Santini Claus

'Dis whole Claus thing. You think you knows 'bout some Saint Nicholas and some ancient eastern stahgazahs with gold and whatnot. Hah! FuGEDaboudit. Lemme tell 'ya how it all really stahted.

Mr. Carlos Santini, a respectable citizen in 'dis fine community and my employah, yah see, needed whatcha call a public image makeovah, and the boys all felt he needed to get back in touch with his roots. See, if ya got no family an' no roots, 'ya got nobody. There was 'dis woid goin' round, you see, that he was involved in some kind of disreputable business practices. Now, me, I gotta problem wid that, 'cause I happen to know for a fact that Mr. Santini never strong-ahms nobody. He just has connections and likes to do favahs for people, makin' sure they stay outta trouble, see. Can he help it if they repay his generosity?

Anyway, Mr. Santini felt he needed a public image makeovah, see. So we figured that spreadin' the wealth around once a year during the holidays to the local rugrats would be a nice touch. Well, they was complications--Mr. Santini doesn't like to be out in the public eye, you see. In this business we have competitahs who are less reputable and would love nuttin' better than to see my employah take a hit. So a disguise was in order. Figurin' that our competitors knew that Santini liked to stay in the background, me and the boys thought that the best defense was a good offense and the best way to hide was right in plain sight. So hid his face with the whole beard and cap nonsense while at the same time found the brightest red costume we could lay our hands on. If you're gonna stick out like a sore thumb, ya might as well do it in some class.

The best thing was dese gifts could be anything you wanted to send to anybody, and sendin' surprises to your competitors through the local mail all legit-like has its benefits. And it helped establish a sense of family in the young ones, which is a good thing. If you know Mr. Santini, you know how important family is to him.

It woiked for years, 'til the kids from outta town started expectin' it too and the whole thing snowballed. Then some snoopin' newsie caught on, and nearly blew our covah. De other bosses, dey started suspectin' that SC was really CS. Well, we woiked some connections, and now everybody's cousin wears the suit 'round that same time, and our competitors won't find 'im. But in order to make it stick with the public we needed to do somethin' drastic. As it turns out, Mr. Santini and the pope go way back. Gotten eachother out of more than one jam, see. Lefty had the idea of adding a bit of gifting to the Good Book 'bout mysterious wise guys from 'de east visitin' Bethlehem in order to make the tradition stick with a believable history. They'd just fade in somewheres, give their gifts, and fade out. No harm done.

Now I'll bet you're wonderin' 'bout the whole north pole / elves / reindeer gig, what's tha' all about, right? Well, when you work for Mr. Santini, the base of operations is what you might call a trade secret.

Now, the construction biz here in the Big A is all ran by a colleague of ours who happens to be a midget named Hermey. Nice guy, Hermey. Way I hear it, he wanted to be a dentist before life took ovah and he landed as don. Well, we needed a favah, and he wanted in. Bada-boom-bada-bing, we had to make space for the elves.

Well, now that I've gone and told 'ya all the real scoop, I'm gonna have to make sure it never gets out, see. Nuttin' poisonal. Just business. Now if you'd kindly follow Guito, my fellow business associate, he'll fix you up right good with an offer you can't refuse.