You wouldn't believe what happened to me two years ago. It forever changed the way I view the holidays.

I've told some of you this story before, but here it is:

On Christmas morning, I had to get up in the middle of the night to do my way-too-young for an old-man pee routine when I caught a flicker of something red in the living room.

As a democratic socialist, unfortunately, I didn't have a gun lying around that I could protect myself with so I just grabbed a baseball bat instead and proceeded to investigate the situation.

What I saw in the living room forever changed my perception of reality.

As I turned the corner into the living room I saw a guy in a tattered old Santa outfit trying to get back up the chimney.

"Santa....?" I whispered with a confused look on my face.

He spun around and in a hushed tone he exclaimed..."shit..."

He looked at my confused face and then glanced to see if there was anybody else around.

He muttered to himself..."no children....thank Christ..."

At this point, I was having a slight existential crisis. As a grown-ass man I had stopped believing in Santa Claus decades ago, so objectively it looked like my house was being burglarized by a middle-aged man in a Santa suit. However, there was something particularly festive surrounding the whole situation. An aura of safety that kept my spider-sense from going off in any real way.

That said, the man in the Santa suit was still standing in my living room. As I scanned the room looking for any object he might've swiped I noticed an extra pair of presents underneath the Christmas tree, and it looked like the bag he was carrying had been emptied out.

"Did you just bring presents?" I asked.

"Well....of course. You've been good this year. You've helped thousands of home studio musicians improve the sound of their music, bringing confidence to their audio skills and joy to their fans."

"Why...thank you," I said. "I didn't realize you brought those presents. I just thought my wife wrote "From Santa" on them as a cute little joke..."

"Oh no...." he answered. "Us Santas are very much real."

"Us...?" I asked.

"Oh yes....you don't actually think one guy can traverse the globe in a night? That's psychically impossible. Besides, not every culture believes in the same jolly old Coca Cola Santa as the Americans do, so it would be weird if that version popped down the chimney in Italy for instance. The good-natured witch La Befana takes care of the presents over there and us American Santas don't want to step on her toes. We've had enough female harassment in the industry so far thank you very much!"

"What do you mean "American Santas"" I asked, "are there more than one of you?"

"Oh yeah dude....I handle the Southwest, along with our partner-company, Reyes Inc, who hire subcontractors to celebrate with the Mexicans. They take the second shift because they don't start until January 5th, which is Three King's Day in Mexico."

Sensing my confusion, Santa continued,

"Think of it like a series of interlinked groups of different types of Santas throughout the world. Grant Morrison actually got the idea for Batman Incorporated by us because he was still up in the middle of the night writing comic scripts when one of us came down his chimney.

Santa is really just a code name, kinda like 007, and we're hired by a global agency to make sure everyone gets a present during the holidays if they're nice. We're all over the place really. We've got Father Christmas in the U.K. although he's a bit exhausted trying to figure out which country's he really in charge of anymore.

Our female counterpart, Christkind, takes care of the children in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. And we even have a group of thirteen weird brothers in Iceland. I've never quite figured out that one. Why did we hire thirteen people up there? There's only like 300,000 people who live in that entire country. Seems like an intense case of featherbedding to me, but that's the power of unions for ya!"

I looked at him wide-eyed and dumbfounded. "Wow....that's crazy," I said.

"Yeah...that's not even the half of it. Don't even get me started on the weird Goat in Finland or the smiley-faced wooden log from Catalonia. Seriously, it's a smiling Christmas log that poops out presents....I can't even...."

Santa seemed at loss for words and honestly, my mouth had been in the slack-jawed position ever since he opened his, but all I could muster was:

"Wow..."

"Yeah....it's a weird business being Santa."

Snapping out of it, he said "Well...anyway, must be getting back on my way. Before I leave, I wanted to make you an honorary Santa for the audience that listens to you every day. They're counting on you to bring them something, so I hope you've got something great in store for those who believe in you this Christmas!"

"I sure do!" I said.

"Well great! Then I must bid you farewell. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season!"

In a blink of an eye, he was gone.

As you know, we do things a little bit differently in Iceland. Instead of the one jolly Santa Claus we have 13 trickster brothers that break into your house and, if you're good, might leave you something nice in your shoe.

They're a little terrifying to look at but don't worry, they've been domesticated over the years.

As an honorary Santa I wanted to share with you a quick book I wrote a few years ago about their thirteen cousins, the 13 Yuletide Tricksters of Audio.

You can download it here.​

P.S.

If you like that short book and want to give yourself a special Christmas present you can use to make better sounding mixes, there's not better place to start than with Step By Step Mixing.

Have a rockin' Christmas!

Björgvin