The Magic of Christmas
Chapter 13: Market Forces

‘In the spirit of cooperation,’ the union elf boomed out startling the secretary who nearly swallowed the end of the pencil she had been chewing, ‘my members will volunteer to be taste testers for the choc-e-ola. Providing Santa can agree to a candy cane break, and medical care for whoever needs it because the increased chocolate intake could result in the dreaded Elven disease of Chocolenza, with obsessional flatulence, more commonly known as the COF.’

All eyes turned to Travis. ’COF? What in the name of butterfly mint imperials, is that?’ he asked resigned to the stupidity that was about to follow.

‘Nasty,’ the Chief answered with a shudder. ‘Happens to elves who have too much chocolate, they become addicted to it, the more they get the more they want until they are laid out with the COF. No one can go near them for forty-eight hours; the smell is horrendous.’

‘What medical care do they need if you can’t go near them for forty-eight hours?’ Travis asked perplexed.

‘We don’t need care for the Elves with the COF,’ Arnold replied, saving Cedric from Travis’s deathly glare. ‘It’s for the rest of us. Gas masks will need to be distributed, smelling salts for the lady elves, and nearly half a million scented candles to take the stench out of the air. Believe me, the last thing you want is a load of elves going down with the COF.’

‘Erm, we’ll get them tested off-site,’ Travis replied shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Sounds dangerous to have the elves do it, and now I know the dangers to the elves of too much chocolate, I’ll look at the chocolate rations they currently get. I’m not having a gang of elves with the nasty COF running all over the place.’

All heads turned at the sound of the Union Elf crashing to the floor, the threat of reduced chocolate had been too much for him. The poor wretch was twitching uncontrollably, much to the concern of Travis and Rosie who had never witnessed this behaviour in an Elf before. The Chief Elf, the Solicitor, and the secretary looked at him without any misgiving; the secretary was actually sniggering until Travis screamed for someone to help him.

‘It’s OK Santa,’ Oswald said. ‘He goes like this when he is threatened with a loss of chocolate. He’ll be fine in a minute or two.’ S~ᴇaʀᴄh the ꜰindNʘvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

By the time Travis had assured the Union Elf that chocolate rations were not going to be cut, only re-evaluated to make sure no Elf caught the dreaded COF, the day was almost over without any headway being made to produce Santa Ale or soft drinks. In one respect, Travis was annoyed, but given what Rosie had said about choc-e-ola sounding horrible, he donned his Santa suit, and stood outside a well-known store in Liverpool on a busy Saturday afternoon, with clipboard and pen at the ready, to take a survey of the shoppers out and about with their kids.

‘What do you think about a chocolate flavoured Santa Ale,’ he asked the parents, while the kids were prompted for a reaction to choc-e-ola. Out of a hundred parents asked, 45% said they wouldn’t even smell chocolate ale, 20% said they wouldn’t taste it, another 12% said a leading supermarket already sold chocolate ale and it was horrible, and 17% walked away thinking he was crazy. Of the rest, they gave various un-publishable reasons for not wanting to try Chocolate ale, with one person becoming violent when Travis didn’t give him a bottle there and then to sample.

The altercation escalated to the point Travis was on the end of some nasty punches. Dressed as he was in his official Santa outfit, he couldn’t hit back or swear at the lunatic; his only means of defence was to run. It didn’t help matters that many of the shoppers laughed at the sight of a Santa Claus being chased all over Church Street. The commotion alerted the police, who arrived as blood began to stain his long white beard from the many punches to his nose. In all his life, Travis had never been so pleased to see the police arrive, although the incident did make the inside pages of the Liverpool Echo. Under the headline “Flying Santa” was a still photograph of Travis being chased by the drunk, taken as he had slipped with arms spread out and to the front making his stance one a flying Superman would have been proud of.

The children were different, choc-e-ola sounded good to 83% percent, 10% were undecided, 5% said they wanted to taste it before giving an opinion, and 2% started screaming when a giant Santa started asking them questions in the middle of September. One child even kicked him when his mother accused Travis of being a pervert. She was soon crossed off his good girl list and her son earmarked for a lump of coal on Christmas morning.

Travis was disappointed about the chocolate Ale, but it was no good flogging a dead horse producing something if no one was going to buy it. The choc-e-ola however, sounded a viable proposition. Armed with his findings, he grabbed Rosie and headed for the Village and Arnold, the Solicitor Elf.

‘Arnold,’ Travis said opening the door to the Elf’s office and pushing Rosie in ahead of him. ‘Sorry to barge in on you, have you got a minute to talk about this chocolate drink?’

‘I have,’ he smiled looking up, gathering some loose papers together as he did so, ‘but if you need anything to be done, then I suggest you bring Oswald in.’

Travis groaned, the chief Elf could be hard work at times, but the Solicitor was right as usual so he sent a magical command for him to appear and was satisfied a minute later when the Chief nervously poked his head through the door of the Solicitor’s office. Pleasantries over with, Travis spoke to the two elves, one calm and serene, the other a nervous wreck in Travis’s company.

‘I’ve done a bit of market research,’ Travis began, ‘on the production of a chocolate flavoured soft drink. Everything looks good with 83% saying they will try it. That figure should increase if it has an introductory gift for all true believers. Something simple like a colouring book and pencils, or an art set with paints for the young ones under the age of say eight, nine to twelve year old’s can have a personalised Christmas Goody Bag of sweets an toys, while the under fifteens can have a MP3 player with some music of their choice. The advertising department can sort the finer details out. We make two types of drink, a diet version and one full of sugar to stop the Tooth Fairy from moaning. What do you think, can you do it and get enough on the shelves before the Christmas rush is on us?’

‘We can,’ the Chief replied nervously looking at Travis, ‘providing it is produced off-site, bottle or can, and labelling can be done as soon as the designs are agreed. We’ll have to take a few elves off wrapping if that’s OK with Mrs C, and I can grab a few hundred more from arts and craft and set them to work on the label design, production and distribution. Advertising and marketing can dot the I’s and cross the T’s, but all in all and if things go smoothly we should be ready for launch early to mid-November,’

‘Thank you Chief,’ Travis beamed. ‘Use Sue and Phil, even Bethany for that matter, it will keep her out of my hair, use them as tasters if you want to get a nice blend ready. If you can do that I will be very grateful.’

‘One thing Santa,’ the Solicitor questioned, ‘why an MP3 player? they’re expensive, we’ll have to sell about a hundred bottles to recover the cost of one player, it doesn’t make financial sense.’

‘Maybe,’ Travis smiled, ‘but how many twelve to fifteen year old’s out there believe in Santa Claus? I’ll tell you,’ the smile got even wider as he answered his own question, ‘by my good and bad lists there are exactly 2 boys and 4 girls between the ages of twelve, and fifteen in the whole of North and South America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australasia who believe in me. I don’t think 6 MP3 players are going to break the bank, do you?’

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