Santa.com

The excerpt above is the text the reader encounters on the first double-page spread which is then revealed to be part of a storybook Grandpa Elf is reading to his grandson, Yo-yo. Yo-yo, a young elf who loves hearing stories of Christmases past, is starting his first day at Santa’s workshop. Unfortunately, the old charm and magic his grandpa had read to him about are nowhere to be found in the shop; everything is computerized, and elves simply push buttons and let robots and drones do the work of wrapping presents and delivering them to the children.

Suddenly, a loud alarm sounds, and the elves are called to a meeting to “hear about the impending doom”: Cyber Scrooge has hacked Santa.com and shut it down, cancelling Christmas. Yo-yo, being our hero, has an idea. He holds up one of his grandpa’s story books and tells everyone that they simply need to find Santa along with his sleigh and the reindeer and go back to the way things used to be. Two elves join him on his quest: Candy, “the security elf”, and Cookie, “the HR elf”. They fly away in a basket tied to a drone (no explanation as to why this one wasn’t hacked), and, following some loose clue in Yo-yo’s grandpa’s book about “the Big Apple”, the first destination in their search is New York City. Notably, the illustration has the trio waving goodbye to a crowd of elves below and heading in the exact opposite direction of New York City on the road sign in the illustration.

Abruptly, the reader is taken to a street in New York City as Yo-yo exclaims, “[T]his isn’t right!”. The three elves have apparently happened upon the (now dilapidated) sleigh, and the man who was using it as a sale rack to sell his wares immediately vows to fix it up for them (Candy stays behind to help).

Now it’s off to Russia as Yo-yo’s grandpa’s book says the reindeer retired to Taymyr. Again, rather abruptly, our characters are in a field in Taymyr and Yo-yo is exclaiming in disappointment once again. This time, it’s because the reindeer are “lazy” (they have visibly gained weight – a dangerous false equivalency) and, therefore, “can’t pull anything, let alone fly”. Cookie asserts that the local children need to help the reindeer get back in shape and enlists the help “of each girl and boy”. Honestly, if we’re going to talk about “lazy”, in today’s climate, separating kids into a gender binary? This story feels so out of touch.

The following page has Yo-yo sitting on a hill overlooking a beach and reading out the clue to where he presumably already is – the Caribbean. Santa is nowhere to be found near his RV on the beach – until he appears, paragliding into the scene with a few mighty “HoHoHo”s. Next, “Yo-yo explains everything”, and Santa says “I see…And I know just where we must go next”.

Santa and Yo-yo “slip inside” the Cyber Scrooge’s headquarters (I assume they are breaking and entering). A woman named Suzie appears dressed in a Dickensian top hat but carrying an electronic tablet (and holding up an unsmiling doll). Suzie reveals that her vengeful actions are the result of a grudge she has been holding against Santa since her childhood; she wanted a chemistry set, but he messed up and gave her the doll instead (this comes across as a clunky attempt at some sort of feminist statement on the dangers of assuming a girls’ tastes based on reductive societal gender norms – or maybe I’m reading too much into it). Suzie’s daughter appears, and Santa pulls out a present for her – the soccer ball she wanted (how Santa knew this, and where he got the ball, when he was only moments ago pulled out of retirement, is not explained).

All is forgiven when Santa admits he made an honest mistake with the doll, promising that from now on he will check his list “thrice”. Suzie “wipes away a tear”, and they all hug. The dilemma remains about how to save Christmas (I guess Suzie cannot undo her hacking?), but Yo-yo has another idea. What that is the reader never quite finds out as the next page has Santa saying, “You saved Christmas, Yo-yo…And more importantly, you reminded us that Christmas isn’t about deadlines or shiny production lines. It’s about the Christmas spirit and giving with love.” In this spread, the group (Santa, Yo-yo, Cookie, Candy, Suzie, and her daughter) look up at a wall of screens – presumably back at Santa.com headquarters – showing elves learning to make toys again, elves working alongside drones, chubby reindeer hanging out in a paddock near the factory, and a productivity graph demonstrating a rise in “x-mas spirit”. Is the lesson “modernization in moderation”? To not depend too heavily on technology (but to continue to use it)? Efficiency is never a replacement for the human touch (but the mistake happened when Santa and the elves were still in charge)?

The final page leaves readers with what appears to be a grown-up Yo-yo closing a book he had been reading to a bunch of younger elves – the story we just finished about Yo-yo’s “first day at Santa.com”.

With no humour and a sorely slapdash plot, Santa.com is neither original (think 2011’s Arthur Christmas), nor charming (did Yo-yo teach us anything, really?). Why didn’t Santa just apologize to Suzie all those years ago and rectify his mistake instead of leaving his job to computers and going into retirement?

Logistically, there are some more problems I have with this book. One thing is that with a few exceptions, almost every page is a double-page spread, with quite a bit of text (and, therefore, action and dialogue) pushing the story forward too quickly with only one accompanying illustration for each scene. I believe in terms of reading comprehension, this would lead to confusion for a young person trying to follow the storyline. The pacing just doesn’t work, and many questions are left unanswered along the way.

A second issue is that, although the character Cookie’s dialogue is in rhyme, the text is not arranged in stanzas, nor are the lines spaced so that each line ends with the rhyming word. This leads to clunky reading.

The illustrations, done by Ryley Garcia (who worked on background illustrations for the fantastic adult animated hit series Rick and Morty), are inconsistent and reminiscent of flash animation, though perhaps appropriate to the futuristic take on Christmas considering they are digital paintings.

I would not tout this book as either a “timely cautionary tale” nor a modern Christmas classic. Carelessly referencing Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, it gives up on both originality and metaphorical depth early on and ultimately lacks in any true meaning, heart, or warmth.