A glimpse inside the secretive world of Santa Inc.

What is Santa Inc.?

Santa can’t be everywhere at once, so he relies on groups of trained elven observers stationed at bases around the globe to keep his naughty and nice lists up to date.

Forward Base 1459 operates out of an undisclosed safe house in Taylor County.

Historically, Santa’s toy distribution operation has been centered at the North Pole.

People have long theorized that such a placement was due primarily as a way to shield Santa’s super secret operations from the prying eyes of the public. But what is the truth?

Was the remote location of his headquarters, as some speculate, a way to take advantage of the indigenous elf population in the region and avoid having to pay them competitive wages for their work?

Others cite the lack of government oversight in the far northern region and note that Santa’s operations are far outside the reach of both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Internal Revenue Service, not to mention the massive regulations when dealing with the European Union or the state of California.

Others note the remote location and limited means of transport in and out, not to mention hundreds of thousands of hungry polar bears roaming the outer perimeters, present major obstacles to industry spies. Santa Inc., as the organization is know to insiders, is far from the only game in town when it comes to global package distribution services. While others have made major strides in recent years, no one has been doing it as long and or as consistently well as Santa Inc.

In addition, Santa Inc.’s researchers are constantly testing the new toy and product markets tracking trends and trying to stay ahead of the curve while still ensuring that the good little boys and girls of the world wake up on Christmas morning with goodies in their stockings and gifts under their Christmas trees.

The real secret behind Santa Inc. is that while gift distribution is still an important function at the core of the corporate mission statement, the global conglomerate has evolved into primarily an information aggregator. Santa Inc. maintains massive servers buried deep within the arctic ice pack keeping track of the naughty and nice lists.

Artists create quaint images of Santa poring over hand-written lists and noting the need to give young Billy Brown a cake of soap in addition to the Noah’s Ark list of animals he asked for.

This image has been carefully cultivated by Santa Inc.’s marketing and licensing division because, other than a brief period of time during the moon race in the late 1960s, massive databanks and spreadsheets don’t have the types of visuals needed to maintain Santa Inc.’s dominant role in the gift giving season. People may buy with their wallets, but they give with their hearts.

While toy and gift manufacture and distribution continue as a symbolically important part of the operation, the reality is that the elven workshops have been unable to keep up with demand for decades. The quaint Scandinavian-influenced workshop buildings which dot Santa Inc.’s sprawling arctic campus are largely show-pieces for the occasional high-level visitors who are allowed access.

The reindeer have likewise been surpassed by technological innovation. The logistics and shipping division still maintains the stables and keeps a herd of the magical reindeer for the symbolic ride Santa makes with his flying sleigh each Christmas Eve.

Santa Inc. was an innovator in the concept of diversification and outsourcing labor-intensive portions of its operations. For example, when growing consumer demand for elaborately wrapped gifts began, Santa Inc. took steps to right-size the elven workforce by quietly shuttering most of the wrapping and bowmaking division and out-sourced the work to parents around the world.

As a global information company, Santa Inc. relies on the latest technological advances and the most advanced predictive behavior algorithms to maintain and update its vast databases.

However, after some near-legendary glitches in the system (such as when the entire Detroit Metropolitan Area got put on the naughty list due to a poorly thought out fossil-fuel consumption modifier added by a group of environmental activist elves) Santa has required sparkly, jingle bell-bedazzled boots on the ground.

These advance teams of highly trained elven operatives go deep undercover setting up bases of operations throughout the world.

The elven operatives undergo rigorous training to blend in with local populations. They live, work and play in communities across the country and around the world, all the while compiling information on gift trends and updating Santa Inc.’s naughty and nice lists.

Santa Inc.’s operatives can be anywhere, hiding in plain sight except for subtle clues like an over-fondness for egg nog or starting to wear Christmas-theme clothing in early November.

While mostly harmless, it is best not to confront these undercover operatives for risk of ending up on the permanent naughty list.

When looking at getting the perfect tree for your home, be sure to follow the rule of measuring twice and cutting once to make sure the tree you get matches the space you have for it.