An early Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I am writing to thank you for your continued enthusiasm for Christmas Inc. products and to give you a preview of all the great changes that will happen for Christmas in 2011.
As you probably know, the last year has been tough for the world. It was a tough year for Christmas Inc. too. Some of you may not have gotten everything you asked for last year. This happened to a lot of kids, not just you. In fact overall wish fulfillment was down 14%. We need lots of elfin magic to make toys, and unfortunately, we did not have enough magic to give kids everything they wanted. We are doing everything we can to get more magic this year to make all your Christmas wishes come true.
One of the ways we can get more magic is by expanding into new product lines. In 2012, we are starting with birthdays. Your grandparents are probably really good at giving you birthday presents. We know Christmas Inc. can be really good at it too. If you have a birthday in November, you are lucky because we will be piloting our birthday product line for kids with November birthdays in 2011. We know it will make those kids happy and it will help us guess what kids may want for Christmas the following month. If your birthday is in April or June or another month, just be patient. If the pilot is successful, we will roll it out to all the other months in future years.
Another way to have the magic we need for delivering Christmas wishes is to make sure we don’t use the magic we already have on other things. For example, we are currently located at the North Pole and we are using more and more magic to obtain flood insurance every year. We are very excited because in 2011, we are moving our executive headquarters to the South Pole. The South Pole is on land. We won’t float around like we do up north, but there is still plenty of snow!
This relocation means you should mail your Christmas wishes to the South Pole this year. If you send them to the North Pole by mistake, they will be forwarded to us. However, Christmas wishes mailed to the North Pole in 2012 and thereafter will be returned to sender.
Our North Pole toy workshop operations cannot be relocated to the South Pole in time for this Christmas. Thus for 2011, Christmas Inc. will on-shore its workshop facilities to places you may not have heard of, like the Fengpu Industrial Park in Shanghai, China. There are elves there too. Some of them are even kids like you! Since kids don’t need nearly as much magic to make toys as grown-ups, there will be more magic for everyone.
During the transition, there may be some impact on toy quality. We will do everything we can to minimize these problems, and in 2012, we will move our workshop operations to our new South Pole headquarters. I can assure you that the 2011 relocation is only temporary.
In the meantime, we are setting up special phone numbers you can use to call elves this Christmas. You will be able to ask them questions about how to assemble your toys and why they may not work. (Always check the batteries first! Ho! Ho!) These elves will have regular elf names like Bob and Martha and Tex. They may talk a little funny, but some of them have advanced degrees in mechanical engineering. This means they will be able to tell you how to fix your toys in a wink.
We look forward to receiving your Christmas lists for 2011. In the meantime, be nice, not naughty to your parents. Our hard-working elf executives sure could use a magic bonus in 2011.