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The King of Christmas

The battle for the North Pole

Matthew Donnellon
The Inkwell
Published in
14 min readDec 14, 2024

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Image drawn by author

Old Nick was sitting at his desk looking over a section of the list his secretary had handed him.

The rumor was he checked it twice. In reality he checked it far more often, and he had the final call. The price of being the boss.

He sat there examining one of the names. The kid was on a bit of a bad streak lately but he was pretty good overall. He put a mark next to his name to give one last check before the final list was printed.

He’d have to be good for a few more days. It was close to game time as it was and the elves wanted the list earlier every year.

He kept going through the list and finally set it down and went back to the Polar Daily Brief his advisors wrote up for him every day.

The weather report was the most troubling. The North Pole was losing territory every year. Soon, he’d have to start fortifying the borders with magic or risk their operation being discovered.

I’d have to stop giving coal to naughty kids and switch it for solar panels, he thought to himself.

The idea made him chuckle, but it also had a little merit. He’d run it by the Head of Meteorology.

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The Inkwell
The Inkwell

Published in The Inkwell

A collection of Short Stories and other fiction work.

Matthew Donnellon
Matthew Donnellon

Written by Matthew Donnellon

Matthew Donnellon is a writer, artist, and sit down comedian. He is the author of The Curious Case of Emma Lee and Other Stories.

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