Christmas Fairy Tale

Photographer reflected in Christmas Tree bauble
Photographer reflected in Christmas Tree bauble

This morning (Sunday) I had the rare luxury of doing whatever I liked. I therefore settled down to read: A Landmark Week – and every one of the eighteen Weekly Blog Club posts – ‘cover to cover’. If you haven’t already discovered Weekly Blog Club, I strongly recommend giving it a go – there’s something in there to suit every taste.

As you’d expect at this time of year, several bloggers had chosen a seasonal theme for their post this week:

In my previous post, I said I would continue on about open data, but it’s a dry subject, and I’ve decided to get festive this week instead. After all, it is that time of year.

This is my Christmas Fairy Tale.

There b e-fairies

Image of the Christmas Fairy
The Christmas Fairy?

It began a couple of weeks ago: 28th November, to be precise.

I received an email purporting to be from a fairy at the North Pole. I paid little attention, assuming it was spam that had somehow made it past the filter.

Perhaps it was a bit strange there were no links, promises of unlikely sums of money, or offers of huge growth (financial or otherwise). I’m sure I didn’t give it more than a moment’s thought.

The next day, there was another email, and another the following day. Colleagues started saying they’d been getting emails as well, and people began to speculate about who it was sending the notes which arrived without fail every morning.

Christmas Fairy emails
A succession of emails from the Christmas Fairy

Then, little details started creeping in to the emails, describing things that had happened in the office. It didn’t stop at emails either: stuff started happening. This fairy was real.

Uh oh, she’s real

Personalised message from the Christmas Fairy
Personalised message from the Christmas Fairy
Christmas tree decorated
Christmas tree and elf & safety warning

Small gifts started appearing on desks: the odd chocolate here, a bauble there, sprinkles of snow, bits of tree*

There were even notes – personalised – containing instructions on how to build and decorate the tree.

There’s normally someone in the office from around 7am until at least 6pm most days.

Someone sure was was going to a lot of effort, both to buy or make the gifts, and also to make sure they weren’t seen.

The emails told stories of goblins and fairies, tipsy elves in the warehouse, ‘incidents’ with the egg nog, and little elfin hangovers**

‘D Day’

The emails counted down to ‘D Day’, causing some to worry that something bad was going to happen.

In the event, ‘D Day’ passed off peacefully, with nothing more than some empty bottles and sweet wrappers as evidence that the elves had partied whilst decorating the tree.

Postscript

We never found out who the Christmas Fairy was. Perhaps we’ll find out next year if she returns to sprinkle some fairy dust our way again. Let’s hope so.

Notes

  • In case you were worried, it’s artificial, and no trees were harmed during the making of this programme.

** An elf with a hangover is easy to spot, as they have droopy ears and rheumy eyes

By Mark Braggins

Walking, usually with my two ex-racing greyhounds. Interested in lots of stuff. Work: Business Development and Research at Drawnalism

7 comments

  1. Thank you for the mention Mark. It’s caused quite a stir at the North Pole, especially as big changes in information management are coming…

    Best wishes
    The Real Christmas Fairy

  2. Gosh, a comment from The Christmas Fairy.

    Thanks for taking the time to read this post – you must be extremely busy at this time of year. Look forward to you visiting us again next year!

  3. What a lovely story, you are very lucky to have such a caring sharing Christmas Fairy, Happy Christmas x

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