SAINT NICK WAS getting on, after all – he for one was not surprised to have fallen ill, at long last developing immunity to elven fairy dust. It used to be that at the first sign of cold or flu, or any other ailment, one sniff would have him right as reindeer, bustling around the toy factory full of beans.

What Santa didn’t know was that he’d gotten gradually crabbier in his old age, and these days the elves did not like him being full of beans one little bit. No longer did they look at him with awed silence when he stomped through the factory berating them, cutting yet more minutes from their break times, every now and then the odd kick, hat-bells tinkling. This time, when he complained of sickness, the fairy dust they’d given him had been mostly chalk.