It’s here! It has arrived! The time has come around once more

To add another epic to the wealth of Christmas lore.

I hope that you’ll have patience and will stick it to the end,

(And even if you don’t - well, keep it from me: there’s a friend!)

For reasons of her own, this year the muse has prompted me

To carry out some research into Santa’s history.

I love the old traditions and the stories that we hear

About a red-clad Santa with his pack, and list, and deer

Whose workshop is a-bustle as the elves create the toys

Which Santa then distributes to the waiting girls and boys

As he, in just a single night, will circumnavigate

The globe to bring the gifts - and never ever show up late.

Now I - by nature - am, with facts, just like a mouse with cheese:

So what’s the deal with Santa? What’s the history? Details, please!
 

I rolled up both my sleeves and then went on the Internet

To get whatever info there might be out there to get.

I found a perfect site, "what’s_up_with_Santa_Claus?_DOT_COM"

Downloaded all the documents and burned a CD ROM,

(I did that so I’d make it through those times that we all know

When more-than-normal traffic makes the Internet too slow.)

I looked up "gifts" and "reindeer" and then "elves" and "workshop" too,

And then I found a nugget that I have to share with you:

It turns out Santa’s workshop where the elves perform their role

Was moved in 1916 to its place at the North Pole.

Before then, history tells us, (I came on this quite by chance)

It lay inside a cavern in the southern part of France.

I fastened on this factoid like a hound-dog on a scent

Consumed with curiosity to find out what it meant.

Why had the move been made? Whatever could have been the cause

For relocating workshop, elves, and deer, and Mrs. Claus?

And why, from temperate climate, had the group all made their way

To somewhere where it’s 98 below from June to May?

Then digging through the text I found to my great fascination

This story, which most perfectly provides the explanation.
 
 

The first thing you must know is: well - that Santa’s always been.

He’s known to have existed since the early Pleistocene

When, every Christmas, he would bring to cave-kids who were good

Some simple toy, perhaps a tiny mammoth made of wood.

His methods, at that time, resembled those we know today,

He traveled with a pack of gifts, and reindeer pulled his sleigh.

The cavern in the south of France provided a location

Approximately central for the earth’s small population.

(In fact, when you examine it, this thought persists today -

I know that most Parisians still think of it that way…!)

The workshop was a simple place: the elves pursued their arts

Creating charming toys with hardly any moving parts.

They had a craftsman’s attitude and took a lot pride

In knowing every youthful Christmas wish was satisfied.

And so things went unaltered as the eons rolled along:

Until the ages Stone and Bronze and Dark had come and gone.

My research got me fascinated by the gifts themselves

And how they changed through centuries of labour by those elves.

In medieval times a normal present might have been,

For girls, a pointy hat, just like the ones worn by the queen.

And left beneath the tree to bring excitement to the lads

Would be a wooden sword, perhaps a helmet, just like dad’s.

More research into gifts led to the Renaissance whereby

We see the toys evolving - and I found the reason why:

The very favourite gifts to get in 1498

Were little paints and brushes so the children could create

A mini-Mona Lisa ‘cause they loved to emulate

Da Vinci (he was all the rage in 1498).

Things stayed the same - quite simple - for about three hundred years

But then machines were born! Kids wanted toys with springs and gears:

And elves who for the eons did whatever one could ask

Saw craftsmenlike techniques become unequal to the task.

Each toy required more time to make, and - adding to the trouble -

The world’s population was expanding on the double.

More toys were needed: and each toy required a new finesse,

And Santa’s little workers soon began to feel the stress.

The elves, inspired by Santa, somehow managed to prevail

‘Til Christmas nineteen-fifteen finally saw the system fail

As on that day three hundred forty-seven girls and boys

Were given Santa’s promissory notes - instead of toys.

(Those toys arrived apace, as Santa took a second ride,

But such a lapse left Santa - gentle soul - fit to be tied.)

The toys, they took too long! And there was great expanding need!

A crisis of supply was looming! Time, it was, indeed

For something to be done, or kids would have to go without

    Then

        DONE THERE SOMETHING WAS -

            that’s what this poem is about.

As well as being good at crafts, was good at something more:

He had a taste for science and his passion drew him on

To secretly attend a physics class at the Sorbonne.

He’d dress up as a student with a satchel full of books,

And only very seldom would his size draw second looks.

(His fondest dream was - one day - to discover something new -

And get his theory published in the "Physicist’s Review".)

At class, the buzz was all about a brand-new revelation,

Made by one Albert Einstein in a science publication,

That when you square the speed of light and multiply by mass

You get enormous energy (and ace your physics class).

This theory revolutionized and shook the physics field,

As all its implications quickly made themselves revealed….

What could one do with energy of such great magnitude??

(And, as we know, both good and very bad things soon ensued).

But Toby purchased Einstein’s book and kept it by his bed,

And nightly, dreams of quantum physics danced inside his head

He’d built a little lab where, when he wasn’t in the shop,

He’d do experiments for hours on end, until he’d drop -

His elvish brain fatigued and filled with figures to the brim -

(Though math and physics always came quite naturally to him.)
 

One night he left his lab, and in his room stretched out to rest

With Einstein’s famous treatise lying open on his chest.

He sleepless lay and as he let his burdened brain unwind

A brilliant thought (as brilliant thoughts will do) came in his mind.

The theory Einstein wrote about required that you square

The speed of light, then multiply by mass, and you’d be there….

But Toby’s thought came stealing through the silence of the night:

"I wonder what would happen if you CUBED the speed of light??"
 

Fatigue fell from him like a cloak discarded on the floor:

He leaped out of his bed and ran back to his lab once more.

Some bits of apparatus he’d obtained through subterfuge

Were lying half-assembled near his bench. There was a huge

Thermonucleaic Cathode-Driven Magnetizing Prism¹

Which, focused with precision, made a whack of magnetism.

There also was a Subatomic Mass Accelerator²

(He’d thought that up. We have them too, but ours came decades later.)

An Infracontangential Box³ was also standing by

Encased in several layers of lead should something go awry.

Controlling everything, he’d wired an Underwood typewriter

(When bright elves get creative, well, you ain’t seen nothin’ brighter).

And on the wall there was a massive switch like ones you’d see

In those old monster horror flicks they run on Space TV.
 

^{1 or TCDMP}

^{2 or SMA}

^{3 or I-Box}
 

He laboured with a passion never stopping for a rest

And soon he was prepared to put his notion to the test.

He’d cooled the TCDMP and tuned the SMA

(You have to tune your SMA for things to go your way).

He said "All set - and now I need a subject for the test

"Let’s see: a small metallic object probably would be best".

Then on a shelf he spied a wind-up car, placed there for show:

It was a toy he had designed about a year ago.

Which won a prize and got itself declared THE PERFECT GIFT

And each time that he saw it there it gave his mood a lift.

He snatched it up and set it in the box. He sealed it tight.

Then fired up the TCDMP. A greenish light

Suffused the room, as with excited trembling fingers he

Typed this upon the Underwood:

    E = MC three!
 

He held his breath, and counted five, and felt one eyelid twitch -

Then counted five again to calm himself: then threw the switch.

There was a gathering hum.

            He waited -

He saw the I-Box glow, just for a moment, brilliant white,

And then a sudden fearsome BANG like thunder split the night!

He thought, "I’ve really done it now! I’m dead - oh woe is me!!!…"

A moment later - "Wait! I think I’m still alive!" said he.

(He WAS alive, and thankfully: because with Toby dead,

I’d have to stop this writing and go drink a beer instead!)
 

He hastened to the box - pried up the lid, and peered within

Then felt a row of goosebumps from his ankles to his chin!

For, right beside the little wind-up car inside there lay

Another little wind-up car: its match in every way.

A perfect copy of the metal toy had been created!

"So THAT’S what cubing lightspeed does!" yelled Toby, all elated.

He lifted out the copy, then his scientific brain

Determined to continue: would it work the same again?

He sealed the box, then threw the switch: the sequence ran anew:

And once again the count of toys inside the box was 2.

And then, while leaving both inside, he threw the switch once more:

And afterwards inside the box the count of cars was - four!

He once again fired up the thing, while chuckling "this rocks!

For me to keep this up I’m gonna need a bigger box!" - - -

He carried on and multiplied the toy cars exponentially -

Then all at once he realized that he had, unintentionally,

Stumbled on the absolutely perfect application

To relieve the ever-agonizing workshop situation!

Each toy those taxed and tired elves laboriously created

Could be, upon completion, infinitely duplicated.

He paused to make a scientific note - that was his way:

Then checked out all the duplicates: and, startled, found that they

Had several minor defects which he hadn’t seen before:

One had its wheels on backwards: and another had a door

That opened from the top, not from the rear as car doors should

He hummed and scratched his head and said, "This really isn’t good!"

"I wonder why they all came out a tiny bit askew???"

Then he remembered reading, in the "Physicist’s Review",

A chapter where they talked about the earth’s magnetic field

And all of the anomalous effects that it can wield

Distorting every TCDMP’s fine calibration

And throwing subatomic masses into fluctuation

Where even just a micro-miniscule amount of flux

Resulted in distortions. Toby muttered "Well, that sucks!

"I wonder if they mention any way around this mess?

"I kind of skimmed the sections near the end, I must confess…"

So he retrieved his copy from the floor where it had lain,

And, with a frown, began to read the chapter once again.

And, sure enough, right at the end, it offered a suggestion

Of how to neutralize the subatomic flux in question.

In every place but two on earth, polarities exist,

Creating wow and flutter subatomics can’t resist;

But at the poles, the field is so symmetrically placed

That all the subfluxation side effects will be erased!

"Eureka! That’s the way around these little deviations

"I have to get to Santa and explain the situation!!"
 

        Well, you can guess the rest: when Santa heard the news he smiled

And said, "though your experiments have occasionally been wild,

"This one brings home the bacon! You have found a way at last

"To make our Christmas preparations easy - like the past!

"The elves can make some prototypes: and we can later use

"Your new device to replicate as many as we choose!

"Let’s pack up all our stuff and make the move and make it quick!

"Besides, I’m getting tired of France - those frog’s legs make me sick!

"And by the way, what do you call this thing that you’ve designed?"

Then Toby thought a moment: "Well, what seems to come to mind

"Is CATHODE-MAGNETIZING-PRISMATRON-ACCELERATOR-

"DRIVEN- INFRACONTANGENTIAL-PRESENT DUPLICATOR!"

But Santa, with a wink, explained "that name has got no RING….

"I think we’ll all be better off just calling it "THE THING".
 

And so it was: at midnight on July the twenty-fourth

The whole contingent slipped away from France, and headed north

And kept on going north ‘til there was no north left to go

Then in the land of polar bears, and walruses, and snow

They stopped: and built a palace, and a workshop for the elves,

Complete with every tool so they could really stretch themselves.

And then the elves constructed, under Toby’s watchful eye,

A super-massive THING that stood eleven stories high.
 

And when they ran it, every time, the northern lights would flare

And, I am sad to say, the first big BANG gave quite a scare

To one adventurous walrus who had wandered into view.

You didn’t think the walrus can move fast on land? Untrue.

That one (whose name was Donovan) - though several pounds too fat -

Would set a record for the mile - a cool four minutes flat.
 

The only downside in the exercise was Toby’s class:

Without attending he was sure that he would never pass.

But Santa soon convinced him that the THING which he’d devised

Would one day, when he published, pick him up the Nobel Prize.

"But best of all," said Santa "you’ve made children’s dreams come true!

"And that’s much more important than a Nobel Prize or two -

"But when you win it, I’ll be there to holler GOOD FOR YOU!"
 

The elf’s cheeks flushed a little as the pride within him grew,

(He was a humble elf, who’d thought the best that he could do

Was - maybe- getting published in the "Physicist’s Review".)
 
 
 

The End - Merry Christmas! 2003