This will be the last holiday season production from the North Pole. On January 1, the doors to Santa’s workshop will be closed forever. What caused all of this? How will the elves live? What happened to the big man with the beard? The Minnesota Republic’s investigative report team sent a team of journalists into the Arctic Circle to find out.

The first elf, Paul Peppermint, had a lot to say, as a former foreman at the toy plant who has worked there for forty years. “Over the last several decades, elvish industries have been substantially down. Some of it is inevitable. With kids wanting more technologically based toys, we began to act more like a distributing firm up here. At the same time, we tried to maintain manufacturing integrity. With the rise of these new trade deals, it just seems like there is less and less work”.

It seems that NAFTA has hit the North Pole pretty hard. Mr. Peppermint expressed fear in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well. The North Pole has already been hit hard enough with one trade deal, Peppermint did not think it could survive another.

After speaking with Peppermint, the Republic found a younger worker. Ronnie Rednose is a twenty-five-year-old cobbler in Santa’s workshop with the ability to fashion a pair of fashionable boots in twenty seconds. He was very dismissive of the union efforts to stabilize the North Pole. “Honestly, they don’t even care about us. Ever since we unionized, our wages went down and our health care has been more expensive than the free clinic over the border in Norway. All they do is take our money and watch our jobs go south. How about they actually do something to improve our standard of living?”

Ronnie was very bitter. He remembers the days when his father could provide for his family of five with his wages at the shop. Back then everyone had a job. Ever since Mr. Clause outsourced his jobs to Central American and Asian countries, life has become bleak in the far north. This cheaper labor is coming at a cost. Not only are the products inferior but the locals are being forced to turn to traditional elven crafts like trying to sell Lord of the Rings souvenirs. They suffer all of this just so that they can have a little cash. With a community that is no longer financially stable food stamps and welfare are not affordable for the community.

The combined countries that border the Arctic Circle have pitched in for welfare arrangements, but this has just led to a rise in alcoholism and drug abuse. We tried to interview a rather large elf named Buddy, but he started talking to a narwhal………a clear sign of fetal alcohol syndrome. All of this is happening in our backyards. While some politicians are calling the elvish industries a thing of the past, they are making big bucks off of the mass production of the same goods in another country that has cheaper labor with inferior quality.

How could we let this happen? It is time to make the North Pole Great Again.