Year XXXX, the YYYYth Santa's Journal:

Since who-knows-when, Santa Claus has existed in the minds of the people up till to this very day. People had always imagined Santa Claus to be a kind old fat ass, that dresses in red robe and has a long beard who gives free presents to children around the world.

That basically explained who Santa Claus is. More or less. I may have sounded rude when I called Santa Claus a fat ass but you need to hear my side of story before you start bashing on me, okay?

It went like this. Since time unknown, a story about the existence of Santa Clause started to emerge. A man giving children gifts. Even though the story had been passed down generations to generations, it was surprisingly accurate. Santa Claus was in fact how people described him to be. That was a long time ago though.

Some things happened and some things were changed. The man called Santa Claus retired because he was exhausted and was somewhat poor to provide the money for the gifts. This caused the children all around the world to be upset.

Sad to see the children being down, the retired Santa Claus began taking in disciples. After much work, one of the disciples took the former position of Santa Claus. The disciple had a name of his own but it was soon changed to be Santa Claus; a copy of the original one. This continued for a long time but, what does it have to do with me? Well, don't be surprised as I'm uh, one of the many Santa Clauses.

I have a lot of problems ever since I became a Santa Claus. There were often cases of me not having left with enough money to eat after I bought the presents for the children, always covered in dust after going through the chimney and all sorts of that crap. That's not the main concern though. The major problem was, I was called a [b]fat[/] man even though I'm so thin due to money problems.

It can't be helped though as I'm one of the many copies of the original Santa Claus. It has already been a few hundred years since I took on this job and to be honest, it was tiring. I can't retire just yet because I haven't finished the amount of years I need to serve. It was stressing how I needed to prepare millions to billions of gifts in a day. I couldn't prepare beforehand as the children didn't put up their wish on the Christmas tree yet.

I hope you can sympathize with me. Also, I was told by my employer, Mr.F, that this year was going to be more hectic than the last. Reason being there were other areas that finally had a teleportation device installed. Unlike olden days, we, mainly speaking me, was using modern technology that has surpassed the humans themselves. No way I'm going to ride in some cart pulled by reindeers. Even teleporting place to place needed money to use the said device.

Maybe you are going to tell me to stop blabbering so much and start to do my job but I already finished wrapping the gifts. All I need to do now is to deliver them over to the children.

I finished up the tiring process of delivering the gift to the 'old' areas. All that's left now are the new areas. The new opened up areas were more or less the same as the old ones so I didn't bother much. Soon, I had already delivered all of the presents. I had some spare cash remaining so I was planning to grab a grub near another area that's not opened yet that I could simply go there. I was also going to buy some clothes. It has been a long time since I had new sets of clothes.

I was forbidden to buy or have any interactions with the areas that I have sent gives to so I had to go to a closed area. The area I have chosen this time seemed to be very... lacking. Only one city was flourished with resources while others were run down. Did the area had a war or something?

I didn't know as I was just a delivery guy so I proceeded with my task and bought some pastries and six sets of clothes and was heading back to the nearest teleporting device. On the way there, I passed a run down town with bad atmosphere. It was mostly empty or maybe completely empty for all I know.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

As I continued to walk on, I stumbled upon a three ragged-looking children in the back-alley. Two of them were girls and another was a boy. They were shivering from the cold and would most probably die. As a person who makes children smile, I couldn't just walked away so I approached them.

Their eyes were lifeless and you can almost feel that they gave up on life. As I was nearing them, perhaps caused by the noise made by my footsteps, one of the older girls looked up at me but said nothing. I stopped right in front of her.

"Little girl, do you guys want to eat?", I said softly and gently to the girl.

A little bit of life returned to her eyes the moment I said that and she gave me a weak nod. I squatted down took out a bag full of freshly baked pastries and took a delicious loaf of bread and handed it to her.

"Here, eat this first." I said so as I looked at her, full of sympathy.

Not only the girl that I talked to was delighted but the other two children was too. The girl took the loaf of bread gratefully and began to share it with the other two kids. In a flash, the bread already disappeared.

I let out a faint small and said, "Take these. Consider it as gifts." With that, I ended up giving them all of the pastries and all of the six sets of new clothes that I bought with my spare money.

"M-mister... Can we really take these? Really?" The children asked.

"Yeah, it's okay. If not, you good little children will not survive the winter." I said with a smile.

Somehow, they look sullen when I said that. ... Ah! Crap! Stupid! I should have not said that. What kind of a heartless person would say that these children are going to die soon.

Stupid!

"Um,ah! Thankfully there's an orphanage near here so you guys don't need to worry anymore! I'll will lead you there!" I said, trying to brightened the mood a little.

"Hurry, you guys should wear the clothes that I gave you so that you wouldn't be cold anymore." I added on.

They just nodded and obediently put on the clothes. I then urged them to eat first before we head to the orphanage. After they were done, I took their hands as to not separate them for me and walked them to the orphanage.

We arrived at the front gate of the orphanage shortly after. Up till here should be right. There's no need to involve myself with the adults of this world too much. That would breach my job's contract.

"Okay, we are here. This is as far as I'll take you guys. You can talk to the caretaker yourself right?", I said while smiling to them.

"Um...Yes. Thanks a lot mister." They answered while nodding. They're so cute.

"Then, I'll take my leave." Before I walked away, I felt a tug on my right sleeve.

"???"

"Mister, are you Santa Claus?" One of the children asked me. That was an unexpected question.

I only smiled and answered, "No, I'm just an ordinary delivery guy."

Just when I thought the conversation was over and was just about to take my leave, the girl that I talked with earlier said, "If Santa Claus existed, I think that person is you, mister." After saying that one sentence, she smiled, followed by the other two.

"If you say so, kiddo. Now, go knock on the door. Your life should be a whole lot better than it was after this. Take care!"

"Goodbye, Santa Claus!" With that farewell, the children knocked on the door to the orphanage and I went my separate way.

I may not be able to have new sets of clothes nor managed to grab a grub, but... It was worth it to see the smiles come back to the children faces. I obtained a mysterious sense of happiness in my heart. Perhaps this is the reason as to why I became a Santa Claus in the beginning.

If there was someone else who grants wishes then I would wish to protect the smiles of the children and bring more happiness to them.

- Santa's Journal, End.