Rudolf The Red Nosed Wine-deer.

It was the day before Christmas and all was abuzz at the North pole. In the old days Santa and his elves could load the sleigh in a couple of hours but now, with so many more children to reach, it took several days to load the giant Airbus A380 that carried the presents Santa delivered to children who lived in all four corners of the world thousands of miles from the North pole. In any case, the job was finally done and the elves gathered around the fireplace for a glass or two of Mulled wine to celebrate the completion of another year of hard work. Toy making kept the elves busy most of the year and they were looking forward to their annual vacation in Santa's tropical retreat at his secret island in the Caribbean. They could already envision the scantily clad native girls that would be frolicking in the island's warm water with the reindeer. After a few glasses of the mulled wine they could even imagine that they actually could catch one of these water nymphs, although they had no idea what they would do with her if they did. As most of you know in times long past, Rudolf got the job as lead reindeer because of his shinny red nose which, of course, lit the sky's so that Santa could see where he was going on this annual Christmas eve flights. Less well known, is the reason for Rudolph's nose being so bright and shiny. Yep, you guessed it. It was that magical mulled wine! Rudolph had tumbled to the fact, quite by accident centuries ago, that the more wine he drank the shiner became his big red nose, just the thing for guiding Santa's sleigh through the crystal clear Christmas eve nights. Of course Santa paid a price for having a tipsy lead reindeer and, on occasion, Rudolf got a little confused and missed a house or two as he made his way through the star lit sky. But, as luck would have it, the houses missed most often those of children who had been very naughty the past year and didn't deserve presents anyway. So in the end things worked out for the best. Now days, of course, Santa didn't need a reindeer with a magical nose to guide his massive Airbus through the Christmas eve sky's. Bill Gates, who provided Santa with the state of the art airplane, also provided a crew of pilots to fly the plane. Rudolf, the honorary leader of the Christmas eve flights, now sat in the executive suite in the back of the plane with Santa, Doner, Dancer, Blixen, Dasher, Prancer, Comet, Cupid and the elves. Mrs. Santa made the mulled wine from a recipe her mother had given her centuries ago. After all these years Rudolph's nose still shown as bright and shiny as ever, although it had increased in size a little with time.