December 16th: Speaking of Christmas Spirit ??

The reindeer were kept busy—not like Christmas Eve of course, but still—picking up twelve children and their parents. They had a great time flying high in the sky en route to the North Pole, and now they were ready to meet Santa Claus in the banquet hall. Everyone sat around a table with Santa at the head of the table. At the far end of the room, Mrs. Claus, John Smith, Dr. Abacus McKinley, and all the pixie girls, elves, and reindeer who wanted to listen sat anxiously waiting to hear what the children and parents had to say.

“A very warm welcome to all of you,” Santa started with a big smile. “It really is a pleasure to have you here at the North Pole and we are very excited to learn from you about Christmas. You may think it’s strange that we’re asking you to tell us about Christmas, because we’re supposed to be the experts, right? But the thing is, we want to hear what you think about Christmas. And that’s exactly what we need from you—not facts and figures, but your thoughts and feelings.”

And so it got started. The conversation was very lively and only occasionally did Santa have to bring things back on track. Most of the children were focused on the existence of Santa Claus:

“Santa, I know I’m here at the North Pole and you look just like the Coca-Cola Santa, so you must be the real thing. But last Saturday I was with Mom and Dad in two different malls and you were at both places. How can that be?”

“We don’t have a chimney, so how can you bring me and my sister our presents when all my friends say that you go down the chimney?”

“My uncle who works at an airport says it’s not possible to visit all the world’s homes in only one night, so how do you do it?”

Of course, Santa could answer these questions, but his purpose was not to discuss, it was to listen so he just sat quietly and took note of it all.

Hardly surprising, the children also had many thoughts on the topic of presents:

“Santa, I have been mostly good this year, but my mom says that she believes I’m on your naughty list. Does that mean you won’t bring me presents this year?”

“My parents are divorced, so please put me on your special delivery list to come two nights, Christmas Eve at Mom’s and Christmas Day at Dad’s. Will you do that, please?”

“If my brother has been bad, really bad, does that mean I get all his gifts?”

Santa was a little saddened by some of the questions. Some of the kids seemed more concerned about gifts than about the true meaning of Christmas.

The parents also had feelings about the presents, however not their own presents.

“These are tough times, Santa. I lost my job eight months ago and now we’re fighting to keep our home. For us, Christmas is even tougher because the kids have such high expectations.”

“My son only wants expensive gifts like a PlayStation, an iPad, and the new Android, and he says he’s seen you in ads promoting these things. That’s not fair to us parents.”

Santa’s heart ached to hear this, because he certainly didn’t want to put parents in a difficult spot. Of course it wasn’t him in the ads, or even his freelance Santas, but who could know the difference?

After two hours they were done. Santa was both sad and thrilled. Sad, because he hadn’t always liked what he’d heard. Thrilled, because he—and not least his staff, who had heard it all, too—now had a pretty good idea of some of the reasons for their problems. That would make it easier to solve the problems, although Santa also knew it was not going to be easy at all.

Santa wrapped it up. “Thank you all very much for sharing your thoughts and feelings. It has been difficult for me not to make any comments, but I have made a lot of notes, which we will be using to make Christmas an even better experience for you, and …”

”If you’re really Santa Claus,” interrupted a boy, “you can get me all the stuff that I want, and if you can’t, you’re just a nice man with a white beard, like Mom says.”

Before Santa could answer a little girl stepped in. “How can you be so rude to Santa?” she said to the boy before turning to Santa. “Santa, I always wondered what you would like to receive for a gift this year? You always give to others. What can we give to you?”

“Oh, you sweet little thing,” Santa said. “Listen, and this will be my last remark today: To you children I would like to say that even though presents are a very nice thing to get, Christmas is really more about giving than getting. And my wish for you parents is that your Christmas will be about what’s in your heart and not what’s in your pocket! Have a safe reindeer trip home!”

Main take-aways:

?? Often thoughts and feelings are more revealing than facts and figures

?? Listening is typically much better than discussing if you want to find the cause for a problem

?? It’s important to have a broad range of employees to interact with the customers

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