Programming note: As I have pointed out before, the machine-generated transcript is really rough. Best to listen to the audio version if you can. Enjoy!
INTRO
Santa Claus the After Action Report Well here we are at Christmas morning 2023.
We finally made it.
I hope you are all having a marvelous day with your tree and your family and that pile of gifts to be returned and exchanged that's already stacking up by the utility room door.
Today is the last of three interviews with Santa Claus, exclusive to The Alligator Blog.
I know that he and Rudolph and the gang have had a really rough night of it, but he has agreed to give us a few minutes before he hits the hay.
Let's get right to it.
CURT
All right, we're back with Santa.
Santa, listen, I want to say to you this morning, Merry Christmas.
I'm sure that you are just wasted from the night, right?
SANTA
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, it doesn't get any easier.
year by year but uh I tell you it's uh so satisfying to see those uh here the kids running down the stairs yeah opening up their gifts you haven't you haven't been caught ever have you have you ever been caught uh in in somebody's living room by the tree no
CURT
Do you have a way to manage that?
I'm not sure how that works.
SANTA
I have knocked over a few trees, but fortunately it's always blamed on the cat or the dog.
Poor Fido, our little kitty, but no, not yet.
We've managed to, or little Billy.
It's always little Billy that's blamed.
CURT
So you're, but you're probably really worn out.
I bet that, but the reindeer, Donder and Blitzen, those guys are probably really glad to be back.
SANTA
Yeah, they're actually, uh, yeah, they're in the hot tub.
CURT
Really?
SANTA
Yeah.
Okay.
Just getting, getting their muscles loosened again.
They'll go, they'll go to the massage masseur a little bit later.
Uh, so we, we take good care of, take good care of them.
CURT
I bet you do.
SANTA
They get their break time, their vacation time.
CURT
And when you're out all night, do they have to like stop and eat or how do they keep up their eneenergy all night?
SANTA
Yeah, they train all year.
They do sneak an energy drink or two along the way.
Their favorite is red deer.
CURT
Red deer, right. That would make sense.
SANTA
That keeps them going for the duration of their time.
And they help each other out.
Donna and Blitzen were a little bit at odds.
We had to switch them around mid-flight.
But anyway, we make do.
CURT
Yeah, that's great.
Well, you got a pretty good team sounds like I'm sure there's always going to be interpersonal problems between coworkers.
SANTA
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
CURT
Just take some management issues.
So hands on.
Yeah.
You know, I want to get back to this issue we talked a little bit about last time.
I don't want to keep you because I know you're probably ready to hit the hot tub yourself probably or something like that.
Mrs. Claus probably glad to have you home here for a while.
Yeah, yeah.
But but last time we started talking about the naughty and nice list.
You've got the book that's coming out.
Mm hmm.
SANTA
Right, yeah, paperback, audio.
I think Mrs. Claus will be reading it.
CURT
Oh, really?
So she'll be doing the audio.
That'd be great.
Yeah, yeah.
SANTA
The elves were vying for that, but they're a little hard to understand.
They don't have quite the volume.
CURT
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, they're probably disappointed with that.
But okay, but the naughty and nice thing, how do you do, the surveillance that you have, and you mentioned Alexa last time, that's been a great help with that.
Do any of the, and this may be.. do the 3 letter agencies help with that?
SANTA
Curt, it's a highly top secret.
What is your security clearance?
Oh, that's right.
You've got millions of listeners as well.
CURT
I have an unnamed number of listeners.
That's about all I can say about that.
Unnamed, yeah.
But you have non-disclosure agreements then, right?
SANTA
That's right.
If we were offline, you had a top secret clearance, we could talk about that as well.
CURT
We probably can't do that here.
Okay.
But I expect they're quite, they're quite interested in that, because you got to keep that updated all the time.
And you mentioned something about my own status, which I'd really rather not go into, in terms of any of the details about that.
Right.
SANTA
But yeah, yeah, you're still on the nice list.
So yeah, yeah.
CURT
And I am.
Okay, well, that's, that's good.
That's good.
I not quite sure how that happened.
But okay.
So, so mechanical issues when you when you spend the night going around and I again, I know you're probably tired now.
Are there mechanical issues that come up like a loose runner on the sleigh or?
SANTA
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
That's why we have a, we have a in-flight elf crew that's ready to, usually it's a loose runner, a harness that needs to be repaired.
CURT
Do they ride with you or do they have their own sleigh that they take?
Do they have a chase sleigh?
SANTA
Yeah.
Yeah.
They have their compartment in the back.
CURT
And what about the bells? Do you run silent?
SANTA
, yes, it depends on where we're at.
And we're silent in most cases, but occasionally we'll let the bells ring.
CURT
And you know, what I've always wondered about is how does the sleigh on some of these, some of these steep pitch roofs, particularly you get into Colorado and the high country and the, you know, they're really enamored with those 1212 pitches.
You know, here in the flatlands in Kansas, we have 412 pitch, which is about right.
And you can stay on top of that.
But how do you deal with that extraordinarily steep pitch on the roof, though, with the sleigh?
SANTA
Well, yeah, I will say this year, Curt, with the lack of snow, the ice wasn't an issue.
But as you can imagine, northern climates, we've got we've got studs, studded reindeer hooves that keep us, and occasionally I've had to use an anchor.
CURT
But is that just an old wives tale, or do you really do the chimney thing?
How does that work, Santa?
SANTA
Well, it depends on the house, Curt.
Sometimes we'll, and I will say there aren't nearly as many fires in the chimney that would cause an issue, but we make do.
Occasionally I'll send an elf or two down if it's a one-child family.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, we make do with the personnel we have on board.
CURT
So you just have to adapt to that is what that amounts to.
Right.
Yeah, that sounds very cool, really, that you can do that.
Have you seen any demographic changes in the population that you serve in the last few years?
I mean, are there more families that are blended families?
You know, the
SANTA
You can imagine the difficulty we had with chimneys.
You were mentioning, its one thing for me, but with a pony, it gets a little bit tight.
Not to mention the space in the living room.
CURT
You didn't get any of the almond milk or the goat milk.
SANTA
Very few almond milk.
We had one joker that again put out the llama milk.
CURT
You're always going to have that.
You're always going to have that.
I don't know why that is that we're just trying to take a perfectly good system.
I don't mean to go off on that, but you know, you got this fine system.
It's a well, it's a well-tuned machine that you've got working here, Santa.
SANTA
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
CURT
And speaking of the well-tuned, one last question.
What do you do in terms of continuous process improvement?
Because I know a lot of people are really interested in that.
It's kind of a buzzword, maybe.
But how does that work into your business?
I mean, have you had initiatives on that?
SANTA
Yeah, that that'll come out in our, in our, in the book that I'm really finishing up now to the continuous improvement that is made.
You know, obviously, we talked about the robot, the robotics, and the AI routine, you've got, we've got, we got all that in place.
But
CURT
You must look at Amazon and you must just think they're a bunch of rank amateurs at this.
Is that really what the feeling is?
SANTA
They're getting it all together.
This drone thing, I don't know how that's going to go.
CURT
It could be dangerous for one, for you guys.
SANTA
Yeah, that is a hazard, Curt, as we get into flying drones.
CURT
This again may be one of those things we shouldn't talk about.
You don't have any self-defense
CURT
You've done a really good job getting those presents out, and I know that every year it's the same kind of thing, but do you have any parting shots or any messages?
SANTA
Well, I hope you enjoy that plaid shirt.
We give you one every year, but that's another one.
CURT
That's a great, yeah, another, but I noticed the size keeps increasing too, which I really appreciate
I think we're into the 3XLT this year, or maybe 4XLT.
SANTA
Yeah, we keep up with that, Curt.
You might want to keep
Keep tabs on on that.
Speaking of workouts, but we we try to please and we're happy and we wish everyone all the best this this this Christmas and all the Christmases to come.
EXIT
CURT
And we are so pleased that Santa Claus himself has joined us for these interviews.
I've got to say, he is not quite how I always pictured him.
But then I suppose Hallmark had to draw something for their cards all those years.
Sometimes the reality is even better than we might have guessed.
You all have a good day.
If you missed the other two interviews, find them at alligatorpublishing.com slash santaclausinterview.
And from all of us here at The Alligator Blog, have a Merry Christmas.
2023 Santa 3 of 3 Interviews