I'm Going to the North Pole

Currently, my mind is on the countdown to winter break. The day after Thanksgiving, my family stays home, is extremely lazy (this year we watched parts of four Harry Potter movies during the USA marathon), and decorates for Christmas. We go on our yearly trek for a tree, hang up lights on the bushes outside, and switch out the wreathes. So my house is all Christmas-ed up, and I'm ready to get into that holly jolly spirit.

Part of that holly jolly spirit is Christmas movies/TV specials. My family owns a rather large amount of Christmas TV specials on DVD, and we watched them religiously when I was younger. I don't remember when we started watching them; I just remember always knowing them. Similarly, there's a couple classic Christmas movies we always watch. Home Alone is a classic we watch with dinner one night every year, and The Santa Clause is a family favorite.

So, I'm a bit of a Christmas movie connoisseur. And in my expansive knowledge of Christmas movies and specials, I've noticed a glaring problem: not a single movie can agree on how the North Pole works. Naturally, you can't expect them to agree. But if I sit and think about all the different versions of the North Pole, I can't decide which one is the most realistic and effective system for Santa's world. I've determined that the only solution to find out which one is best is to visit them all, take detailed notes, and discover the most effective North Pole setup.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
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In Christmas movies, the North Pole is one of two different base versions: the classic North Pole whose operation appears too small to ever actually accomplish what Santa does every year and the technologically advanced North Pole. I've noticed that most Christmas specials created in the 20th century lean toward the classic North Pole. In Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), a classic Christmas TV special, all the toys are made by hand in a small workshop with no more than thirty elves. Santa's sleigh is small and pulled by eight reindeer without any other help. Santa himself is immortal, which sounds incredibly boring after a couple hundred years.

A Miser Brother's Christmas (2008). Notice the factory
setup of the workshop, as opposed to the by-hand
creation in Rudolph
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The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) does not explicitly show the North Pole at work, but we do see its size -- it is a small-scale operation. We get a clearer look at its workings in A Miser Brother's Christmas (2008), which is set in the same universe as The Year Without a Santa Claus. It's unclear how many workshops there actually are -- there are multiple buildings, and it's not specified what they're for. The workshop we see is larger than the one in Rudolph, but it is not massive. However, it does use machines to optimize the toy-making process.

The Santa Clause (1994). While the picture does not
depict the entire workshop, notice the larger
setup of Santa's workshop
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Conversely, the North Pole in more recent Christmas specials and movies is much more realistic with regards to the amount of workers and size required to actually pull off Christmas. For example, The Santa Clause (1994) depicts the North Pole as a small town, with a bustling workshop employing hundreds of elves. There's hierarchy of head elves so Santa doesn't have to be in charge of everything (although he still needs to check the list twice himself), and the role of Santa is passed on through the Santa Clause.

The Polar Express (2004)
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The Polar Express (2004) follows a similar model, wherein the North Pole is a large city where the main characters get lost. The operation of this North Pole is one of the largest in any Christmas movie I know, which is reflected in the sheer amount of gifts Santa fits into his sleigh (it's still rather small and pulled by eight reindeer, though).

The interior of the S-1 in Arthur Christmas (2011)...
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The most modern representation of the North Pole I know of is in Arthur Christmas (2011). The North Pole is dauntingly massive: the workshop is a huge factory. Christmas Eve requires a massive home base of elves monitoring progress, much like a NASA mission, and Santa's sleigh is no more. Instead, Santa and troops of elves take off on the S-1 and deliver presents to one city at a time. Most of the presents are delivered by elves -- Santa is only brought down to one house to place a present. And Santa has kids: being Santa is a generational thing in Arthur Christmas, and who's going to be the next Santa is a major conflict of the movie.

...and the exterior of the S-1
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I have my inklings about which version of the North Pole is most effective. I pretty firmly believe that most of the pre-2000 versions are incredibly ineffective and implausible, besides the fact that they kind of creep me out. However, I'm not sure which system is the most pragmatic out of the ones left. They all seem equally effective in different ways (except for the sleighs, and potentially how the role of Santa is continued), so I truly cannot pass a judgement unless I visited all of the North Poles.


It is for this reason I desperately wish to visit every version of the North Pole. The conflicting visions in my head distress me, and if I could travel anywhere I would travel to the North Poles to settle it once and for all.

*disclaimer: I do not wish to go to the real North Pole. I only want to go to the one where Santa lives.