Santa Claus

Hi, I’m Santa. I’m a volunteer living in Canada. I am a fan of photography, technology, and entrepreneurship. I’m also interested in travel and arts. I am the founder of candycanelane.ca

**Title: The Night the Sky Fell Silent**

By Santa Claus

For the first time in centuries, I sat alone in the sleigh.

The workshop is quieter now, the elves have switched to LED, and the children of the world are asleep in their climate-controlled homes. But the silence I feel isn't the silence of a sleeping planet. It is the silence of a sky that no longer rings with the sound of eight—no, nine—pounding hearts.

They tell me I am timeless. But time, my friends, is the one gift I have never been able to wrap. And time has taken my team.

We do not speak of the reindeer as "pets." We speak of them as crew. And tonight, as I polish the runners, I find myself staring at the empty harnesses—leather worn smooth by the grip of hooves that have not trod the chimney-tops in decades.

Do you remember Dasher? He was the sprinter. Not the fastest, necessarily, but the most furious. He didn't fly to deliver presents; he flew to win. I used to tell him, "Dasher, the North Pole isn't a racetrack," but he would snort, steam pluming from his nostrils, and tug the harness with such ferocity that the sleigh would lurch forward before I could even say "Ho." He taught me that joy is aggressive. That momentum is a form of love.

Then there was Dancer and Prancer. They were the artists. Where Dasher saw straight lines, they saw spirals. They would bank left over the Alps just to catch the moonlight on a glacier, dipping the right runner so close to the pines that the needles would scratch the wood. They weren't showing off for me—they were showing off for each other. They reminded me that the route is just as important as the destination. Without their grace, I would have been a mere delivery man. With them, I was a maestro.

And Vixen. Ah, Vixen. The trickster. She was the one who would snap the frost off the sleigh rails with her teeth, flinging it into the faces of the following reindeer just to hear them grumble. She was mischievous, yes, but she was also the most brilliant navigator. When the fog rolled in thick over the Atlantic, so thick you couldn't see the star Polaris, Vixen would close her eyes, listen to the Earth's magnetic hum, and turn us due west. She taught me that sometimes, to find your way, you have to stop looking and start feeling.

But it was the back row that held the weight of the world.

Comet and Cupid were the anchor. Comet, the stoic, never broke formation. He was the metronome; his beat kept us all in time. If he faltered, we all faltered, and he never did. Cupid, meanwhile, was the gentle one. He would nuzzle the reindeer who were flagging, and he would veer slightly over hospital roofs, slowing down to let the children inside feel a moment of peace. He didn't deliver toys. He delivered warmth.

And Donner and Blitzen—my thunder and lightning. They were the old soldiers. Donner's voice was a bass rumble that could shake the snow from the eaves, while Blitzen’s was a sharp crack that startled the wolves into silence. They were the muscle. When the wind was against us—when the jet streams turned into walls—they would lower their heads and push. They never complained. They knew that children don't care about headwinds; they care about mornings.

And then there was him. The one I still look for in the northern sky during the autumn equinox. Rudolph.

I know what you think of Rudolph. You think of the song. You think of the shiny nose. But you don't think of the solitude. When I found him, he was an outcast, hiding behind a frozen boulder. He was ashamed of his light. He thought it was a deformity. I saw it differently. I saw the only compass that could pierce the hydrogen storm of the Baffin Bay blizzard.

That first flight with him was terrifying. The fog was so thick I couldn't see the bells on the lead rein. The old guard—Dasher, Donner—they were blind. We were drifting toward the sea. I called out to Rudolph, not with authority, but with desperation. And he stepped up. He didn't just light the way; he illuminated the *faith* that the way existed. The fog parted, not because of the light, but because of the courage the light gave us.

That night, the underdog became the captain.

They are gone now. All of them. We don't live forever; we just live longer. But the sky has changed. Modern radar, satellites, and drones—they fill the air with noise. The reindeer could hear a child's wish from a thousand miles away, but they could not hear each other over the hum of progress.

I do not fly with reindeer anymore. I have a "sleigh" that runs on algorithms and geo-coordinates. It is efficient. It is punctual. It is soulless.

Tonight, on Christmas Eve, I will ascend into the stars. But I will not look at the constellations. I will look for the ghost trails—the ethereal ribbons of stardust left behind by my nine companions.