the newspaper shouted.

With that D. Liver, the Mailroom elf, stepped up on the porch and handed Santa two pieces of paper, one was the one with all of Jimmie Gimmie’s demands. The other one was from a group of elves who had been trying to warn Santa about all this.

“Sorry Santa, these got lost in the tons of mail we receive. And I never asked for a dollar a bag, that was Gimmie’s idea,” D. Liver said.

Now Santa was talking to the reporter, “Well, I don’t have much to say for myself. But there must be a number of elves out there who have been misled by a certain ungrateful elf. I now have been told by this letter that because of all the thousands of letters we get from boys and girls this letter got lost in D. Liver’s mail room.  There are, by my count, almost one hundred elves’ names on this letter that they signed.”

Then Santa read a few lines from the letter over his bullhorn microphone.

“We the elves who love Santa, Mrs. Santa, Christmas and all the boys and girls around the world will NOT quit our toy making because some bad elf is not only getting a few stingy elves to strike but wanted to charge every elf money that joined his STOP THE TOY MAKING MOVEMENT!

We hereby refuse to join Gimmie

Signed the Loyal Elves of the North Pole.

And that’s when Santa looked at the small crowd of bad elves and said, “Now, I’m a very forgiving person, I mean after all I am Santa. But I’d like to have a show of hands---and this includes you too, Gimmie.  Raise your hand if you weren’t saved by the Christmas spirit here and taken from horrible workshops where you were paid nothing, slept in cold drafty floors, wore shabby clothes and had very little to eat.”

Now the reporters turned to the small but feisty crowd, the ones who had been behind Gimmie’s movement, and watched them one by one not only raise their tiny hands but drop their pointed heads in shame.

Santa pretended he didn’t see it---way to embarrassing—but what he did was read the demands, which had all been made by that stingy elf Gimmie Jimmy

Then he looked at Gimmie Jimmie and said, “Shame on you, Gimmie. You rounded up some very nice little elves---perhaps weak and easily influenced by your greed---and talked them into making these false claims of yours---through an organization that you were going to charge good money for all the elves to join.

Santa continued, “Now I’d like to say something to the news people here. This elf mentions that he’d like to have half of my salary.  Well I’m here to tell, Gimmie, all the elves and in fact anyone in the world that he can have not only half of my salary but all of it--every last penny-- because in the hundreds of years that I’ve had the privilege of being Santa Claus I’ve never taken a dime, ten cents for being Santa.

He paused and laughed and looked at the reporters and said, “Would any of you work for free? Christmas is about giving not taking!”

Then just as the TV reporters from SNOW and the newspaper reporters were dropping their heads in shame, they heard the sound of little feet trudging through the snow. And when they looked up, here, from the toy barn came what appeared to be a hundred little elves. They were singing Santa Clause is Coming to Town and carrying signs,

“We Love Santa and Christmas!”

“Toys On The Way for Girls and Boys”

Then one little elf popped up with the best sign of all.

“The Elves of the North Pole hope Gimmie Jimmie’s butt freezes off!

Meanwhile back in Georgia Jack and Liz were keeping an eye on the internet, hoping Christmas wouldn’t be stopped by a greedy elf!

And that’s when Jack and Liz called the kids to the computer. “Look here kids,” their dada said, “The elves are going to work and look at this sign one of the very good elves is holding up for the TV Cameras!

MAY GIMMIE JIMMIE END UP IN A SNOW RUT

AND WAKE UP WITH A FROZEN BUTT!