In response to a suggestion from An Author, I cobbled together this silly little pastiche of naughtiness. Sometimes, Santa is just too busy, and he needs to subcontract to the, er, niche markets.

Whateley, Marsh and Pickman were not the pick of his elves, but until Curwen could get hold of some new essences, they were the best the Big Guy had to hand.

“Have you finished packing the toys for our Special Run, lads?”

Whateley grunted, scratching his midriff. “Nearly, Oh Great Old One”

“Less of the ‘old’, you. I gave you the Special Letters two months ago. What’s taken so long?”

“It’s the writing, Y-S, I had to get our Lavinia to do some deciphering. Not to mention those ones that had gotten damp. Some of the littl’uns wanted some odd stuff, too, and it’s hard to find just about everything at this time of year, what with the Christmas rush on the shops and that”

“Excuses, excuses….”

Marsh chipped in. “If you knew the sacrifices we had to make just to get to where we are now, Boss, you wouldn’t be so hypercritical”

The Big Guy just grunted, “You forget, my old cap’n, that I know exactly what they were! I’m not just an anthropomorphic personification of a season, you know! Well, not quite anthro-, but you get my point. Now, the first of the Special Runs is Innsmouth to Dunwich”

He put on his special voice, and asked if the sack was ready for the run in question. Whateley dabbed at some blood coming out of his left ear.

“It’s in the conveyance, Your Worship. Pickman slowed us down, he kept playing with the Pictionary. I told ‘im ‘e weren’t allowed no crayons an’ stuff, but ‘e never listens. “

The Big Guy had no patience with this excuse, but he promised himself he would have a word with the culprit when The Night was over. He checked the transportation out. His faithful animals waited patiently, some wobbling just a little in excitement and anticipation. He flicked the reins.

“Up Shambler, up Shoggoth! Fly, Ghast, fly Gaunt! To Innsmouth!”

Early flakes of snow were just hissing into the grey waves as he arrived at Broad Street for the first of his specials. He pulled out the letter. After the usual greetings and protestations of a year of suitable behaviour, he read “..an I can’t keep up wiv my bruvver when we goes in swimmen an can I please have a snoarkle forgoing in a water wiv hin. Yours, Luelly Waite”

He smiled at the thought. In a few years time she would be just as strong a swimmer as her brother, but for now, every little helped. Clutching her parcel, he slipped down the chimney and placed it next to her sleeping form being sure to leave the footprints and take a bite from the savouries she had placed on a table for him. On to the next…one letter after another, one gift following each, and as the night’s clock stood still he shot back to the South Pole for another load.

He was soon in his stable, and after threatening Pickman with being dropped in a certain village wearing a T-shirt proclaiming how he REALLY hated cats, he was loaded and once more aloft. As his animal friends drew him swiftly through the night air, he read the most heartbreaking letter he had ever come across. It started, like all the others, with the ritual phrases, and then…

Oh, and then. “I don’t know quite how to put this, but I am no child, not any more. I do not ask for my childhood back, nor for any of its trappings. I would just ask if I could be me, be the me I have always known I was, always dreamt of being, always hoped to become. I know you are a myth, and I know this is silly, but I have lost all hope now and so I leave my life in the hands of someone I know doesn’t exist.

“Dear Big Guy in the Sky, I was born wrong, and I will never be able to do the one thing I have always dreamt of…be a mother. If, if, IF you exist in any way, grant this one thing to me.

“In Hope, Shub N., (mister)”

That was the annual event for him, the one letter that finally brought tears to all of his eyes. He came down on the roof of Shub’s little place in the woods and once more slipped down a chimney.

It was a Spartan place, with no comforts beyond the most basic essentials, and he found the chap asleep in a hard-looking single bed. Sighing with pity, he started to make geometrical passes in the air, muttering the appropriate phrases. Soon, the air was electric with hidden forces, and as he watched the sleeping form, hair was growing longer, dark and curly, and what was now her belly was beginning to swell.

Job done. He knew she would have a lot of kids, and he felt warm inside at the thought of the joy he had brought. As he soared onwards to his next stop at R’lyeh, he couldn’t help himself, and began to sing the old, traditional carol:

“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu

“R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

Perhaps Shub-Niggurath would stop at 1,000, as the old book promised, perhaps not; either way, next year’s Special Run would need a lot more sacks!