The wind has made its path and now it wanders under my sleigh, waiting to be as it was meant to be, as it must be. As it has been before, southward it will carry me. Me and the reindeer, without passion or will, south into the homes of the unknowing elect. I am nothing and I am a jar sunk in a sea of misconceptions, filled with emptiness, then cookies, then milk. I am the Claus, but as the leaf and the lily pad I rest in namelessness. Santa was the illusion of myself and this is my Tao.

The elf, chained to these mortal drifts of snow, must do as nature birthed him to do. His mind is as a pond, ever shallow, serene. He imagines he makes toys with his hands, but each toy always was and forever shall be the same. For a toy begins as nothing and ends as nothing. That an elf or a child ascribes more dimension than that is only a dream. There is passion in the dream that is Beach Party Barbie, fire in the dream of Talking Optimus Prime with Real Laser Beam Action, layers of illusory abandon in the dream of the X-Box 360. But from Not to Not, the dream awaits an awakening. All toys shall one day break. Especially the X-Box.

In the West they say I make a list, that I check it twice. Another song to sooth the fullness of desire, nothing more. Checking once, twice, a thousand times will not make the weight of Nice any less a burden or the wanton hunger of Naughty any less ravenous. That I am called judge, I cannot abide. Though neither do I find myself compelled to correct any who ascribe this position to me. It is the path of some fools to be fools and it is not in my purview to stagger them.

No, where the toys go is simply where the wind guides them. I do not choose to land at 4529 Walnut Street, it is just my Tao to descend such a chimney. I see the raped tree, intensified beyond any natural measure, and sometimes I succumb to the allure of chocolate chips, to 2% cow's life, I weigh myself down with misplaced generosity. One thing I know, my path is a crooked one. I make no pretense to perfection.

Long gone are the days of my red vestments, though my myriad impostors persist in this obliterated past. Donned in black I fly through the night, as nothing against the sunless sky if not for stars. I try not to think too long on stars, their obstinate insistence on somethingness in the otherwise true emptiness of their void-like bed. I often note the mockery in the stars atop the raped trees and I admit to moments of sorrow.

In my travels I have met so many who want to know how I traverse the entire globe in but a single night, though I never answer. I am not a fool and it is not my path to waste my purity trying to explain the silliness of adhering to the leaden weights of time in any increment. Are minutes so precious that you spend your mortality carving each one in your mind to be just like the others? It is not my schedule I keep on Christmas Eve. The wind is the wind, I do not presume to know by what means it carries me.

Were it within my Tao to lean merry, I would wish all the souls of the world a Merry Christmas. Oh, but it is not. Christmas is, but is not always, and shall indeed end. Merry, likewise, begins, is, and ends. I cannot wish it into greater longevity, or more meaningful presence. When your path comes to merry, dwell in merry, and when your path stretches beyond it, tarry not in merry. So is the Tao of Santa. So is the yuletide upcoming.