● Santa's Reindeer

here has always been much fascination, but little known about Santa's helpers. More than 3,000 Vendequm -- little people -- live at the North Pole and work year round building toys, training reindeer, designing and constructing buildings -- every job imaginable. While Vendequm is their real name, these mysterious people are known around the world as elves. The unique and most amazing thing about elves is that they love to work -- they live to work. They don't enjoy days off or vacation time. They prefer to work all day, sleep for about an hour, and then go to work again. There are no other beings like them in the entire world, but where did they come from?

Elves didn't always live at the North Pole. They originally started out in Europe, but because they were different -- smaller than so-called regular people -- many folks were fearful of them. You see, unfortunately, many times people are scared of other people or things that they don't understand.

Because the elves were different, they were were taken from their homes, put in jails and forced into slave labor for "regular people" for many hundreds of years. Although the elves did not like this treatment, they were afraid to try and escape or change the way they were treated because they feared it would make things worse.

That all changed about 1,800 years ago -- give or take a hundred years -- when a young elf by the name of Alistar, which in the Greek language means guardian or protector, decided it was time to change things for the better.

Alistar is the son of Chloris and Demetris. From the beginning he believed that the elves were destined to do great things and he intended to give them all that chance. So, Alistar got the elves together and told them that the only way they could live free and use their great abilities to accomplish great things was to leave Europe and move north. Because the elves were at such a size disadvantage, Alistar reasoned, they had to move far away into an area where people would not dare venture. It would have to be an area so harsh and unforgiving that the elves could work and live in peace. Alistar told the shocked group that the only place they could live and be safe was -- the North Pole.

After several attempts -- and with the help of sympathetic humans -- Alistar and his followers successfully freed all jailed elves and those who were being used as slaves, and they began their trek north. They traveled mostly at night to avoid anyone seeing them and they got by as best they could, getting food where they could find it and relying on the kindness of strangers. Little did they know then that those strangers would later become members of the "Santa Claus Network" -- a group of people living around the world, who secretly help Santa complete his mission each and every Christmas Eve.

The further north the elves traveled, the harsher the conditions -- extreme cold, blizzards, less food and fewer people to help them. The elves made their way through Russia, traveling as far north as they could on land to the city of Khatanga. Amazingly, despite their small size, the elves found they were able to withstand extreme cold weather with ease.

It was at that point that the elves secretly boarded a ship as stowaways -- with the help of yet another kind and sympathetic soul -- and set sail for Severnaya Zemlya. It was a tough trip -- the coldest cold any of the elves had ever felt. There was also another rather large problem for the entire elf population -- they became sea sick. You see, elves do not to this day like to travel by boat, but with their survival and freedom at stake, it was a chance they had to take.

Now don't think for a moment that the elves didn't help out on the boat. One thing elves are not is freeloaders. At night, when most of the crew slept, the elves would clean up the boat, repair the shoes, boots and clothing of the sailors and prepare and leave the crew gifts of food and small trinkets to show their appreciation, although the sailors could never figure out where the gifts and mysterious cleaning came from. Many thought the ship must be haunted, but obviously by a very clean group of spirits.

This is the elves' way. They work hard and with amazing speed and accuracy and they thoroughly enjoy giving gifts. That's why they are perfect to work with Santa Claus at the North Pole. They all have the same goal -- to provide gifts to people around the world and spread joy. 

Finally, after several days of sailing, the boat docked at Severnaya Zemlya and quickly and secretly, the elves left the boat and met up with their contact person -- a friend of a friend in Europe.

The elves felt a bit lost. They were on strange land -- actually more like strange ice and snow -- and there were no homes for them to live in and no jobs to work.  What were they to do?

Fortunately for the elves, their contact in the Arctic had already been in touch with Santa Claus at the North Pole. Now, you must remember that this was several centuries ago, just when Santa was starting out on his mission to bring gifts and joy to people around the world. So Santa was eager to get any help he could find. The elves fit right in and Santa could not have hoped to realize his dream of making a trip around the world on Christmas Eve had it not been for them.

The elves amazing ability to work at incredible speed made it possible to create gifts for children around the globe. But one of the most important things the elves brought to Santa Claus was the ability to manipulate time, or travel through time.

If it weren't for the elves knowledge in the area of time travel, Santa would never have been able to deliver gifts to children around the world in one night. With the help of the elves, Santa was able to travel at a great rate of speed and make his deliveries. The faster Santa traveled, the more time slowed down for him. Everything seemed to be moving at a normal rate of speed, but in human time, Santa was going faster than the speed of light. That is also why -- only in very rare circumstances -- no one catches Santa delivering gifts on Christmas Eve.

How is Santa able to do this? He doesn't really know all of the particulars. All he does know that it works -- and has worked for over 1,500 years.

So you see, the elves have more to do with the annual Christmas Mission than anyone else. If it weren't for the elves, Santa Claus would never to be able to make and then deliver toys around the world on Christmas Eve.