Hi Diary, Jingle here.

The run up to Christmas is always hectic down at the workshop, everything changes and picks up speed.

First of all, the head elf becomes increasingly more lax about uniform standards but incredibly strict about every other rule. The other day Crackle stumbled in half asleep, with his hat missing and his striped knee-high socks at different lengths and he didn’t even get a warning. That same day Flogo turned up half an hour late because he accidentally overslept and the head elf was so furious that he made him stay 5 hours later than usual.

If you couldn’t already tell, sleep becomes a major problem for us elves in December because we always run behind in gift production. Why? Because we spend most of the year taking it chill and generally underestimating how much time we have to create the toys, by the time we reach November we pick up the pace slightly but aren’t too fussed and in December we are all in a major panic! Every year we say we will start early and every single year we run into the same problem.

At this point you are probably wondering where Santa is in all of this? Unsurprisingly he is “training”, which means he’s either down the nearest pub trying to build up his alcohol tolerance so he can drink all of the booze people leave for him and still be able to function enough to drive a sleigh or he’s eating everything in sight so he can eat everything people up out for him without getting sick. His husband is most likely with him, cheering him on by shouting “Yass queen sleigh!”

I’m writing this whilst I should be sleeping, I’m going to regret this in the morning but for now, I’m justifying by saying that I need to vent because there’s no one in the workshop I can talk to. (Note to elf: read up on psychology and sociology)

I hate my job, it’s too repetitive, I need some variety in my life. I work in letter response. you thought Santa responded to all of his letters? As if! I sit there all day responding to people who write self absorbed letters and who add something like “world peace” to their wish list just to clear their guilty conscience. News flash, if you want to clear your conscience, don’t write a letter and send it to us, go and see a fake Santa and tell him your long list of wants. By doing that, not only are you putting a human in a job but also letting me fulfil my dream of being a toy designer (which is what I’m actually trained in)

I would explain more about why I’m doing a job I’m not qualified to do but that’s an entire entry in itself. I want to get a full two hours of sleep before my shift and be at my desk on time so that’s all for now.