This morning, I found this in the mail; I guess I must have missed it back in October.
October 15, 2009
From the Offices of:
Santa Claus
The North Pole
Dear Friends,
As you know, the Christmas season is soon upon us. Due to the economic down turn of the global economy, I regret to inform you that this year, I must change our Christmas traditions – only slightly.
Last week the GPS went bad in the sleigh (what, you don’t think Santa knows how to use technology?), and that my friends was awfully expensive; I swear the dealerships are intentionally making things harder to fix on your own sleigh – it’s a racket!
The day after the GPS was fixed I found that moths had eaten through my Santa suit – if dealerships weren’t bad enough, I had to go to the local department store to get a new suit – bleeding hearts of the world unite!
Later on that day the toilet in office #10 backed up. Once the plumber got done giving our pipes the shaft (and our wallets too), he announced that Christmas tree roots had infiltrated them; and we would need to hire a backhoe to come in and dig up and replace the pipes.
Well, as you know, in the North Pole it’s pretty cold – so we had to hire some specialists (i.e. the U.S. Government) to come in and handle it.
While the U.S. government doesn’t actually believe in magic and Christmas and for sure Peace on Earth, what they do believe in is taking money from anyone and everyone they can get their paws on – so needless to say, while over charging us for the work they were doing they also snuck in some tax assessors and slapped us with over a million dollars in back taxes (who knew that we had to pay taxes on all the toys that WE make and give away!).
If that wasn’t bad enough, because of the shortage of the flu shots, Mrs. Claus came down with a variant called the reindeer flu. As you know, we are self-employed, but we do not qualify for Medicare, and between the government and the insurance companies, and now the medical bills we have had to sell a few of the reindeer to make ends meet.
So, in the spirit of Christmas giving, this year, I must ask that you give a small donation in appreciation of the time, money and effort we all put in here at the North Pole. This money will be used to pay off medical bills, legal bills, and repairs, as well as paying our 2010 insurance premiums which have just gone up as the insurance company found out that I am a bit overweight!
Due to the restrictions placed on the North Pole by the United States Government, who has now decided that we are all Americans and under their sovereign rule; I ask that you give donations of monetary value less than 200 dollars at any given time, and more importantly, in cash only.
I appreciate your understanding,
Santa Claus