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North Pole Daily Dispatch

Christmas in doubt due to the sudden financial collapse of Santa's worshop

In the last few hours news has broken of the unexpected financial collapse of Santa's workshop at the North Pole. Reports are also circulating that Santa's sleigh has been impounded over unpaid fees to air traffic controllers in an unspecified country, believed to be Elbonia.

This morning at 11:30 AM administrators came into Santa's workshop and ordered the cessation of all toy production, due to unspecified debts. There are also believed to be moves in the high court in London to declare Santa Clause bankrupt over unpaid feed bills for his reigndeer and other service charges relating to landing fees.

Santa unavailable
So far attempts to get in contact with Santa have been futile, Santa is refusing to answer his telephone, and in the last twenty minutes in a statement issued through his lawyer, Santa has said the following

Today has been a very trying one for all of us, and I am unable to say anymore at this time on legal advise. I wish to extend my apologies to all the girls and boys who have been good and I am sorry that I have let you down. I will continue to work with the administrators to see if there is a solution, but there are no gurantees and the signs due to the financial climate at the moment are not promising. As soon as I am able I will be able to give an update as to whether Christmas has been cancelled this year, but with the way things are, that seems very likely

Some of the elves were a bit more forthcoming, but would only speak off the record. Some of them have been warning Santa this was coming, but Santa was always an eternal optimist and kept telling his workers that something was bound to turn up due to the magic of Chritmas. "Well sorry Santa" said one elf wishing to remain anonymous, "This credit crunch may have just been the one thing to finally destroy the magic of Christmas"

Other victims of the Credit Crunch
The downfall of Santa's workshop is just one of many longstanding names this year to go under due to the world wide credit crunch, joining a number of banks in the US, Leyman Brothers, Woolworths and MFI to name but a few. Gordon Brown was asked to comment, but a spokesman for the Prime Minister said that as Santa's workshop was at the North Pole there was nothing he could do as it fell outside of UK territories, but did promise that in the new year it will be one of the items that may make the next meeting of the G8.

One Unnamed spokesman said "It's begining to look like Christmas for this year is definitely off, whether it can be rescued for 2009 is unclear as there are other priorities more pressing at this time, like the collapse of confidence in the world banking system.

A plea on behalf of children was made to the administors to allow at least this year's present run to go ahead, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears, and experts believe they are now working to sell off assets as it is not considered they can sell it off as a going concern.