A satisfied smile lay across his features.

His chubby face was marked with joy as he chased through the long night, the reins tight in his hands.

While he laughed time and again, the icy landscapes were passing rapidly below him.

“Ho, Ho, Ho! — Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen, you are barely controllable.”

His reindeers shared his unbridled enthusiasm, and as swiftly as they could, they pulled the sleigh behind them. Eager to hurry through the long night.

“Rudolph, be sure to follow the right path; we don’t want to keep the children waiting!”

“Ho, Ho, Ho!” he laughed exuberantly.

Of course, he knew that the children would not have to wait because this night, the night before Christmas, lasted as long as it had to last.

He lived for this one long night. Metaphorically speaking.

He liked his home at the North Pole and really loved his wife, but both could be quite strenuous if he was honest with himself.

All year round, those elves swarmed around him, outbidding each other with the most abstruse ideas for the next world’s best Christmas gift.

While his beloved wife, on the other hand, could not leave him in peace for a single day without her chores that-had-absolutely-to-be-done-immediately.

Oh, how he missed the old days when he could still hang out with his good buddy Krampus!

But that was before Mrs. Santa Claus, and before Krampus became too ribald towards her a few times, and she didn’t want him in the house anymore.

He could understand Krampus. Mrs. Santa Claus was indeed “voluptuous” at the right places.

“Ho, Ho, Ho!” he laughed, reveling in memory.

He enjoyed the freedom to rush through the night. Far from annoying elves and demanding wives. Not that he had ever more than one of the latter.

From the moment he saw Mrs. Santa Claus for the first time, an eternity ago, in the house of Old Mother Frost and Old Man Winter, he knew that she was the only one for him.

The stars glittered gaily in the night sky, while the moon shone merrily on snowy landscapes. His beard swooshed in the icy wind that colored his cheeks red, just like Rudolph’s famous nose.

As long as he traveled through the long night to deliver his gifts to the children on earth, the night stood still. Only with this chronomantic trick and the secret passages of the Winter Wonderland was he able to bring all children their gifts. Nowadays, even to those, who in earlier days, would only have gotten a piece of coal or even would have received the rod.

Sometimes he wondered if this was one reason why there were so many spoiled brats by now, which eventually became obnoxious adults.

“Ho, Ho, Ho!” he laughed his dark thoughts away.

No, he did not want to spend this night with socio-critical thoughts.

This was his night, and he did not want to spoil it.

Meanwhile, Rudolph steered Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen unerringly, along with the sled, towards the next portal, which led into the human world.

They rushed through it without hesitation.

“Ho, Ho, Ho!” he laughed in exuberance.

He loved this one long, silent night, this dream of peace.

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546 words

I wrote the story for this contest to show that even Santa needs his dream of peace.