Hiding in plain sight, we have been listening, taking notes, making plans to rifle and rummage through your stuff. You don’t see us, but only because you have no idea what we look like. You have been misled, misinformed, mistletoed for years by images of little men in pointy hats. It’s true, we used to wear rather jaunty caps, but things have changed – we’ve adapted, like any successful sustainable syndicate should. We live among you, darning and pilfering and polishing.
***
“Of course I want it to be special,” said Angie, unpacking groceries and slamming cupboard doors. “But blimey, I could do without the palaver.” Angie’s daughter Sunny wasn’t listening – she was halfway up the stairs defending planet Zor from the evil Moggo. But the plumber with her head in a kitchen cabinet was listening.
Down the road in the corner shop, Colm was chatting to his brother Patrick on the phone. “I’m not bothered about getting anything really,” he said. “We’re not kids, are we? But still, I don’t want nothing.” Patrick laughed and hmm-hmmed, although he wasn’t taking much notice. But the woman behind the counter was listening.
Mo was in the local cafe. “This year I’ve finally realised,” he sighed, “I don’t want to plough half this month’s wages into a bottomless abyss.” His sister Nazia rolled her eyes. But the quiet man at the next table was listening.
***
The strangers listening in are quietly doing their jobs. Carole Singer, that plumber fixing the blockage under the sink, is a part-time elf; Holly Reef, who runs the corner shop, is one of our longest-serving elves; and that bald-headed bloke earwigging at the next table in the cafe is Yule Brynner, another highly esteemed elf. We are light-fingered, and will snaffle small items you’ve been neglecting or that you’re about to throw out; we will make them good as new – maybe better – with a bit of spit and polish, maybe a new ear for that teddy or a new hinge for that trinket box. And then we’ll wrap them up ready for Christmas morning. (We are always on the lookout for more elves, by the way. You’ll get fair pay, generous summer holidays, satisfaction in your work, and there’s an excellent union.)
***
And so it was early (too early) on Christmas morning, in a terraced house on Hope Street, seven-year-old Sunny was opening her presents. She got a raggy doll and a couple of books, and she got a lightsaber that had been on its way to the dump when Carole Singer spotted it, decided it’d be perfect for fighting Moggo and his dastardly troops, and put some new batteries in it. Sunny’s mum Angie got a pair of socks she lost sometime in February or March. But ohhhh, she’d forgotten all about them, and she’d especially forgotten how soft they were. And someone had darned the hole in the big toe, so that’s nice. She also got a beautiful brooch. It was the one her auntie Pauline had given her three years back – big, gold and moonstone – handed over drunk at her cousin’s wedding reception after Angie admired it and Pauline had a spasm of boozy, insistent generosity. Now there it was, polished, sparkling like new, the dodgy clasp fixed.
Just over on Silk Street, Colm opened his presents: a bottle of whiskey, a soft flannel shirt, and a ladle. A very particular ladle – the battered and indestructible copper ladle he’d bought in an antique shop on holiday in Truro 17 years ago, it must be 19th-century at least, probably French, not fancy exactly but, you know, pretty nice. This was the very same ladle that he lost somehow when he had to move house in April. He hadn’t grieved over it exactly – it’s a LADLE – but what a pleasure to have it back. Patrick got a very pretty vase he recognised, after admiring it for a moment: it was the bottle of very expensive vermouth that had gone missing in October. True, it was full then and it’s empty when he gets it back, but it’s clean and polished and would look lovely with some pink roses in it. He also got a slightly manky red hat that he was pretty sure actually belongs to his nextdoor neighbour, Gwen. (The elves make mistakes, just like anyone else. Sometimes packages end up under the wrong tree; sometimes we drink your vermouth.) Patrick will pop round to Gwen’s with her hat later – maybe he’ll take Colm with him and that bottle of whiskey too.
Up the road on Bold Street, Mo and Nazia were having a nice quiet Christmas with the cats and the telly, and a couple of mates coming round later. First, though, they had presents to open: chocolate brazils for Mo, because he loves them, and a pile of paperbacks, because Nazia decided she did want to spend a bit of money on him after all. Nazia got a lovely rubbery laptop case and a jumper she hadn’t seen in years; it had been washed and adorned with pearls and diamante by Yule Brynner, who was very pleased with his handiwork. Nazia was very pleased, too.
***
So it went on, all around the place: presents old, presents new, presents fixed up and fancified and returned to their rightful, forgetful, grateful owners.
And later on Christmas Day, when all the work was done, all the elves nipped out and had a party. There was dancing and jigging and jiving. There was singing and carolling and serenading, there was gossip and chitchat and persiflage.
Tomorrow, or maybe the day after, we’ll be darning and pilfering and polishing again. Perhaps the best way to describe our reinvention is to say that we’ve become a global lost and found office, or gleeful recyclers of joy – which is endless, after all. We are creators of new but familiar gifts; we have joined the circular economy.
Anna Wood is the winner of the 2018/19 Galley Beggar Short Story Prize
For inspiration on gifts that don’t hurt the planet and the people in it, visit the Oxfam Christmas gift guide
