Santa Claus needs help

While there have been fewer children attending church, requests of Santa have been on an up trend. Coordinating the creation of new toys required outsourcing, a realm with which Santa was not familiar until the early part of this century.

It has been said Santa believes strongly in keeping his presence surreptitious and usually works back channels to increase the supply chain. While it is widely known he is an expert in meeting deadlines, the last century’s population expansion caused him to reach out to Tim Cook when he was running the supply chain for Apple before he became CEO. Cook was able to help with the secret use of several factories, parts manufacturing and delivery streamlining and through other efforts that remain proprietary.

One other notable change was that Santa now uses GPS mapping established by North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, to work for a complete 24 hours by beginning his flight as night falls in the far eastern reaches of the globe so children in Somoa, Tonga and the appropriately named Christmas Island get their gifts first with those in American Somoa (on the other side of the International Date Line) receiving their gifts last.

Still, as most well know, the outsourcing expanded to some parents who were willing to participate in assistance without their children’s knowledge. That volunteer effort was particularly helpful with the increase of apartment living and the conversion of traditional fire-burning chimneys to gas or electric inserts.

That has allowed Santa to stay on track to meet the before-daylight Christmas Day deadline for many years, but there was some concern in recent weeks that there might be a failure — mainly because of the L.O.L. dolls. The situation came to a head this week with the alert that there was significant danger that Santa and his elves would not make the deadline.

In response, recent reports reveal Santa has been asking through various representatives that children really consider whether they want the dolls, and also asking that old packaging no longer needed be immediately placed in the recycle bin to be, well, collected and “reused” rather then left around the house for fathers to step on and otherwise find annoying. Also, in the overall effort to make sure there are enough toys for all, Santa has asked children and their parents to donate new and unwrapped toys to various drives, usually organized by fire departments, service clubs or nonprofits such as Samaritan House in San Mateo County. Additionally, Santa has also made the request that old toys that are no longer played with be donated to various nonprofits so all children will have access to low-cost toys and parent volunteers will have an easier time in accommodating their outsourcing agreement. As a bonus, this clearing of old toys out of children’s homes will allow for more space for new toys and also give parents some semblance of normalcy without the need to pack toys into every single available household crevice. I mean, there are literally toys everywh ... .

As you can see, this is a top-to-bottom effort from international diplomacy and national bipartisanship to parent participation and children’s action. Together, we can ensure that there is ample supply for all this Christmas and provide Santa the assistance he needs. The main question at this point is simply — are you willing and able to help?

Jon Mays is the editor in chief of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com. Follow Jon on Twitter @jonmays.