Long time readers of this blog may recognize the story of Bob The Elf from last Christmas. Here it is again, with an updated title, to uphold the Christmas tradition of having a little something non-traditional served up for Christmas. After all, December 25th is Jimmy Buffett's birthday, too.
THE GOLD BUTTON
(How a Florida Crow Saved Christmas)
by Don Winfield
From a thousand feet above, the shiny object looked like a shimmering jewel glistening in the noonday sun. It caught Ralph’s eye so he tucked his wings in and dived down for a closer look.
It was a warm and sunny south Florida day, and Ralph was flying alone as usual. He’d been following I-95 looking for something to eat or pique his interest. He was busy picking up shiny objects and passing time until someone threw the last bite of a burger or some greasy fries out of a car window. He was really wishing for a stale bit of glazed doughnut. The other crows in the flock gave Ralph the bird equivalent of the cold shoulder. He looked and behaved different than they did so the other birds usually shunned him. He never preened, didn't like road pizza, and had a few curiously red tipped feathers on the very top of his head. Ralph tried to not let his estrangement from the flock bother him. He knew he was as good as any other crow, and suspected he was a lot smarter. “Why would anyone want to eat that nasty road stuff?” he thought.
Ralph zeroed in on the shiny object, and as he zoomed nearer he realized it was under the heavy mesh of a storm grate. He landed on the grate and immediately found that the shiny thing was a few inches out of his beak’s reach. Ralph cocked his head to one side and gave the gold button a closer look. “That looks like an engraving of Earth with a trimmed Christmas tree on it,” he mused. “I wonder where it came from?”
********
In a chilly workshop far north of Ralph’s nest, a short, round, fresh faced, and very worried little fellow in a green suit and pointy red hat, rubbed his neck worriedly. Softly, he kept repeating, “oh me, oh me, oh my.” Bob was a very minor cog in the gears of Santa’s well oiled Christmas machine. The little elf had just made a shocking discovery. Bob thought he should run and tell his boss. Petunia Elfson his pretty, red-haired, and often snippy supervisor, needed to know what he’d just learned. The big sleigh was scheduled fly away in fifty-nine minutes, but suddenly everything had gone horribly wrong.
Yesterday, December 23rd, a frantic e-mail arrived from a gi-normous toy factory in Taiwan. It was the worst possible news to the North Pole. Every single Wobbleezer Action Figure had to be pulled in. The recall was urgent and all-inclusive. Toy testers in a rural village in northern Ireland had easily disassembled a Wobbleezer and eaten 13 small pieces. Both four year old researchers were being closely observed, and the tiny parts were expected to pass within a day or so. Nonetheless, danger lurked within every Wobbleezer, and they all had to go back to Taiwan for repairs. Bob knew that this meant they’d all be scrapped at the toy stores that collected them and replacements would be rushed out from the factory. This time of year even a rush shipment would take about five weeks. That would be about five weeks too late for Christmas.
Although Bob was worried he decided not to panic. After all toy procurement was Horner’s job. Horner was an old elf that had worked for over 200 years in Santa’s Workshop. Horner knew all the procedures. He would handle the Wobbleezer problem. Horner could remember when he and 10,000 other elves labored all year long to make enough wood and metal toys for all the children of the world. Now, a couple of decades of computerization, various cutbacks and downsizing, had reduced Santa’s workforce to sixteen harried, nervous, and overworked elves. Each of the sixteen had a very specific job, and none overlapped. Days were long and stressful, but Horner was at the top of his game.
Santa's Elves don’t get sick and the last injury was almost 100 years ago when Mrs. Claus accidentally sat on Moe. She had heard news of an escalating war in Europe and was very worried about the children there. While parking her oversized posterior in a loveseat near the radio, she failed to notice Moe who was napping before his shift. Poor Moe suffered a broken leg and was out of work four weeks starting in late October 1914.
********
The always cheerful Horner had happily tackled the latest disaster and was feverishly making arrangements to get new toys to replace the defective Wobbleezers. Old Santa was in his usual laid back condition with wisps of smoke encircling his head and a cheery smile on his round face. Nothing seemed to bother the man in the red suit, as long as his pipe was lit and smoke kept filling the air.
With the toy recall problem now in Horner’s capable hands, Bob had another extremely pressing issue to worry about. Santa’s sleigh was also being recalled. A small company in India had recently bought out the failing Japanese carriage maker that had been making Santa’s Sleighs since the early eighteen sixties. Things hadn’t gone well since Toyota and the rest of the Japanese manufacturers took over the auto industry late in the twentieth century. The tiny sleigh maker just got sucked into the vortex and disappeared. Now, at 11:01 PM on Christmas Eve, an urgent call from India had caused a real disruption in the Christmas delivery schedule. Santa’s one and only sleigh absolutely could not fly tonight! The flaw which Indian quality control testers found in its construction was terminal. The Quality Control Manager at Happy Sleigh Works in Scalpur, grimly stated that even one attempt at landing on a rooftop would certainly kill Santa, his reindeer, and maybe even some innocent children. Bob could not build a whole new sleigh. With no solution in view, Santa was have to be grounded.
“Oh me, oh me, oh my,” Bob repeated. “What ever will we do? Santa surely must make his appointed rounds.” It seems that elves often talk like that.
As Bob was thinking there was no solution in sight, the lovely Petunia saw him standing in the workshop with a frown on his face and his head hanging down. “Bob, you must go fetch Santa’s red outfit. We need to get him suited up, no matter what,” she shouted. “Santa’s journey has been happening for 2009 consecutive years, and it won’t be stopped by a couple of silly little glitches!” Bob shot off as fast as he could run for the climate-controlled closet where the internationally famous red suit was kept. He pulled it off the rack with great care. The big hand made wooden hanger always seemed to keep the suit perfectly pressed and ready for action. The little Elf noticed something amiss. “That’s strange,” Bob thought to himself. “It's never hung up with one button left undone.”
“Oh me, oh me, oh my!” Bob wailed. “Things keep getting worse and worse! How could this possibly have happened?” Beads of perspiration ran into his eyes and his fingers trembled as he held Santa’s splendid red suit up to the light for closer inspection. There was no doubt about it. There were only seven gold buttons. The eighth button was missing!
Hearing Bob’s exclamation, Petunia dashed into the huge closet with a worried look on her chubby pink face. “Whatever is the trouble, Bob?” Then, quickly seeing the problem, she cried out, “oh my stars! The Christmas Tree button is missing!”
The two elves were stunned. They just stood there in the humidor staring at Santa’s only red outfit in total disbelief. How could this have happened? Every precaution is always taken. Nobody ever touches The Suit until it’s time for Santa to go out on Christmas Eve. A thorough search of the otherwise empty closet was completed in less than ten seconds. The red Santa Claus Suit is the only thing ever kept in the climate-controlled room, and the floors and walls are kept immaculately clean to avoid contamination of the nearly two thousand year old garment. The button truly was missing.
********
Bob didn’t know why Petunia was so upset. He didn’t know that Petunia was the only living being who knew how important the missing gold Christmas Tree button really was. Without that button, there would be no Christmas presents for millions of children and adults around the globe. That button did many of the usual things that buttons do. It fastened Santa’s pants to his big red coat so they wouldn’t fall down when he’s exiting chimneys. It held Santa’s coat closed to keep him warm on the cold winter night. It also did something else that only Petunia knew.
The missing button was the one and only Magic Button! It was the talisman that made Santa’s big night possible. Its globe and tree engraving gave that button the awesome power to carry Mr. Claus around the world in only one night, bringing happiness, wonder, and gifts to the billions of children who believe in the magic of Christmas.
********
In a Christmas Palm south of Miami, Ralph the finicky crow was roosting atop his latest prized possession. It had taken Ralph a lot of time and patience to finally get his beak on the shiny object he’d spotted in the storm drain. Shiny things were his weakness and near downfall. Many times Ralph had barely escaped being electrocuted while landing on high power lines to inspect something he’d seen reflecting the bright Florida sun. On several occasions he’d nearly spent a second too long sitting in the center of the fast lane on I-95 trying to pry some glistening bit of this or that out of the melted tar. It’s hard to judge the speed and closing rate of an 18-wheeler when your attention is fixated on a ‘must have’ bauble.
Hundreds of short trips from the saw grass to the drain grate had done the trick. Slowly, Ralph had put enough grass and sticks in the grate so that a road crew making a routine drain inspection had to remove the grate to clean it out. Ralph watched patiently perched high in a nearby palm, waiting for the right moment. The second the workers paused for a quick water break, Ralph swooped down from his branch. In a flash he grabbed the button and minutes later Ralph was admiring his latest prize in his cozy nest in the top of a Christmas Palm.
********
The hands on Santa’s Ready Room clock were a blur. It seemed like the last 49 minutes had passed in 49 seconds. At 11:50 PM the alarm bell on the tall overhead doors leading into the workshop storage area started ringing. The doors slowly opened. Outside stood a line of eighteen wheelers loaded with enough Wobbleezer replacements to please every child who’d asked for one. These were labeled “Wabbleezers” but the subtle difference in spelling would not be noticed by the excited children. The kids of the world would be very happy to have the safer and longer lasting copies manufactured in Akron, Ohio.
Elfin magic filled the air, and in a flash, the Wabbeleezers were wrapped and stowed in the faulty sled. Nobody told Santa of the recall or that he would soon be airborne in a dangerous toy laden sleigh.
********
Bob’s fingers were bleeding. He’d chewed his fingernails beyond the quick and was still gnawing like a beaver on a mission. His nervousness did not escape Petunia and Horner alert eyes. They couldn’t do anything to make Bob feel better about the things he was sure were going wrong all around him. He knew the sleigh was dangerous and may harm Santa and many innocent people. He knew that the missing button was important, but not how necessary it really was. Horner didn’t know the button was missing, but he’d seen the sleigh recall. Horner also knew that Petunia would never put Santa or children at risk, so he was just calmly waiting to see what would happen.
Quickly, Bob glanced at the clock once again. 11:59 PM. Santa laughed a jolly “Ho, ho, ho,” as he bounded out of the green room and jumped into his waiting sleigh. Eight tiny reindeer snorted and pawed at the warehouse's concrete floor, waiting for the doors to open and let them fly. Santa grabbed a handful of reins and started calling each reindeer by name.
********
In south Florida, a black crow with a red splash of color on the top of his head was suddenly thrown high into the air above his Christmas Palm nest. Disoriented, he flipped over and over barely getting his wings spread in time to avoid a serious beak plant in the sand. As the stunned Ralph glided to the ground under his palm tree, he wondered what had blasted him out of his tree so suddenly. The confused crow slowly shook it off. Finally gathering his senses Ralph flew back to his nest to check the damage. He was hysterically happy when he saw that the nest was fine but seconds later his little bird heart saddened as he realized his prized gold button was gone.
********
Meanwhile from a secret village near the Arctic Circle, a jolly old man, eight tiny reindeer, and a very sturdy sleigh rose into the starlit North Pole night. The jolly old elf was toasty warm. His pants were secure, and all eight buttons of his coat were intact. The gold Magic Button had miraculously reappeared at the stroke of midnight, its magic making everything perfect for Santa’s big trip.
Petunia moved silently to Bob’s side and took his hand. As he smiled into Petunia’s shining blue eyes, the elf named Bob breathed a huge sigh of relief. Santa was safely on his way. The children of the world would get their presents again this Christmas just as they had every year for the last two hundred years.
