North Pole Podcast

Many elves here at the North Pole are starting to express concern about Santa's lead reindeer, Donner. All of Santa's reindeer have returned to the North Pole except for Donner. The others have all been back for more than a month. This is a big concern because Donner is the team leader. He sets the conditioning schedule. The team does not train together unless Donner is there. Santa appears to know what is happening with Donner and has told everyone not to worry. But the elves are starting to talk. Operation Merry Christmas is just weeks away from kicking off. One of the biggest parts of that event is the reindeer games. The games are used to help Santa - and Donner - to decide roles that reindeer will play when it comes to Christmas. While Santa's team is assigned and well known most do not realize that it takes thousands of reindeer in a world-wide effort to help Santa deliver. Those reindeer all need to be evaluated to see what they can do so they can be assigned to the right duty on Christmas Eve. North Pole Radio News visited with the elves in the Reindeer Barn earlier today and you can hear their report below. We will keep you posted.

Elf Crash answers questions in this latest episode of the North Pole Podcast. He tackles the issue of how to see reindeer fly, what a teacher should and should not say in the classroom about Santa and even why Santa occasionally misses someone's house. These questions come from site visitors to SantaUpdate.com. We get them by the thousands. We will try to keep up with providing answers to the questions via more podcast episodes, the North Pole Radio News reports and via additional Santa updates as we go along this year in trying to tell the story of Santa and the North Pole. If you have a question you want to ask, please see this link.

Greetings! The questions we are receiving about Santa, the North Pole and the virus are overwhelming the North Pole Post Office these days. Santa very much understands your concerns. After all, you are dealing with incredible disruptions to your family, home, school and work on account of the virus -- so why wouldn't it affect Santa and the North Pole, too? Santa has ask me today to give you a candid update about the situation and more specifically what the North Pole plans to do about it all. As we have previously reported the North Pole has not suffered as much from the virus as many other areas of the world. In February, the North Pole stopped all travel in and out of the North Pole Sleigh Port. Like nearly everywhere else, the North Pole then went into a mode of keeping people healthy, trying to educate them about sanitary practices such as washing hands more often, and monitoring elves very closely for any signs of sickness. To date there has not been a single case of the Coronavirus at the North Pole. Santa and Mrs. Claus likewise have so far been able to avoid the disease. As Christmas approaches the concerns remain: What if Santa travels the world and then catches the virus? What will happen if Santa has the virus when Christmas comes? Will Christmas then be canceled? What if the virus is present in a home at Christmastime - will Santa just skip that house? Will Santa wear a mask?  These are all real questions that we have received, as well as thousands of others that are similar in nature. Santa wants you to know that Christmas will happen this year. Many plans have been put in place to ensure that Santa will be able to deliver, on time, as he does every year. We will work all season here at SantaUpdate.com to address these concerns. Additionally, we invite you to listen to a new episode of the North Pole Podcast about this particular issue. Santa does have plans. It is very clear he will not be able to visit in person with many people leading up to Christmas. This is for the safety of everyone involved. We are working on a number of solutions that will help people have a connection with Santa as much as possible this Christmas, including:

• Scheduled chats with Santa at various venues on the Internet, including right here on SantaUpdate.com
• There will be limited opportunities for brief private online chats with Santa -- for free, of course
• SantaUpdate will be providing greater news coverage this year
• North Pole Radio News will begin online sharing of their news reports on November 1st this year -- earlier than ever
• Discussions on the North Pole Podcast will continue to focus on the status of the virus for Santa and the North Pole.
• We have expanded the reach of the North Pole Post Office to all official sites of the North Pole so that folks can send wishlists to Santa
• You can receive news reports via text. Please visit JingleKringle.com for more details
• You can call Santa's office. Please see SantasVoicemail.org for more details.
• Santa is making himself more available to the media this year for interviews

We would remind you to never pay for access to Santa Claus. Santa is always FREE. Unfortunately, in a year like this, there will be a lot of fake Santas out there for sale. Please do not engage with them. Santa does have very specific plans, and backup plans, to cover Christmas around the world this year. The effort will involve more reindeer, more elves and more people than ever. Please check in often here at Santa Update for more information as it becomes available. And please -- keep sending us your questions. We will continue to do all we can to answer them.

Reindeer are essential to Santa's mission. Santa simply cannot be Santa without his reindeer. But what do you really know about them? The late arrival of Santa's reindeer to the North Pole in 2020 has caused lots of mail to arrive at the North Pole with questions about Santa's reindeer. People want to know more about them, what they like and don't like, how they learn to fly and how many reindeer Santa actually has. Elf Crash Murphy has a special place in the work of Santa because, like Santa, he flies around the world every Christmas in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Crash is North Pole Radio News' eye in the sky reporter, whose job it is to follow Santa every Christmas and to report on what Santa is doing. Crash knows not only the reindeer of Santa's sleigh but also of his own sleigh and he knows a lot about them. In this special episode Crash shares some things we guarantee you have never heard about the reindeer. In this episode we learn new things about Rudolph, Vixen and Cupid. Crash also dispels some bad information out there about reindeer, things that are conveyed in books, movies and songs about reindeer that just are not true. You don't want to miss this episode if you are curious about reindeer.

The North Pole Halloween party is one that we cover in the news every year. It's a big deal. And we have been getting a lot of questions about it. So Frank and Crash decided to sit down in the studios of Kringle Radio to discuss where Halloween comes from and why we celebrate it here at the North Pole. As you will likely hear in our news coverage the modern day Halloween at the North Pole means a big costume contest for the elves and a massive Halloween party for everyone here at the North Pole. Most famously, this big party usually ends in a food fight. We never know for sure if that is going to happen. But it usually does. There will be some news that comes out later this week about the costume contest, including the plans for Santa and Mrs. Claus. They love Halloween especially because it gives them the opportunity to really surprise the elves. They usually do it with their costumes. But we understand why people have questions. It is easy to know where Christmas comes from but understanding where and why Halloween is from is something else altogether. In this episode Elf Crash answers this question.