The Myth: Santa Claus is a jolly old man who, once a year, flies all the way around the world in a night to give everyone presents. While he's not doing that, he's living in his home in the North Pole, working with elves and making toys, feeding his reindeer and so on.

The Truth: Santa Claus is actually the C.E.O. of 'Toys R Us' and is currently taking a vacation in his beach house in Bermuda. Why, you ask?

Frankly, he was just too stressed from all of the hectic business in the workshop. But, the elves aren't too happy with his 'get away' idea, and are trying to get him back to work.

And, that is where our story begins:

"Can I get a large pizza, with everything, oh, and a side order of fries. Can you throw in some chocolate chip cookies and milk? Excellent! I'll come pick it up in 15 minutes? Super," so said Santa on the porch of his Bermuda beach house.

This was the second week of his so called vacation, only a week before Christmas too. The weather was perfect, not too cold and not too hot, a bit rainy; but he could get used to that. Santa was just about to go back inside his house and enjoy a nice mug of cocoa before his Blackberry began to ring.

He looked at the caller ID: Milo. Milo was the Head Elf of the Delivery Department, not to mention Junior Director of The Pole. He was probably furious.

The phone buzzed again as Santa thought, maybe I shouldn't pick it up. That would be a risky move. But he knew Milo would only call in case of emergency, so he pressed the talk button and put the phone to his ear and asked, "What's the problem this time Milo?"

"Santa, it's him," said Milo. Santa could even hear the contempt in his voice. "It's Otis. He is procrastinating, again. The whole toy department is slacking off and the reindeer are overweight, just after their diet finally kicked in! He's messing everything we've worked so hard for, you have to come back and fix this!"

"No, no, no!" said Santa, getting angry himself. "I'm not coming back there, I thought I told you! I am going to stay here for Christmas here, and you were going to deliver the presents. Sorry, but I'm not coming back anytime soon."

With that, he hung up. The next few days went by without any disturbances, but none the less, Santa still was abnormally alert. This is probably what they want, he'd think, luring me into a false sense of security. Sure enough, something completely out of the ordinary happened.

It had been three days since Milo's call, and Santa knew that they were prepared to do anything to get him back at The Pole.

That day the weather forecast said that the day was going to be fairly rainy. Nothing out of the ordinary. So when the first drops of rain fell, Santa didn't think twice about it, but when it started to pour down, well, it wasn't rain any more. It had turned from the cold clear water droplets to ice white warm milk.

Santa prayed that no one would notice this and if they did they'd just pass it off as some hoax or something. Indeed, people noticed. There were news reports and inquiries, the whole enchilada. This was not good, thought Santa. But, to his intense relief, it was passed off as a hoax. So he went to bed with high spirits, thinking nothing worse could happen. But he was dead wrong.

Santa woke up to the bright sun in his windows, so he got up and whistled cheerily down to his kitchen. This is the perfect day to have chocolate chip pancakes, with cold milk oh, and maybe some chocolate chip cookies on the side. Yes, that would be satisfying.

He opened the refrigerator door and, instead of seeing all of his precious sweet, sugary food, saw his fridge packed with, vegetables. This must be a nightmare, thought Santa. So he closed the door and pinched himself, hard. "Ouch!" he said. He reopened the fridge door and realised, to his horror, that there were indeed vegetables packed into his fridge. No sweet cookies, cake, fizzy drinks, chocolate, or sugary substances of any kind.

"MIIILLLOOO!" screamed Santa, furious.

And, like clockwork, Milo called. Santa answered his Blackberry immediately, taking care to let out an angry huff on his end.

"So, didn't you just love our little early Christmas gifts? We thought that you'd be positively delighted!" said Milo smugly.

"No! I most certainly didn't! And what do you mean by our and us and we? Oh no," said Santa, finally realising the mystery person. "That's right, boss. I knew that Otis would be useful for something! He finally did real justice. Instead of firing him, you know, since I'm in charge until you come back, I'm thinking about promoting him. How about, 'Honorary Head of Department of Toy Making?'

"You know, Santa, the most important department at the pole," Milo's voice trailed off, but Santa could tell that he was smiling. "But, if you were to, I don't know, come back, well, maybe that wouldn't be possible."

Milo was playing a very difficult game, a VERY difficult one.

"Not going to happen Milo," said Santa. "I'm on my break, a very well deserved one to boot. Now, just stop joking around. If you do, maybe you'll just become Senior Director of The Pole."

The game was difficult, but Santa could see an opportunity and was taking it. As soon as the words left his mouth, Santa knew he'd hit a soft spot. The other line was silent for a while, he was clearly thinking; hard.

This could be his big break, all he had to do would be leave Santa alone, but this could also be a disaster Christmas. Which was more important? Santa waited eagerly for a reply, but none came, Milo had hung up on him.

Santa thought nothing of this and spent the rest of the day as he pleased. Milo had probably accepted the offer. He went to bed and expected everything to be back to normal, in Bermuda at least. He drifted off to sleep, but not a very calm one; it was disturbed with visions and images of the North Pole, Otis, Milo, the reindeer, the elves, everything; and everything was going wrong, very wrong.

The reindeer were overweight and couldn't even get off the ground. Meanwhile the Toy Department was on lockdown, because of something Otis had done, and Milo was nowhere in sight. Otis was sitting in Santa's office, with a red hat on and with a sack slung across his back.

"That's it," said Santa, grumbling and getting out of bed. "I can't take it any more, I'm going back home tomorrow morning."

He got back into bed, fell into a dreamless sleep, and woke up in the morning mumbling senselessly to himself. He packed all of his bags and went to his fireplace, where he stepped inside and said the few magic words and dematerialised in his fire place and appeared at his real home.

"Santa, baby," said a leather clad elf who could only be Otis. "Me and the M-man thought you'd be back soon. Now, step right this way."

The next few days went by without any problems, and the Christmas ride was smooth. Even though Santa never went back to his Bermuda beach house again, he still liked to linger at Bermuda a little longer when he was doing his rounds on that special day, and he never forgot all of the good times he had in that small house.