Q&A and Comments to the Feedback Elf

Yes, we get bundles questions and comments. Some are fun, others are very odd, some naughty, most fortunately are very nice.  Here's a sampling - plus the response. 
P.S., we take no responsibility if you end up with a moose in your kitchen.

Q. My name is Chase and I was wondering what do reindeers eat?
A. Dear Chase,  Reindeer like to eat vegetation - especially pasture type of grasses. Did you know that reindeer have four stomachs very similar to a cow's? Also, they love treats like carrots. Some reindeer love to lick candy canes -especially the magical reindeer at the North Pole.  Rudolph mentioned too that nothing beats a good oatmeal-gumdrop cookie. Sometimes I wish I had four stomachs - then I could eat pizza all day....

Q. For Pete's sake, put some easer questions on the quizzes!  Logan.
A. Dear Logan, O.K., here's an easy question for you:
              What is the color of Santa's RED suit?   ...tick, tick, tick....

 Q.  I think you should make it so parents can order free phone calls for kids no charge!
A. Great idea!  Please send us $881,000,002.28 and then we'll gladly start this "free" telephone program.  We'll let you make the first call too!  Hello - Can you here me now?

Q.  Please tell me how you get the little Santa with the sleigh that spells out the words on the bottom of your homepage.
A. We use magic snow crystals, and Macromedia's Shockwave - Oh, and carnival mirrors.

Q. What is the stuff Santa's footprints are in every year? Best Wishes, Robert.
A. Robert, it's snow unless Santa stumbled over the reindeer barn's compost pile.

Q.  Your web site is great but I have one question Where is Jesus?
A. As my mom always reminded me, "He's right next to you...always."

Q. My comments about this website- It was HORRID.  Aaron.
A.  Aaron, your lump of coal is being gift wrapped as we speak...

Q. Why do people write X-mas instead of Christmas?  Thanks, Leo.
A. Dear Leo, X-mas is supposedly the use of the letter 'X' as a Greek lettering for "Ch" - or Christ (Christos).  However the Greek symbols we have researched showed that for the word Christ it was  actually a letter P behind the X. We're not scholars or academics.  Perhaps a nerdy Greek Ph.D., or your wonderful mom could clarify this better.  However we agree, you're better off using the full word Christmas  -  in our humble opinion. X-mas is mainly used by advertisers who want to save space in their holiday advertising.

Q. Hey, I have no idea to who I'm writing to but I am so bored.  What you need is some kind of thing where people who visit your site can contact other people and so U can have a sort of Email Pen Pal Christmas thing happening!  Annie.
A.  Annie, bored you say?  Uh, oh - looks like someone has forgotten what Christmas is all about.  Please just take one afternoon this Christmas and volunteer somewhere- anywhere. The animal shelter, the hospital, Goodwill, Salvation Army, any outreach program - go visit an elderly neighbor and ask if you can write to them - trust me, you won't be bored.

Q. There is nothing!  There is absolutely nothing to laugh at. With kind regards. Nana
A. Nothing to laugh at ! - Then we feel really bad for giggling when watching Penguins...

Q. Nice to hear about the toboggan story or something like that but it was too long!  JR.
A. Dear JR. How's this for a short story...There was a snowman. He melted. The END.

 Q. I am 22 years old and would like you to ask Santa to bring me a man who is perfect - tall, not to tall - sexy, blue eyes, dark hair; You know the drill!  Katie.
A. Dear Katie - your request is being forwarded to the Really-Really Impossible Requests But We'll Pass It Around Anyway And Gossip Department. Would a nice, happy, adorable puppy work?  Dogs will love you no matter what your mood...

Q. Why the "T" is silent in the word Christmas ? Thank You, ....Rick.....
A. Think... when you say Rick - is it the 'c' in your name that is silent or  the 'k' ?
Ric and Rik sound the same to me...

 Christmas means Christ's Mass - the celebration of the birth of the Savior Jesus. As with many words that were often used together they became a  single, compound words such as: bookmark, firefly, secondhand, softball,  childlike, cross-town, redhead... and, they often have silent letters. You wouldn't say red-hee-ad in place of redhead...(unless someone's just graduated from Dork-U)

 Try this - Say out loud, "Christ's Mass" really fast ten times and you'll  see what I mean. When I do this, I end up saying "Crass-Mass " and wah-lah-  The "t" goes missing!

 Silent letters: letters which appear in a word, but do not in themselves  represent a sound, for example the <e> of slime, the <k> of knot, (not that knots need not be naughty) Hey, even  the word phonics wouldn't isn't pronounced Puh-Hon-Icks.  Most silent letters were pronounced at an earlier stage of the history of English, but then,  though the sound was lost from the word, the spelling did not change.

It may seem strange to include silent letters as is common in English, since silent letters do not represent a sound; however, they do differentiate one word from another in spelling, for instance bide or bid and Kit or kite. Some silent letters are arguably unnecessary, other silent letters make up for the shortage of vowel symbols (English has about 16 vowel-type sounds), but we use only 5 letters to represent these. A, E, I, O, U - and sometimes Y. - And whatever you do, please don't  pronounce Claus - Clay-Us.  Oh, yes - Santa says Ho, Ho, Ho when delivering toys and Hoe, Hoe, Hoe when weeding his snow garden.

Q. Too many people are doing too much to eradicate \"Christmas\" from our lives. Christmas has been celebrated by Christians for many centuries and even Ebenezer Scrooge finally came to recognize Christmas. That is not to say that we should not recognize other cultures who have different traditions, but for us, Christmas should be proudly celebrated!
A. We agree. Everyone knows of an Ebenezer-like person somewhere, and the best thing to do is smack them with some happy Christmas Tango and a little Reindeer Bop!  10-4!

Q. Thanks for an easy to use web site. I teach first grade and use your site for our letters to Santa. The students each write their own letter to Santa and anxiously wait for their reply. I like the instant response to my e-mail and then print each response out for the kids to take home. Thanks again for a great site. Margery
A. Margery, gosh! Our ego is stuck in the doorway!  <pink blushing faces here and kicking at imaginary stones...>  Thank you so much for being a teacher - you may not realize how important a role you play in developing the character of today's youth,  but you do make a difference.  We're glad we can help.
 
Q.  I just want to thank you for including the Christmas Story. It seems everyone is afraid to mention the Christ Child in connection to Christmas. To me this is what it is all about. It may not be to others but there are enough of persons like me and I appreciate your effort. Lois S.
A.  Lois, thanks for the note.  We are amazed at all the retailers that reap millions of dollars because of Christmas -  yet they are scared silly (thanks to the secularist-progressive poopy heads) and do not post Christ's name anywhere. And we just can't get into saying "Merry-Winter Solstice Time this 12th month and have a Not So Unhappy 365 Day Time Period Following!... Retailers, who yearly rely on the proverbial "Black Friday" shopping spree the day after Thanksgiving  should be awfully thankful that it is because Jesus was born that they have CHRISTMAS shoppers - by the way did you know that the Friday after Thanksgiving is NOT the biggest retail day during the Christmas season?  Yeppers! It's actually the SATURDAY before Christmas that brings in more happy Christmas dollars to all the retailers - even the poopy-head secular business retailers should know this.

Q. This site is very good because you get to write to Santa and listen to music and do this feedback thingy If Santa doesn't write back I will sue this website and take it to court.  And if Santa doesn't come this year to my house I will sue you  again for no particular reason just out of free will.  I will sue $1,000,000 dollars so u better reply and Santa better come this year.!  Andrew.
A. Dear Andrew, Let me guess...Um, you must live in the USA?  Dad's an attorney?

Q.  Hi!  I have a question that I thought you could help with. We are trying to bring back the family Christmas and we need help with fun ideas for grab bag exchanges for adults and children. If you have any ideas I would be grateful. Thanks, Dena
A.  Dena, for any gift exchange among adults and kids you first MUST set a spending limit - too often people feel guilty because someone in the family has spent way more than  others... One idea that is to have a gift exchange with a theme. This year our toy shop has the theme of "Rock or Stone" - ($15 gift limit) this gives everyone a direction as to what kind of gift to get for the adult exchange, i.e., an engraved stone paper weight, a caricature out of granite, stoneware coffee mug... - It doesn't have to be complicated, but our family had a gift exchange (for the adults) with the theme of 'wine' - the stipulation was that it could be wine colored (for those who don't drink alcoholic beverages) or having to do with wine - an opener, a book about wine - or a bottle of wine...  For gift exchanges for kids we've had fun with the $1 Christmas hunt - where each grab bag has a note with a clue written on it where a $1 dollar bill (now it's $5...inflation) has been hidden in the house and the kids get to go on a Christmas hunt. Once all the dollars have been found the kids decide, on their own, how they are going to use the money - this is a good opportunity to encourage saving money or donating to a cause.  One year in the kid's bags we inserted a Kodak disposable cameras with the instructions to shoot pictures of "My Christmas Day" - We had extra Santa hats, costumed reindeer antlers, and fake elf ears (plus a Groucho Marx nose, eyebrow glasses-mask that was the most popular) that the kids could ask family members to wear for their picture taking - we processed the pictures at a 1-HR photo lab and then we exchanged the pictures with each other - if we needed more copies of a favorite picture - no problem - back to the 1-hour photo lab - these pictures then went into Grandma's photo album. One year in the grab bag for kids we put in each bag a kazoo and inexpensive music maker like a plastic drum, cymbals, flutes, etc. - and then we videotaped the kids performing together (it was really funny) Christmas melodies - each kid had to give a solo performance too. Then the parents were coaxed into performing.  Another year for the kids it was animal Masks - and again we had the kids do a Christmas themed skit with their animal masks. We even managed to get a couple of the adults to wear the masks and perform.

 Q. I have a question that I can't figure out. How does Santa Claus see everybody in the world when he's watching almost every move you make?  Thanks, Kiana.
A. We really like your name! Kiana!
Santa uses something similar to KARMA.  It is hard to describe but it is a very old doctrine and it's like a special knowledge, or gift of Santa's  and one that he has mastered.  Moms have this gift too, because they always seem to know when their kids have been naughty.  My mom sure did! 

If you toss a pebble onto the smooth surface of a pond, it causes ripples in the water and these ripples spread and finally impact upon the bank surrounding the pond. And so, as Santa tells us, the ripples of your daily thoughts and actions (both naughty and nice) are translated into vibrations similar to a pond ripple.  These vibrations are carried outward to the banks of the North Pole.  With the strong magnetic pole up here (take a look at any compass and it points very close to Santa's North Pole Village) your vibrations  as well as with everyone else's in the world, are drawn here and eventually felt by Santa and the elves - this is when Santa takes his notes (his well-known list  "...he's making a list, checking it twice...). There are always corresponding reactions of naughty and nice atomic particles traveling North and spreading energy.  The good vibrations always outweigh the bad. This is why it always helps to be positive and do good things.  It is this positive energy that lights up the North Pole Village and also gives Santa the energy to loudly proclaim "Merry-Christmas! "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Hope, Hope, Hope! this helps!

 Q. You frighten me. When I was four someone in a big, red suit came and I cried a lot.  I think Santa is so fat. Lay off the cookies Santa. Feed them to your reindeer. I am completely against your saddling of reindeer and making them fly your fat rear around. I have to say, I think it's time to retire.  But you're not real... so what does this Teckni-Corp plan to do with these  letters?!?! IT'S A CONSPIRACY!! Love Always, Sally Sue
A. Sally Sue,  Sorry, Santa can't lay off the cookies. It's in the Santa Charter and Official North Pole Protocols and Ho, Ho, Ho Directives.   As for the reindeer - they abide by the International Reindeerhood of Happy Christmas Animals - (I.R.H.C.A.) if they don't get to fly around pulling a sleigh,  then they'll just end up in a big Alaskan reindeer herd hoping to be filmed by a PBS documentary crew...and teasing the penguins.  Teckni-Corp., lists what it does for handling the email service in the on-line privacy policy. You can read it by clicking on this link: http://www.merry-christmas.com/privacy-policy.htm.  You'll like the stuff about MOOSE.

Q. Received your reply - I wonder who has the time to sit around and read letters from kids.  Droning! I would also appreciate a copy of this Santa Charter and the North Pole List of Protocol because I think its quite unfair to have you keep Santa fat. And make him wear red. At least if you wore black it would be slimming. And if there is a site for the IRHCA I would like to know what it is so I can send them a letter telling them what an excellent job they are doing. Overbearing feedback elves do frighten me,  PBS also scares me. Along with clowns, mimes, and the tooth fairy. I hear you two are rather close.  Sally Sue.
A. We apologize for your confusion. Sheesh! We did it again. Another North Pole Santa fan to check into our Confusional-Relational Database... We've been having difficulty sending magic, happy-snow crystals along with our return emails. This North-Pole business is really getting out of hand - I miss the old days when we could do everything with a pencil and paper and we let the Abominable Snowmen clan handle mail.  Droning you say! - Hmmm, maybe you should read faster.  

Along with reading bazillion letters we also take time to design handles for coffee mugs - do you like mugs?  Do you drink coffee?

The Santa Charter and North Pole Protocols is being rewritten at this time and not available. Our NP Attorney, Dewey R. Dontwee, E.I.E.I.O , is taking these requests under advisement. We're having to add clauses that indemnify us against all actions from rouge elfins and legally proclaimed crazed reindeer, not to mention penguins trying to pass themselves off as hotel concierges. This all having to do with last year's  incident in Rio with the penguins challenging the obnoxious mimes, midget-clowns and the PBS documentary crew in a game of polar bear shuffleboard... Don't ask, but like you - they frighten us too.  However, the tooth-fairy rocks in our book - she teaches the Christmas Tango to reindeer..

We'll look into your suggestion of having Santa wear more black - we had thought the big black belt around Santa's waist was effective - perhaps a paisley pattern on the belt that would distract from the rotund belly... The IRHCA doesn't have a website yet - perhaps in the future - there's nothing better than a happy, flying animal. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Here's another link for your reading pleasure.  A fantastic BARNES & NOBLE book listing.

Q. Do you like Michigan or Michigan State? Are you real? 
A. We like them both when they beat Ohio State, otherwise the Iowa Hawkeye's rock!
And yes, we're real...weird.

Q. In one of your game quizzes you ask: If you're a Norwegian on Christmas Eve you will want to go to your barn and leave a bowl of porridge in the hayloft for whom?  And the answers are The barn elf, The town crier, Santa's reindeer or Mrs. Claus. The right answer is Santa Claus.... In Norway we leave a bowl of porridge for Santa Claus. I hope you will correct the mistake as soon as possible.
A.  You've just made a lot Barn Elves angry!

Q. I think that you _ _ _ _ _!! Because I wanted to e-mail Santa!!!
I hate you all  - and just a reminder you _ _ _ _ !!!!      Maggie
(note: blank word was intentionally blanked out because we don't think we_____ and you don't need to see _ _ _ _ when _ _ _ _ ing and/or  when _____ing , or _____illy.)

A. Maggie Mooo! Merry-Christmas to you! Hey, are your parents stuck in a closet? Please let them out so they can discipline you - sheesh!  I suggest replacing your TV cabinet with bookshelves, and filling it with wonderful  literature classics - hopefully one of the books is a Holy Bible...
O.K., As long as you insist on being mean spirited (Bah! Humbug!) you should at least learn to write properly and more creatively.  We'd have respect for your notes if you had expressed more creativity. Your response would have been better if you added more flair. Perhaps it should have been written as follows:

     Dear non-specific feedback responder, (whom I understand is a very handsome dude) whom I've never met but I AM THE PRINCESS, so there!  I think you are the physics of a spacecraft with a miniscule hole in the windshield and are now sucking the life out of the unsuspecting crew. All I wanted was my way, (which I always get or I start a Class-A Hissy fit, and I lie down on the dirty floor and , and, um, erm, I begin to kick and scream - and spit.) Oh, and I wanted to email Santa.  I need to inform the Jolly Old Elf that I want it all...or else I'll spit more!  I'd rather have a flea condo built on my left big toe as to ever have to deal with you peons at the feedback desk...that's how much I really dislike you!  Like, so totally!  Please, um, erm, no...make this my directive, my order, my supreme tasking command - I demand that you chisel a note in your driveway that you _ _ _ _ . (see note above about referenced blank) Concrete lasts a long time - I saw it on TV while I was eating raw sugar, so it must be true.

My way, or else! 
 Maggie - the Mooseinater.

Q. I'm sorry, but I can't buy anything on your website.  As a result of the Christian right's takeover of the government, I have given up Christianity, and Christmas, and I would appreciate it if you would remove any relationship to Christmas from this website. I will survey it in detail before I leave, to find out exactly who to boycott in addition to all retailers.  Ben M.
A. Ben! Ben! Ben! - Thanks for the feedback! Whoa! First, before you read further, please remove the aluminum foil that you've taped to your head.  This will allow my "Happy-Happy, Ho, Ho, Ho" Christmas vibes to penetrate your thick skull... Whether you like it or not we want you to have a Merry- Um, Erm...Merry Chr...ahhhh, you know what I mean...  We agree that you should boycott us. Puh-Leeze!  Plus, you should boycott every store, everywhere, that has anything to do with religious-related holidays - and not just Christmas - Oh, sorry, I mean the time period in December where billions of people have happy thoughts about the claim of an unproven event where supposedly good things happened and a savoir and wonderful philosopher was born -  but probably he didn't because it was all an evil, right-wing, bad...really bad, stinky capitalistic plot to take over the world...ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!.... <place pinkie finger in corner of mouth - give evil grin with maniacal glint in eyes, and release the flying monkeys!>  We're still laughing in a menacing way. 

O.K., you can now put the aluminum foil cap back on...   

Q. Your site is called, "Merry-Christmas.com which is great! 97% of Americans celebrate Christmas. But why then do you use the \"politically correct\" term Your Homepage for The Holidays?  Thanks - Kevin C.
A. Kevin thanks for the observation - 97% percent of Americans at one time or another has picked a booger out of their nose too. And as for correct politics - 97% percent of politicians act like boogers!  You try to ignore them and when you finally pick them out of the crowd (so to speak) you just can't seem to flick them away. Aha! What this has to do with our website title? I'll never know, but I thought you should get some kind of response.
Have a Merry-Christmas and may your Holidays be booger-less.