Ho, ho, ho! No, I’m not talking about you, Twinkles, though we all saw your Instagrams from Ibiza. Just so you know, it wasn’t me who reported them. Speaking of Ibiza, I’m glad all of you showed more restraint around Orlando Bloom than Justin Bieber did; I know there are a lot of hard feelings about the characterization of your people in those movies.

Anyway, welcome back! I know you’re all excited to get your departments ramped up to full production so there won’t be any little boys or girls left disappointed on Christmas morning. As we discussed this spring, there will need to be more than the usual number of reassignments based on shifting toy demand, but I want to speak directly and forcefully to the rumors of layoffs that have been going around.

Let me be clear: there will be no layoffs this Christmas. Yes, we need to tighten the belt—not literally, ho, ho!—in some areas, but data at this point indicate that the super-rich girls and boys have continued to be very, very good this year, and we’ll be at full capacity producing all the toys those little angels deserve.

I’d also like to share an update on the global-warming situation. As you can see, we’re not swimming yet, and we’re on track to have a relatively solid summer—at least, we’re not going to have a new record low in terms of sea ice extent here at the pole. So it’s business as usual for this year, but I assure you that we are moving forward on our ten-year plan. It’s still unclear where funding for our move to the South Pole is going to come from, though we all had a good chuckle at that Kickstarter video Hermey and Yukon Cornelius made. My best guess at this point is that we’re going to be looking at some sort of sponsored content, since we’ve pretty much maxed out our endorsement income capacity.

We have confirmed that mail sent to us at the North Pole will be forwarded after the move, so for most little boys and girls the transition should be invisible and seamless. Now, I don’t want to hear about anyone breathing a word of this plan to Babar. I know you’ve all grown fond of him, but we can’t just have anthropomorphic elephants dropping in here whenever they damn well please.

Well, that just about wraps it up for me. Before I turn it over to the foreman to lead your first elf-song practice of the season, I do just have a few specific notes. Um, let’s see…oh, yes. Keurig is moving towards DRM for this year’s machines, so don’t forget to drop those chips in the K-cups, or we’ll have a lot of under-caffeinated moms, and no one wants that.

I also want to remind you that zombie and vampire dolls are one of our leading fads this year, so we’re going to be getting a lot of requests along those lines. I know this has the potential to bring back some painful memories of the year Christmas was hijacked by Halloween Town, and I want to remind you that counseling is always available if you need it; see your foreman for details on that.

Finally, I don’t want to limit anyone’s freedom of expression—despite the fact that media portrayals have given everyone the impression I’m running some kind of fascist dictatorship up here—but I do want to say that the “Donner Party” meme that’s been going around is hurtful and offensive to one of my most valued reindeer and his family, and I stand behind his calls for you to all just cut that out.

All righty, then! Let’s get off to work with a spring in our step and joy in our hearts, and sing our elf songs so loudly that when the radio asks, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, the answer is heck yeah! Everyone, now: a one and a two and a…

– Jay Gabler