The Autobiography of Santa Claus

by Jeff Guinn

  “We know all about that,” Felix commented dryly.

  In any event, Peary agreed Leonardo could come with him on his next attempt to reach the North Pole. That one didn’t succeed, either, but Leonardo came back convinced that the North Pole would make the perfect home base for us.

  “Once we were settled there, no one would bother us except occasional passing polar bears,” he insisted. “There would be so much space. We could make our toy factories as large as we wanted.”

  “It would be impossible for our craftsmen to build toys if they were exposed to freezing winds and blizzards,” commented Arthur, who was visiting us from England. “The strongest-walled houses would blow down in some of those Arctic storms. Besides, none of us knows how to make an igloo.”

  “We’d use the principle of igloos, not igloos themselves,” Leonardo urged. “We’ll create a man-made, self-contained environment. See, the snow and ice can be used as insulation. You must factor in density; let me write out the formula.” He did, and it was the strangest set of unreadable chicken scratchings I’d ever seen.

  “You’ve lost me,” I admitted.

  Ben Franklin took the notebook from Leonardo, glanced at the scribbled formula, and said, “Basically, Santa, Leonardo wants to use the snow and ice as outer walls to protect us from the bad weather. As an outer shell, so to speak. Inside that shell, we can build roofs and walls, toy factories and apartments.”

  “We can use generators to supply power,” Leonardo added. “There aren’t any portable generators yet, but I’ll invent them immediately. I have some ideas, too, for other inventions that will eventually allow us to get energy from the sun itself, or, rather, from the light it radiates. Just let us locate the right spot at the North Pole, Santa, and I’ll teach the craftsmen from our toy factories to build the finest snow- and ice-covered facility possible.

  “By the way, there’s one more advantage,” he continued. “If our outer shell is made up of snow, ice, and earth, then, in the near future when airplanes fly all over the skies, pilots looking down at the North Pole won’t be able to tell anyone is living there at all. They’ll just think we’re an especially big hill or bit of glacier.”

  “What do you mean, airplanes flying all over the skies?” I asked peevishly, since I didn’t really understand anything else Ben or Leonardo had said.

  “Oh, it will happen, Santa,” Leonardo assured me. “In fact, just before Christmas this year I’m going to go to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with my friends the Wright brothers. They think they might be able to make their airplane fly there. I could, of course, tell them exactly what to do, but I think it’s better for them to figure things out for themselves with just a few hints from me.”

  I snorted, less from disbelief than from a growing sense that someday soon I’d be living at the North Pole. Leonardo had proven through the centuries that he was capable of solving any scientific problem.

  The Wright brothers became famous at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903, when their primitive engine-powered airplane first flew 120 feet in twelve seconds, then 852 feet in fifty-nine seconds. It was hard for me to feel too impressed; every Christmas season, I flew thousands of miles in my sleigh. Later on, in history books for schoolchildren, there were photographs of that airplane and the Wright brothers standing beside it. If you study some of those photographs carefully, you’ll see a tall, slender man in the background. It’s Leonardo, of course.

  Leonardo came back to the Cooperstown farm from Kitty Hawk and set to work inventing plans for our new North Pole home. It took him more than five years. In the meantime, Theodore was elected president for a full four-year term, and he kept pestering me to give up the idea of the North Pole and move into the White House instead.

  “What I’ll do is make the Congress vote that you and your helpers can live there no matter who is president,” he promised.

  “But, Theodore, you can’t tell Congress all about us,” I reminded him. “Some of those elected officials wouldn’t be able to keep our secrets.”

  Theodore frowned. “I would threaten to shoot anyone who told on you. They know I’d do it, too.”

  “Please don’t,” I asked. “Besides, Leonardo’s determined that we’re going to go and live with the polar bears.”

  “Well, let me finish this term as president and I’ll move up there with you,” Theodore suggested. “Things around here are getting too civilized. You might need someone to protect you from the polar bears. I’d like to shoot a polar bear or two.”

  “We can talk more about that when the time comes,” I suggested. “Right now, the country and the world need you more.” Theodore seemed pleased when I said that; he always enjoyed praise.

  Finally, in early 1909, after several months of building odd-looking igloos in the fields of our farm, Leonardo announced he had perfected what he called his “self-contained environment” plans and was ready to proceed. We knew from the newspapers that Robert Peary planned to make his next attempt to reach the North Pole in March. We contacted him, and he invited Leonardo to go along, as well as anyone else from our group who wanted to come. Willie Skokan did, of course, and so did Arthur and Attila, who always craved new adventures. Disgustingly, Layla wanted to go, too, which meant I was expected to go with her.

  “I hope you’re satisfied,” I grumbled four weeks later, as all of us in Peary’s group huddled in drafty igloos. We were swaddled in fur cloaks provided by Eskimos; I later found they treated the fur with fish oil, which made the cloaks waterproof and very, very smelly. After spending three weeks in the cold and snow, Peary still thought we were another two weeks away from the North Pole.

  “Oh, stop complaining,” Layla said sharply. “Leonardo thinks he found an error in Peary’s map. We’ll be at the North Pole in just a few days, he says. So eat a little smoked caribou meat and get some sleep.”

  “I’d rather have cocoa and cookies,” I mumbled.

  Six days later, on April 6, 1909, Peary and Leonardo, who were walking a few hundred yards ahead of the rest of us, suddenly stopped in their tracks. Peary jumped up and down for joy. “It’s the North Pole! We’re here!” he shouted. Personally, I didn’t see any real cause for excitement. Where we were looked no different than anywhere else as far as the eye could see—just more snow and ice. But apparently it was the North Pole, and we were there. Peary planted an American flag, which the wind promptly knocked down and blew away. Then we turned around and headed back.

  When we returned to civilization, Peary went to New York City and reported his achievement. A few months later another explorer named Frederick Cook, a doctor who had previously traveled with Peary, claimed he had reached the North Pole first. If he had, we hadn’t seen him, and he hadn’t left behind any markers to prove he’d been there. A fierce debate followed, with some people believing Peary and some believing Cook. We stayed out of it.

  For the next four years, Leonardo, Willie Skokan, Arthur, Attila, and dozens of our best craftsmen would head for the North Pole right after we’d completed our holiday season gift-giving. Eventually, Leonardo and some of the craftsmen stayed there year-round. Whenever I asked if I could come and see what they were doing, I was informed they were working hard, didn’t need to be interrupted, and would invite me when they were ready. I waited impatiently. So did Theodore, who desperately wanted to be part of what he called “the bully Santa Claus adventure.” He left the presidency in 1909 and traveled around the world. Bored, he returned to run for president in 1913, but lost. Theodore then resumed his requests to join us.

  “Wait a while longer,” I urged. “When the time is right, I’ll tell you.”

  Finally, in May 1913, Leonardo returned to the Cooperstown farm. He told everyone else to pack their belongings and come with him, then instructed me to wait three weeks and fly to the North Pole with the reindeer.

  “How will I find you?” I asked. “From the air, I won’t be able to tell one snowdrift from another.”

  “Trust the reindeer and th
e stars,” Leonardo said mysteriously. “When you’ve acted on faith before, you’ve always succeeded, haven’t you?”

  So I spent three weeks all alone, the first time I’d been by myself for so long in centuries. It was quite peaceful; I fed the reindeer and ignored cablegrams from Theodore begging me to let him stow away on the sleigh.

  On the appointed day I got up well before dawn, so the reindeer and I could fly away under cover of darkness. Not a stick of furniture or scrap of food was left in the farmhouse. I put my red Santa outfit on over my regular clothes. Somehow when I was up in the sleigh, the red suit seemed to protect me from the weather.

  The reindeer and I flew north, and gradually the land beneath us changed from green grass to brown hills and, finally, to rocky ground with patches of snow and ice. I had learned from Leonardo that even the North Pole wasn’t always cold and freezing. Sometimes the temperature reached forty degrees, and bits of stringy grass popped up and waved in the wind.

  And that was how it looked below as the reindeer and I moved into what was called the Arctic Circle, flying farther north as the sky around us darkened and stars began to twinkle. I watched the stars, and it gradually occurred to me that several of them seemed to shine all in a row, a neat row pointing down. Then I looked at where those stars seemed to be pointing, and there was the tiny figure of Leonardo da Vinci waving at me.

  I tugged the reins gently; the reindeer turned downward in a graceful arc. As we drew close, I saw Leonardo was pointing to his left. Doors suddenly swung out of what seemed to be a lumpy hill covered with a layer of snow. Without further direction from me, the reindeer gracefully swooped through the doors and landed on a long, carpeted runway.

  I looked around. I was in some sort of enclosed area that seemed to go on forever. It was well lit and warm; as the sleigh came to a stop, Layla and all my old, dear friends—Felix, Attila, Dorothea, Arthur, Francis, Willie Skokan, Ben Franklin, Sarah, Sequoyah, and, of course, Leonardo—crowded around with cries of welcome.

  “Come see, Santa, come see!” they chanted like excited children. For the next two hours I was escorted through a wonderland of toy assembly areas, storerooms for tools and raw materials, laboratories, kitchens, dining rooms, bathrooms, guest rooms for visitors, and, finally, private quarters for each of my special friends. It was astonishing, all built under a protective cover of snow and ice and earth, and everything snug and comfortable and somehow welcoming.

  “Come over here, Santa, and see your new office,” Felix urged, and I found myself in a lovely room with a large desk, couches and overstuffed chairs, bookshelves groaning with volumes of every shape and on every subject, a fireplace with a crackling fire, maps of the world on the walls, an attractive oil painting of Layla—“I do like to keep up my portrait painting,” Leonardo confided. “I think this one of Layla is much better than the Mona Lisa”—and a wide window offering a panoramic view of the horizon and sky.

  “Don’t worry about anyone in airplanes being able to look down and see you,” Leonardo assured me. “I’ve invented a type of tinted glass which lets people inside look out, but doesn’t let anyone outside look in.”

  Layla nudged me with her elbow. Actually, she poked me rather sharply. “Thank Leonardo,” she commanded in a whisper.

  I tried to find the right words and couldn’t. Tears came to my eyes, and I reached out and hugged Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest genius who ever lived.

  “Is this place all right, Santa?” Leonardo asked anxiously.

  “It’s better than all right, Leonardo,” I answered. “It’s home. After all these centuries, after all our wandering, we finally have a home of our own.”

  Before I could say more, Bill vaulted over the fence. The bull charged. Almost faster than eyes could see, Bill grabbed the bull’s head, bit its lip, and twisted with his arms, and the bull flopped over on the ground.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Happy Christmas to All

  He moved just in time. When Theodore ran unsuccess fully in 1913 for a third term as president, he lost to Woodrow Wilson, who promised voters he would keep America out of the awful world war everyone knew was coming.

  It came in 1914. The country of Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia; one after another, more countries became involved, including the United States in 1917. That same year, there was a revolution in Russia. Leaders of the new government soon made it clear they wanted no part of us or our gift-giving.

  This sad situation was made a little easier for us by the fact that we were finally away from fighting. No country was especially interested in conquering the North Pole. If, during this war, there were few countries where we could go and give gifts as we pleased, at least we could make toys and wait for peace, which was finally declared in November 1918 after terrible destruction. The war became officially known as World War I, and unofficially nicknamed “the war to end all wars.” You know, of course, that it wasn’t. Wars still go on today, often in the same countries where World War I was fought. I think we’ve talked about war long enough. There’s not much time left to tell the rest of my story, and there were wonderful things happening, too.

  A special moment came in 1919, when we finally allowed Theodore to pack his things and join us. I made the decision a few days after World War I ended. I was visiting Theodore and he talked for a long time about how he’d learned to hate war, too.

  “You’ve never really given me credit for what I did in 1906,” Theodore complained. “As president, I helped Russia and Japan work out an agreement that settled their war. I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for that effort, I might add.”

  “Quite true,” I agreed. The Nobel Peace Prize was named for Alfred Nobel, a Swedish engineer who’d invented, among other things, dynamite and better gunpowder. He’d come to regret those inventions because of the new violence they made possible, and as a result gave all his money when he died to establish prizes for those who, each year, did the most to bring world peace. Nobel also provided yearly prizes for exceptional achievement in economics, medicine, literature, chemistry, and physics, but the annual Nobel Peace Prize was considered the greatest honor anyone could win.

  “Let me come help you, Santa,” Theodore continued. “My own son died in this latest war. Let me dedicate myself now to making other people’s sons and daughters happy.”

  I couldn’t refuse; when I told Theodore to pack, he whooped like a cowboy. And before daylight on January 6, 1919, I added a final stop on my yearly visit to children in countries where gifts were expected on that date. My sleigh landed right beside Theodore’s home. He leaped aboard and positively shouted with glee as I prepared to order the reindeer to fly us away to the North Pole.

  “May I, Santa, oh, may I?” Theodore pleaded, and, since I knew what he meant, I nodded.

  “Now, Dasher, now, Dancer,” hollered President Theodore Roosevelt, naming all eight just the way Clement Moore had first described in his poem. “This is so bully!” Theodore added as we swooped into the night sky.

  Sky-swooping soon became more complicated. The first flight credited to the Wright brothers was followed by many more. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh stunned the world by flying his airplane nonstop between New York and Paris. The trip took Lindbergh a little more than thirty-three hours. Up at the North Pole, we were all happy for him, though for us, thanks to Leonardo and his sleigh, flying from New York to Paris took thirty-two hours less.

  Lindbergh made the first official long-distance flight, but far from the last. About one year later, a woman named Amelia Earhart joined two men in flying across the Atlantic Ocean in twenty-two hours. I noticed they named their airplane “Friendship.” And, as airplanes quickly improved in both power and air speed, people flew farther and faster. In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic, and it took her only thirteen hours and thirty minutes—still not close to our North Pole speed, but respectable enough.

  “It seems quite probable that every child in the world will want to
y airplanes for Christmas,” I predicted over supper in April 1932, about a month before Amelia Earhart made her solo flight. It had been a fine supper; Theodore, who always loved everything to do with the Wild West, had taken a trip to Oklahoma and Texas earlier that year and, in a small Texas town, discovered a cook named Worth, who, Theodore insisted, made the best friend chicken in the world. The rest of us were all especially fond of fried chicken; we visited Worth, sampled his cooking, and immediately talked him into moving to the North Pole with us. Our meals improved considerably, but, after nightly second and third helpings, my waistline didn’t.

  “Those airplanes are all well and good, but to my mind most boys and girls are soon going to want cowboy toys, too,” Theodore argued. “You know, little guns, toy horses, cowboy hats and boots, those sorts of things.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” I admitted. Already, new entertainments called “movies” were very popular, and many of the most popular movies were westerns. Books about cowboys could be found in many homes, too. “Well, Theodore, I suppose you and Sequoyah can advise Willie Skokan and Leonardo and the rest of our craftsmen about how cowboy toys should work and look.”

  Sequoyah grinned and replied, “I know about alphabets and books, not about cowboys.”

  To my surprise, Theodore shook his head, too. “Santa, I love cowboys too much to claim to be an expert. We need someone else, a real cowboy, here to help us out, and I have just the cowboy to suggest.”

  A warm fire was crackling nearby, and we all gathered around Theodore as he told us about the adventures of a man named Bill Pickett, the son of a former slave. Bill Pickett grew up to star in something called “The 101 Ranch Wild West Show” and, Theodore claimed, won wrestling matches with wild steers by biting the animals on the lip or nose.

  “Oh, be serious, Theodore!” Felix complained. “No self-respecting wild steer could be beaten that way! I always enjoy your tall tales, but this one is just too much. Try telling us another.”