Everyone’s heard of Santa and his little helpers, who work tirelessly throughout the year to make sure everyone has something to open on Christmas day (by the way, on that subject, everyone really does get something from Santa. The myth about naughty children going without is exactly that, a myth. Santa’s ways are far more subtle, if you’ve been bad he just makes sure you get something you can’t even get rid of on ebay). Anyway, so, we all know how Christmas is prepared for, but what about the aftermath? Well today I found out when I met one of the cleanup fairies pulping abandoned Christmas trees in the crescent round the corner from me. They do this job in secret, assuming no one is about because we are all at the January sales. Consequently he was a bit surprised when I walked over to him, but was reassured by my confession that I hadn’t got any film in the camera (well I haven’t, it’s digital). He let me watch him at his work for a bit and then we had a chat. Apparently all the wood-pulp is collected and flown by reindeer back to the north pole where, because Santas workshop now has injection moulding facilities, the pulp is turned into next years presents. Smart eh?

He also told me the equipment logo stands for: JENSEN – January Elf (North) Sanitising Everything back to Normal.

In future posts I will tell you more about the tooth fairy, the hangover fairy (she’s the one that comes in the night and carefully coats your tongue in off-white goo that tastes like the bottom of a parrot cage) and the office party photocopier fairy. However I will not be revealing anything about the Sandman as his case is still sub-judicae.