The Sea of Santa

For a long time our friends in the religious right felt that there was no real need to worry about global warming. After all, no matter what happens Santa will continue to deliver Christmas presents to all the good little boys and girls who still believe in him, right? Not any more. It turns out that Santa’s long time abode (a little house cleverly hidden away in a secret crevice in the ice around the North Pole) is being threatened in an unprecedented way.
It’s those thrice-shat upon atheists? You might ask. Is it scientists insisting that no matter how many core samples they take they’ve never brought up pieces of unfortunate elves who couldn’t get out of the way fast enough? Even though we all know what brutal elf-haters these scientists are it isn’t them.
Nope, the culprit is Global warming. In a recent study it was estimated that at the current rate that the northern polar icecap is melting it will be gone in a matter of decades. “That’s fine” you might say, “Santa will deal with it”. And you know what? He sure will. Even now Santa is working on creating a special submarine toy-making facility that will house his reindeer, sleigh and of course all the elves. Of course the changeover will take time, don’t expect any children to get Christmas presents from Santa for at least 20-50 years after his current facility submerges, he and his elves will just be too busy tweaking the new facility to have any time left over to make toys for all the children that, lets face it, didn’t care about Global Warming. There are also a few special problems that Santa will have to deal with, no snow means nothing for the sleigh to run on. That’s OK though, Santa’s been looking forward to upgrading to one of those new jet-ski model sleighs. What about the reindeer, a distinctly terrestrial species? Well there’s your problem. While Santa thought about investing in large cork reindeer shoes, allowing them to walk on water, tests of the aforementioned products were, shall we say, less than successful. While the reindeer could be made to stand on water successfully the lack of traction made any attempts at motion quickly end with a splash and the unfortunate animal trying desperately to get its feet under it.
Although Santa would love to keep his beloved reindeer in their traditional position he is currently reviewing a list of other cold-water species that could, perhaps, maneuver in an aquatic environment. Polar bears are a good choice as they are adept swimmers and can function on land, unfortunately tests showed that while the jolly old elf could approach and handle them without worry the other elves that tried to approach weren’t so lucky. Penguins were suggested, they would be perfect, it was argued, because of their ability to function on land. Unfortunately strict guidelines prohibit the use of a southern hemisphere animal by a northern hemisphere-based demigod. Santa, as it is not commonly known, is banned from the use of the South Pole as a base because it is the only breeding ground of Emperor Penguins. Although the possibility of using porpoises came up, as they more than any other arctic animal are capable of leaping gracefully into the air from a watery beginning, they have the unfortunate property that they do not function well on land. It was suggested that perhaps when landing on a roof the stranded dolphins could simply slide down the slope of the roof for an elegant takeoff, but that brought up the problem of children who live in flat-roofed homes. No, I’m afraid as cool as a jet-ski pulled by a team of flying dolphins would look it is simply impractical for land-based deliveries.
Naturally there is a bright side to this. With the increase in sea level expected to accompany such a catastrophic melting of the northern polar ice cap many people would also soon have to live in floating house-boats. With this in play Santa could freely use his team of dolphins to make deliveries to such residences without fear that his team would be stranded high and dry. While the image of the jolly old elf, clad in red fur and driving a sleigh pulled by 8 reindeer will no doubt become a thing of the past Santa’s new image, a man dressed from head to toe in a red wetsuit driving a jet-ski pulled by a team of 8 dolphins, will soon take over.