What a disaster. New Years just passed (happy 2823!) and Santa’s still stuck at the Gift Facility with at least two thirds of the global Gift load. 

‘Twas the night before Christmas…

Shortly after finishing the rounds in Hawaii, Prancer started dry-heaving for unknown reasons, stalling and refusing to move whatsoever. Concerned for the safety of his beloved reindeer (second only to Rudolph), Santa redirected his sled completely, taking it allll the way back to Siberia (contrary to popular belief, the Gift facility is not actually in the North Pole) for an interim replacement. 

Just before reaching his destination, someone lost, freezing and in need of serious attention accidentally struck Santa’s sled with a flare, shattering the reindeer control mechanism and making them scatter in just about every conceivable direction, giving Santa about ten minutes to reach his destination using the Sled’s extremely limited (because petroleum is a resource that even Santa can’t afford) emergency fuel supply. 

By the skin of his teeth, Santa was able to pilot the sled to the gift facility reindeerless, barely alive, crash landing in the elf recreation yard. Sixteen elves were injured and nine of them were hospitalized, but luckily none were killed. A search party was immediately sent to look for the reindeer while Santa got to work repairing the sled. Luckily, an unusual amount of people wished for mechanical tools and equipment this year, and he had everything he needed to repair the thing. However, no matter how quickly Santa fixed the sled, he wouldn’t be able to fly without at least six of the nine reindeer, and even if he were to have six of the reindeer, the speed of the sled would be severely compromised. So here we are, in a cluttered garage, boxed in by the unfathomably abysmal weather conditions of winter in the poisoned Northern Hemisphere of 28th century Earth. 

But don’t worry: Christmas is definitely still happening. It just might be a while.