Christmas Eve

As longtime readers of this blog know, Shortcake works Christmas Eve at Santaland.  She opens, and then she stays until the end.  This year was no different.  Blissful came in at 7am, and Cider came in at 4pm.  Shortcake strawbossed, and Blissful took care of everything else - reshoots, Breakfast with Santa, the Macy's give-away (Which was AWESOME this year.  Pajama pants!  Shortcake has been living in them.).  Cider took care of an eeeeeepic Santa train at the end of the night.

It was a good day.  It started with these post-its from Cider.



Blissful wore these awesome Christmas socks.  Shortcake does not have Christmas socks, so she wore narwhal socks.

Fezziwig and Serafina had a dance off before we opened the Land.  Dumpling lint rolled Santa's coat because he is a nice elf.  The care he put into lint rolling Santa's hat was amazing.

Per usual, the white flowers wore hats and elfed up.

Check out the Star Wars scarf that Jubilee is wearing.


That's Dewdrop, Jubilee, Serafina, Nicole, Bon Bon and Shortcake.


And this is what happens when the white flowers walk out of the scheduling office to handle something.  Elves end up in charge.

Someone came up with the idea of elf Olympics.
 
And then put Pringles in charge of judging it.  And Icecap photobombed.  Shortcake kept walking into Santa's house and finding elves making a ruckus.

Remember Krampus?  He wasn't able to visit Santaland this year - and we sorely missed his bourban balls - that is not a euphemism - but he did call to say hello to Santa.  Shortcake turned around to see Santa hanging up the phone and wiping tears from his eyes.

Of course, not everyone was in a good mood on Christmas Eve.  There was one woman who recently had surgery on her knee and asked to be backdoored to see Santa, so she didn't have to stand in line.  We accommodated her.  Then she complained that she didn't get to see the maze.  Shortcake tried to explain that the maze was the line, and if she wanted to see the maze then she needed to wait in line with everyone else.  And the woman didn't get it and kept offering to show Shortcake her stitches.  Shortcake could not make her understand that the injury was not the problem - we already accommodated that by taking her to see Santa.  But if she didn't want to wait in line, then she missed the maze because the maze is the line.  Finally Shortcake passed it up to a white flower because that was way above her paygrade.

In other news, there seemed to be fewer proposals this year than normal.  Santa did have one proposal.  The recently engaged couple started kissing on Santa's lap, and then forgot Santa was there.  The bride-to-be apologized to Santa as the couple left.

Willie had a good visit with Santa.  He's been asking for a Super Nintendo for years.  He always brings it up and chastises Santa for not bringing it to him.  So this year Little Star and Snowball and a lot of the elves got together to give Willie his Super Nintendo.  When he opened it, he said "Oh, this is what I've been asking for."

That's Willie with ET and his trumpet with Santa, Bon Bon, Serafina, Little Star, Feliz Navidad and Snowball.


Willie unwrapping his present.


When Willie saw what his present was


Santa and the elves and ET - Willie didn't want to be in the photo, he wanted to take the photo


Ceci and Shortcake - Ceci kept trying to ruin Shortcake's life by sending her reshoots.


Rondel, the original Freeze Frame.


Cider uses this hammer when he leads tour groups.  Actual conversation between Cider and Ruby as they headed home:
Ruby: Get your mallet and let's go home.
Cider: *under his breath* It's a hammer.

If you've been paying attention to the blog for the past, oh, ten years, then you know that Shortcake has been working at Santaland for nine out of those ten years.  So the class of 2008 decided to commemorate the moment.

Shortcake and Pecan Pie, class of 2008


Fa La La is not a member of the class of 2008, but it feels like he is.



That's not everyone from the class of 2008, but it's a lot of us: Gingersnap, Teddy Bear, Tippy Toes, Estrella, Flurry, Cider and Shortcake


This is everyone who's been at Santaland for 10 years - 10 as reindeer antlers.  We're adorable.

Okay, so.  Shortcake wanted a photo with Cider and Blissful where they all wore their black Santaland jackets.


This turned into an epic photo shoot.  Turns out, Santa really enjoys being a photo elf.






Santa's Angels






Facepalm


Santa said "act out a scenario"












And there was one more scenario, but Shortcake can't post the pictures in a public forum.

At the end of the day, Santa headed off on his trip around the world to deliver presents.  Shortcake headed home, surprisingly still alert, and packed while watching Miracle on 34th Street - the best Christmas movie ever made, and, no, you cannot convince her otherwise.