It was the night before the night before Christmas and not a creature was stirring- except for the noisy red headed elf stumbling home from the TAB shop and grumbling something about how Santa had knocked him back for a job, but nobody had listened to him for years. Tomorrow was a big day at the North Pole. It was the one time of the year that the elves from the South Pole and the elves from the East Pole put their differences aside and pulled together to get the presents out to the kids of the world. The elves from East Pole would use their knowledge of succeeding and their understanding of what the youngsters needed and the elves from the South Pole were invaluable with their ability to keep things organised by assigning all the kids a number and put it on a special Christmas hat. In fact, it was such a big day tomorrow that a small group of elves from the South Poll had even gotten together in secret and organised to give Chris Cringle a brand new sack to carry the presents in. They had hoped to give Chris the sack much earlier in the year but a sudden jump in production stopped them from getting their chance.

Final preparations were being made for the big run. The Naughty/Nice list had been double checked and the emergency shipment of toys had arrived from China after Peter the Elf's little brother Phil the Elf from the West Pole toy factory had chucked it in at the last minute. All that needed to be done was for Mrs Cringle to iron the three quarter length red velure pants that Chris was trying out this year and they were go for launch.

But just as the Cringles were settling back to enjoy the peace and quiet of the night before, Cameron the Head Elf burst through the door and he was super excited about something. So much so that Chris Cringle nearly leapt right out of his spa, spilling water all over Cameron the Elf's shiny elf boots.

"Chris! Chris! We're in trouble, Chris. We've got no reindeer. They'll all pulled up sore from their training run. Without a full squad to pick from you'll never make it through the journey tomorrow."

Things were indeed looking bad. Wizzy the Reindeer had done his back trying to do a triple somersault off the back of the sleigh, Macca the Reindeer got cleaned up by Sandi the Reindeer, Sandi the Reindeer had bumped his antlers trying to get through the tiny doors in stables the elves built. Jingle Bells wasn't going to be able to lead because he'd come done with another case of Osteitis Pubis (which is really hard to treat because Reindeer don't have a pubis). Polly the Red Nosed Reindeer and gotten into the rum balls and wasn't in any state to fly, Hasey the Reindeer had done his groin trying to carry his wallet about down at the Reinhound races and Robbie the Reindeer did his back trying to carry Polly back to the stables.

To make matters worse, Luke the Reindeer was off singing Carols with Ray Martin and Johnny Farnham and Roger the Reindeer had been signed up to star in the new Carry on…it's Christmas movie and

Chris Cringle sat back in his spa and let the bubbles relax him as he tried to think. It was quite a predicament and he was glad he had been given the full backing of Rick the Elf at the beginning of the year. When Cameron the Elf pointed out that the spa wasn't plugged in, Chris put down the three bean salad and they did the only thing they could - they went to see Pav the Big Nosed Reindeer.

"Pav" Chris said " I've run you at the back of the sleigh team, I've run you in the middle of the sleigh team, I've even rotated you on and off the sleigh at times but this Christmas we're in a bit of strife. The bottom of the barrel has officially been scraped. We're going to have to give Schoey the Reindeer a run even though he should have been given a job in 'marketing' a long time ago, Peakey the Reindeer's kid isn't big enough to fly his dad about in a helicopter but he wasn't going to have to carry a fat bloke and a sack of toys all around the world and, even though Gilly the Reindeer refuses to run where we tell him to and throws the whole sleigh team out of whack, we're giving him a run too - and what was with his hair, no one has hair that curly, he make Ronald McDonald look like hee's got an afro - it must be fake. It must be."

"Anyway back to the issue at hand, I need you to go forward this year and carry the sleigh team for me."

The next day, Pav the Big Nosed Reindeer headed up the sleigh team and when Chris said those magical words "On Blacky, on Gilly, on Monkey, on Schoey, on Whitey, on Peakey's kid, on Grovey, on Pav" they took off like a rocket. Legs were flailing everywhere as the other reindeer gave everything they had even though deep down they all knew that Pav was carrying them. With Pav's big nose leading them, they knocked off the present run in record time and were back early to watch a replay of the Swans winning the grand final. Christmas was saved and everyone rejoiced. They even wrote a song about it.

Pavlich the Big Nosed Reindeer
Had a really massive nose
And everyone that walked beneath it
Got lost in the dark shadows

All of the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names
And when he had a head cold
it ran like the river Thames

Then when all the reindeer were injured
Chris Cringle came to say
Pavlich with your nose so big
Do you reckon Gilly wears a wig?

And he carried the toys as well
So all the kids got presents for free
Pavlich the Big Nosed Reindeer
You'll go down in history