some of us are old enough to remember when the christmas tree had a star at the top. now, the star has been displaced and the top billing goes to an angel. i’ve always wondered about how things like this change, so i did some research on the subject.
it seems that one year in the early 1950’s – a few weeks before christmas, santa was having a hard time…
mrs. claus had p.m.s. and had been snapping at him for a couple days. he hurried down to breakfast, where he found the toast was burned. he spilled a little coffee on his beard, but was able to wipe most of it up. not starting out well… he finished up breakfast as fast as he could and headed to the workshop.
at the workshop, the chief production elf told him that they had fallen behind schedule. santa authorized the shift to work overtime two hours a day until the load could be caught up. the shop steward of the elven union agreed, but only at time and a half. santa realized he didn’t have any other good choices, so he signed off on the extra money and headed out to the reindeer shed to check on the livestock.
…it wasn’t good. two of the reindeer were pregnant, and rudolph was drunk, which gave him a hint about how the pregnancies happened. santa got on the phone to his neighbor and arranged to rent a couple replacement deer. maybe rudloph would straighten up in time, but he arranged for a back-up just in case.
that left the sleigh. santa walked next door to the sleigh barn, and was pleased to see that there was already a sack of toys ready. he tossed it into the cargo bin of the sleigh, only to find that the flooring of the bin had dry rot. the sack fell right through onto the ground…
…at this point there was a knocking on the door of the barn. when santa answered the door, he saw a beautiful little angel dragging a huge christmas tree. “i’ve brought this year’s tree,” said the angel, “where do you want me to put it?”