1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
December 26th, some Preparation H, and a 12-year old scotch.
2. What is your greatest fear?
Amazon.com
3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Can’t say no to cookies and milk.
4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Selfishness. Desire to unionize.
5. Which living person do you most admire?
Hugh Jackman. He’d a quintuple threat – he’s handsome as all get out; he can act; he can sing; he can dance; and he can crack open a walnut with his ass cheeks. Oh, wait. The thing with walnut is Gerard Butler. The two look so much alike that I get them confused after too many glasses of eggnog.
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
I pimped out the sleigh a few years ago: Heated seats, cruise control, internal GPS with James Earl Jones’ voice, Bose speakers, hydraulics, and a sweet paint job. During the off-season you can find me and the Mrs. cruising down Crenshaw Boulevard in East L.A. with mis amigos. [Santa clicks a button on a remote and a Santana song blares from his now bouncing sleigh, which is painted metallic candy apple red, with flame-emitting candy cane-painted mufflers. The sounds of frightened and scurrying reindeer can be heard, followed by guffaws from the elves.] That scares the crap out of the reindeer and the elves never get tired of that. They work hard so I try to keep their moral up as much as possible.
7. What is your current state of mind?
Chill.
8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Jolliness. One can only keep it up for so long. Good thing that half the time the smile is literally frozen in place.
9. On what occasion do you lie?
When Mrs. Claus asks how many cookies I ate.
10. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I have oddly skinny legs. If you saw them you’d wonder how they can support my jolly girth. And the rosy cheeks aren’t just the cold. It’s rosacea. I wore a ski mask during Christmas deliveries one year and was constantly shot at in the rural South.
11. Which living person do you most despise?
Jeff Bezos. The number of wish lists I get in the mail from kids has declined over the past 15 fiscal quarters. Our internet service up here is erratic at best. When the elves are streaming Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movies the internet is as slow as Christmas, and I cannot access all the good little boys’ and girls’ Amazon Wish Lists.
12. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Cracking walnut with your ass cheeks.
13. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Not too naggy.
14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Ummmm . . . Ho! Ho! Ho!
15. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Devorah Ben Asher. As you can deduce we had a Romeo-and-Juliet-type romance. She ended up marrying a doctor from a family of Jewish merchants from Constantinople. I went into the church, never got officially canonized and became St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers and students.
16. When and where were you happiest?
The morning of December 25th when I think of the faces of all the children opening their gifts. It’s why I put up with the ornery reindeer and hemorrhoids.
17. Which talent would you most like to have?
Cracking walnuts with my ass cheeks.
18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I know I can be hard of the elves and reindeer. I’m perfectionist, but we MUST deliver those toys on time. Bezos, and his ill-treated elves have from Thanksgiving to December 24th and can hire UPS, USPS, Moe’s Delivery Services, and drones. I gotta do it all in ONE NIGHT with just a sleigh and nine ornery and aging reindeer.
19. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
North Pole Toy Maker, Inc. has been rated in the Top 50 Best Places to Work by Forbes every year for the past ten years and in the top for diversity. The North Pole has a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, and height-ism. We’ve let a number of elves go because of sexual harassment. And we are investigating claims against Blixen and Donner.
20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Anais Nin
21. Where would you most like to live?
I’ve come to peace with the North Pole, though it is shrinking.
22. What is your most treasured possession?
A note and cookie left for me by John F. Kennedy, Jr. the Christmas after his das was assassinated.
23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Really bad Christmas movies.
24. What is your favorite occupation?
Legendary delivery person with a taste for cookies.
25. What is your most marked characteristic?
Looking dashing in red.
26. What do you most value in your friends?
Discretion.
27. Who are your favorite writers?
Tolstoy. Jackie Collin. Henning Mankell. 40FootBuffet.com. HumorOutcasts.com
28. Who is your hero of fiction?
Kurt Wallender. As you can imagine, I’ve a penchant for Nordic crime fiction. But the elves giggle every time they see me reading a Harry Hole book.
29. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Henry Ford.
30. Who are your heroes in real life?
Fred Smith, founder of FedEx.
31. What are your favorite names?
Not Harry Hole. Somerset for a boy. Sydney for a girl.
32. What is it that you most dislike?
Ornery reindeer.
33. What is your greatest regret?
Not putting a top on the sleigh.
34. How would you like to die?
As long as children believe, I am immortal.
35. What is your motto?
Believe.
Laughed my way through this — thanks. (My favorite was “Amais Nin.”)