Yuletide Packets

This is the tale of an Internet elf, or how Santa went high tech.

What could seem more appropriate at Christmas time than a company (Softway) that is in the business of connecting corporate customers to the Internet providing Santa with an Internet address?

What would Santa get from being connected to the Internet? Well, he could become a telecommuter. Think what this means to someone who would normally be stuck in the cold and snow of the North Pole for months at around this time of year. With an Internet connection (and a lot of busy elves to actually do the work) he could be basking on a tropical beach in Australia for a little while (until the Big Day when he actually did all the deliveries).

The origin of the mail was a surprise. Although it is not always easy to determine where a piece of electronic mail comes from, there was mail from all the following places: USA, Estonia, South Africa, Netherlands, Japan, Germany, McMurdo base (Antarctica), and even Australia (where the machine handling the mail is located). Although most of the messages were, mercifully, in English there was one in Estonian and another in Spanish. It took several days to work out what language the Estonian message was in. It turned into a truly international exercise.

The mail came from people of all ages (under 3 to over 80 - which is the oldest anyone admitted to being), from all different occupations - students, grandparents, researchers, and the military. The tone was sometimes serious, humorous, or sad.

Children mailed their Christmas wish list for Santa confident that he would listen. "Bigger children" had wish lists that (if fulfilled) would result in them spending considerable time and expense in repairing their floors even supposing Santa could have fitted the goodies down the chimney (a feat seemingly as difficult as Santa visiting all the homes on the planet in the one night). Some had wishes for themselves and some had wishes for other people. Some people wanted to wish the Internet Santa a Merry Christmas or to say what a good idea they thought it was. Others were lonely, hurt, and afraid - needing someone to talk to. What do you say to the child whose only Christmas wish is that dad would stop yelling and beating mom?

Quite a few people had questions for Santa, which gave the Internet elves a chance to exercise their creative juices. Here is a sample of the sort of things some of the adults asked and the replies from various elves.

How do the reindeer like being on the Super-Highway? Santa answered: well, its a bit of a squash fitting them down the cable (especially the fibre), bit once they're in they're quite happy about it. Its much like a rollercoaster: each sits in its packet and gets whisked along, which is much less effort than having to pull a great lunking sleigh.

The request for 365 pairs of slacks drew a suggestion from Santa that a new chest of drawers should be on the Christmas list also.

A number of people wanted Santa to provide theses for them - but Santa warning them that they might not get very good marks if the elves did it for them.

So, what conclusions has this Internet elf come to? Was it interesting? Yes. Was it worth while? Well, it was interesting. The Internet community is a "global village" on an enormous scale consisting of a bewildering variety of cultures and it is great to be part of it. The reaction of the Internet community has been generally positive, so we can be confident that it was appreciated. Would we do it again? Not without a lot more elves! I don't think the company could afford to do it again in this form because of the cost in manpower. The size of the event (putting Santa online) surprised some who decided to do it (and confirmed the fears of some who voted no). of a bewildering variety of cultures.

It was surprising how quickly the exercise became large. While this was aided by wide media exposure, it could not have happened without media representatives and the general population having a significant background awareness of the Internet and how to use it. The largest volume of responses came from America - so what happened Australia? Are we more ignorant, in general, of the Internet or don't we write to Santa any more?