Santa's Judgment

I will presume you've already read my post "Then On The 25th". If not, this won't make much sense to you. There were consequences, and decisions were made.

Billy's father contacted Santa after Billy's misbehavior. After all, those presents came out of a year's long observation of "naughty" and "nice" behaviors. And yes, Santa still had enough magic after his flight with his reindeer around the world that he had enough energy left to spend a few necessary moments discussing the problem together with Billy's Dad. 

I mean, just think of how exhausted an ordinary magic person would have been after such a tremendous amount of work all in one night! Why I'd have been so tired I would have needed to sleep until the following October, relying on the elves in the workshop to keep things running! And I'm not magic at all. Santa's magic is truly amazing and powerful!

Santa did delegate a few elves to head back over to Billy's house to sort the tags and re-wrap most of the presents for the other members of the family, while Billy was sent to his room. Daddy sent most of Billy's presents back to the workshop, maybe for another year, maybe for other children who'd been better behaved that night. Only Santa and his elves really know, and they aren't talking about it.

But Santa did remember the good things Billy had done all the past year, and decided that Daddy could pick out just three presents to keep, though not to give to Billy, or at least not quite yet. In the morning, Billy was told that, only because he'd been mostly good the last year, he would be given a chance to earn his presents back. But only by being extra good through this year. Santa sent one of his elves, a young one still in training at the workshop, to keep an eye on Billy and see how he was behaving. If, and only if, Billy went back to behaving well, then Santa would let Billy get one of his presents to keep. And then another after earning it, and finally the third. But he'd have to earn each by being extra good. It would happen either in the next couple months of the next year, since Santa couldn't spare his junior elf for very long away from the workshop, or Santa's elf would take the last three presents back to his workshop and some other well-behaved child would get them instead.

I know we're all hoping Billy can earn his presents back. He's usually a very nice little boy, and smart enough to learn his lesson pretty quickly.