History of Santa Claus

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History of Santa Claus

1689 - Spanish/German explorer Santa Claus discovers the North Pole and establishes a small base camp.
1691 - Because of the harsh and meager living conditions, Claus’ crew abandons him.
1692 - Claus is rescued by the Viking ship Hvorfor. He returns to Europe, bringing some items along with him from the North Pole. He finds he is able to sell them quit easily, making a small profit.
1703 - Claus saves up enough money to buy a small ship and crew, and return to the North Pole. Upon arriving, he finds his base camp half buried, but still intact.
1704 - Claus return to Europe with a shipload of North Pole artifacts, and is successful in selling them. He makes enough profit to increase the size of his crew, and buy building materials to expand his polar base.
1705 - Claus returns again to the North Pole, and builds permanent quarters for himself and his crew. He sets up the Polar Exports Company.
1716 - After six shiploads of exports, the European market is flooded with Claus’ genuine polar artifacts, as well as the knock-offs making charlatans rich. Seeing this decline, Claus decides to diversify by starting a toy company in his native Germany.
1720 - Claus Toys becomes the largest toy company in Germany, but only because of Claus’ questionable business practices. (It was also rumoured that Claus was dealing secretly with renegade foreign countries as well) Competitors urge the government to initiate an investigation.
1721 - Enough evidence is found of wrong doings that charges are drawn up against the Claus Toy Company. Claus refuses to release corporate records.
1722 - The German Supreme Court finds Claus guilty of tax evasion and treason. With the news of his conviction, Claus’ employees turn against him and shut down the company.
1723 - Clause is exiled to Sicily, but as he is leaving, manages to rape the company treasury, and absconds with all the assets.
1724 - A search party is sent to the Mediterranean to recover the funds, however, Claus is forewarned of this, and he and his Sicilian wife flee for their lives. Some say he went to Northern Africa, but it is generally assumed that this was only a ruse to distract the searchers. He is believed to have returned to his North Pole base.
1725 - Claus II is born en route to the North Pole.
1725 - 1734 - The Claus family lays low at the North Pole. Claus teaches his son the arts of toy making and shrewd business dealing.
1735 - Rumour has it that Claus has hired Scandinavian builders to construct a castle for him at the North Pole, consuming almost half of the company funds.
1739 - The castle is finished and is one of the largest in the world. Claus II reaches his fifteenth birthday, and in the same year, Claus’ wife dies, accidentally falling from a balcony in one of the castle’s great halls.
1740 - Claus, mourning his wife, becomes increasingly ill.
1745 - Claus II, having come of age, begins taking care of the family business and of his sick father.
1747 - Using the remaining company funds, Claus II builds a small city around the castle to attract workers and craftsmen.
1748 - Word of the North Pole settlement reaches Europe. The elves of Eastern Europe, having become political outcasts and hoping for a better life, begin immigrating to the North Pole in waves.
1753 - All the elves have left Eastern Europe and have become firmly established at the North Pole. Claus II begins his father’s toy company once again, employing an estimated 30,000 elves. Claus I dies at the age of 89.
1755 - The North Pole attains nationhood status, and Claus II and his wife take the throne. The toy business continues to flourish, and the elves enjoy prosperity. Claus III is born.
1757 - The great stables are built, and genetic engineers are secretly hired by Claus II to undertake an ambitious project - that of breeding and training reindeer to fly.
1773 - The flying reindeer are achieved and become Claus II and Claus III’s major form of transportation.
1774 - A mutant reindeer, named Rudolph, is born with a light-emitting nose. He becomes an outcast in the reindeer society, and is taken in by the Claus government. Claus II celebrates his 50th birthday, inviting several other world leaders to the North Pole for a stay at his castle. To impress them, he displays a lavish show of wealth, largely at the elves’ expense. He leaves the other leaders with the impression the North Pole is a dictatorship under the guise of a monarchy. The elves sense this. The seeds of rebellion are planted.
1777 - As conditions become increasingly unbearable, the elves begin to search for a champion to lead their revolt. Rudolph, still in favour within the Claus government, sees their plight and plans to use it to his political advantage.
1784 - On his 60th birthday, Claus II takes a sleigh ride down Main Street during the Christmas Day Parade, and is assassinated by a radical faction of elves. Claus III, now 29, assumes control immediately and imposes martial law on the North Pole. Civil war breaks out as Rudolph leads the elves in open rebellion.
1785 - 1792 - The Seven-Year-Strike takes place. The elves refuse to make toys, and the Claus Toy Company approaches bankruptcy, as the North Pole hits an economic low. Claus III, fearing for his life, becomes a virtual prisoner in his own castle. Rudolph rises to the peak of his power, and sets himself up as leader of the elfen community.
1796 - Rudolph and his army make an unsuccessful attempt to invade Norway. Over 10,000 elves are killed.
1800 - Inside the castle, unbeknownst to the elves, Claus IV is born.
1802 - After a string of political blunders, Rudolph comes to realize he is losing favour with the elves. Frosty the Snowman is built, brought to life, and is used as a political scapegoat.
1804 - Frosty the Snowman is melted at a public execution, and the elves’ unrest is calmed, for the moment.
1819 -1826 - After a long period of unrest, Rudolph is finally ousted, and Claus III, aged 71, regains his rightful throne. Prince Claus IV is introduced to the elves for the first time.
1827 - 1841 - The Re-normalization Years. Claus III brings the near-bankrupt Claus Toy Company out of dormancy and appoints his son as CEO. In order to clear their bad name, and compensate for their out-of-the-way location, the company decides to initiate the most ambitious advertising campaign ever undertaken. Each Christmas, Claus IV will ride all over the world, distributing free toys to children everywhere. The ad campaign is an instant success, but is a major drain on company resources.
1837 - Claus III dies.
1851 - As the annual ad campaign continues, deficits pile up, and the elves are asked to work even harder, longer hours, and still take a pay cut. They start to complain, but Claus assures them he will do all he can to help them. As a sign of good will, Claus IV marries an elfen wife, strengthening the bonds between the Claus family and the elves.
1856 - Claus V is born. In order to participate in the celebrations, Claus IV decides to stay at the North Pole this Christmas, and suggests that department stores use costumed employees to represent him. They take his suggestion, and it works out so well that he decides to do it every year.
1857 - 1867 - Claus V grows up, spending most of his time with his elf friends and relatives. Claus IV, who concerns himself primarily with building up the company, doesn’t seem to mind, in fact, he considers it promotes continuing good employee relations.
1871 - Working conditions continue to deteriorate for the elves, and they try to convince Claus V to overthrow his father and return power to them.
1872 - Claus V usurps his father’s throne, condemning him to live out the remainder of his life under guard in the castle’s west wing.
1875 - After reading the works of Karl Marx, Claus V chooses communism as the new form of government for the North Pole. Some elves protest the change, but they are successfully quieted. (It is also because of the adoption of communism that Santa Claus’ suit later changes from beige to red)
1881 - Claus IV dies in captivity, just as the new government gets underway. His funeral is not a large one.
1887 - In order to keep up with the growing world population, Claus Toys becomes industrialized. The elves learn the ways of mass production on the assembly line.
1893 - Another mutant reindeer is born, and is named Rudolph II in memory of the first one, whom the communist regime now honours for “giving the government back to the elves.”
1902 - After he had presumed dead for years, Frosty the Snowman is reportedly sighted on several occasions. Throughout the kingdom, children claim they all heard him say he’d be back some day.
1906 - Claus VI is born. The Claus family celebrates, but the elves aren’t the least bit excited or impressed.
1909 - 1922 - The toys distributed annually begin to show signs of propaganda influence, being used as a way to bring the communist doctrine to a global audience. Frosty the Snowman appears occasionally, and Claus V begins to grow uneasy, fearing a conspiracy.
1925 - Claus V dies suddenly, under suspicious circumstances. He is found in the castle garden, buried in snow, frozen solid. Many believe it to be the work of Frosty, but are unable to prove it.
1926 - Claus VI takes over, and immediately tightens security. He rules with a firm hand, but a fair one. Street lights are installed, and the castle and town get electrical service. The factories are expanded and the toys produced continue to be used as a propaganda vehicle to the world.
1929 - Angered by Claus’ commercialization of Christmas, the religious fundamentalist Grinch attempts to de-emphasize the focus on material goods, to encourage concentration on the true meaning of Christmas. He fails and later Claus commissions a cartoon, which warps the story so that the Grinch is made out to be a villain.
1933 - 1990 - The North Pole remains stable, with everything running smoothly. Across the Western world, a pattern starts to emerge and become noticed. Children receive Claus’ toys each Christmas, but as they grow older, their parents put them away. Then, as the children grow into adults and have children of their own, the toys start to surface again. And so the cycle goes on.
1949 - Claus VII is born.
1979 - Claus VI dies of natural causes.
1991 - First sightings of Anti-Claus.
1993 - Anti-Claus is observed closely through telescopes, and photographed. His suit is similar to that of Santa Claus, but with the reds and whites reversed. He carries a 3-ply Hefty bag full of gifts no one wants or needs. Instead of using reindeer and a sleigh, he rides in a bathtub pulled by eight flying cows.
1997 - Anti-Claus is tracked using sophisticated state-of-the-art technology, and is found to reside in an underground hideout run by dwarves at the South Pole.
2002 - Communism finally fails utterly at the North Pole, due to the nature of the elves. Clause VII, flying clockwise around the Earth, doing his Christmas rounds, collides with Anti-Claus, who was flying counterclockwise. A huge explosion and blinding flash of light results, leading scientists to believe they have both been annihilated.
2007 - The North Pole becomes a democracy, run wholly by the elves. Christmas is no longer commercialized or exploited. Happiness is achieved throughout the kingdom.
2011 - It is discovered that Claus VII was not destroyed in the explosion, but merely made it appear so. He had abandoned his former life and had gone to live in anonymity in the Philippines. He is later found, penniless, lying dead on a dirt road, shot to death over a gambling debt.