Welcome back, Pokemon trainers, and happy holidays! The holiday season is one of my favorite times of the year because of Winter Break and Christmas. The legend of Santa Claus is a huge part of Christmas. It’s a fantastic story: an old man in a red suit somehow brings presents to millions of homes in one night. Since I have Pokemon on my mind so much of the time, I came up with an interesting question: what would happen if Pokemon ran Christmas instead?
The most important part of Christmas is Santa Claus. In the Pokemon world, the role of Santa Claus is filled by Delibird, the delivery Pokemon. Delibird has a red body with fluffy, white feathers on its face and neck, so its appearance makes it a good candidate. Its tail is a white bag that it uses to carry food and other gifts that it gives to Pokemon. Delibird’s favorite pastime is giving gifts; the only move it learns by level up (other than Drill Peck) is Present, which only Delibird can learn in this way. Delibird’s ice typing allows it to live at the North Pole all year without getting cold, so it won’t need a big, puffy coat like Santa does. Delibird’s two standard abilities, Hustle and Vital Spirit, are perfect for Christmas as well. In battle, Hustle increases attack while lowering accuracy, an effect that does not help Delibird with its horrendous stats. However, Hustle gives Delibird the energy to travel the world each year on Christmas Eve. Vital Spirit allows Delibird to stay awake as long as necessary without tiring in order to run the North Pole 24/7. Additionally, Vital Spirit increases Delibird’s Christmas spirit to make the holiday season extra festive.
Any good Santa Claus needs reindeer to ferry him across the world to deliver all the presents. For Santa Delibird, that Pokemon is Stantler. All of the Stantler at the North Pole are shiny; they have thick green fur with red antler orbs to fit the Christmas spirit. These special Stantler learn one crucial move that normal Stantler cannot learn: Fly. With their flight abilities, these reindeer guide Santa Delibird’s sleigh through the sky on Christmas Eve. How do these Stantler do it despite the snow, clouds, and darkness? These special Stantler descend from an older Stantler subspecies, so these reindeer can learn Flash unlike modern Stantler. With Flash, Stantler can light up the sky for easy navigation.
In addition, Stantler’s eye-shaped antlers have reality-warping abilities. By subtly changing the speed and direction of the air flow around it, Stantler can create a weather-free tunnel for the sleigh to fly through. Santa Delibird’s Stantler also use these powers to flatten roofs for the sleigh to land on and to widen the chimney so that Delibird and his presents can make their way into the house. If the house has no chimney, Stantler can psychically pick the lock on the front door. Furthermore, Stanler use their psychic talents to wipe the memories of any people or Pokemon who accidentally see Santa Delibird. Stantler’s magical antlers, along with the moves Hypnosis and Gravity, can knock anyone unconscious and wipe their memory within twenty seconds. The process is similar to fainting, with gradual vision loss, hearing loss and dizziness before collapse. Stantler then uses telekinesis to place the person back in their bed. When they wake up, they’ll have presents and no recollection of Santa Delibird’s visit.
The biggest mystery of the Santa Claus story is how Santa travels the entire world in a single night. To complete this monumental task, Santa Delibird has help from some of the most powerful legendary Pokemon around: Palkia and Dialga. Palkia, the spatial Pokemon, distorts space so that Santa Delibird can travel to all the houses that need Christmas presents without excessive travel time. As the sleigh flies across the sky, Palkia bunches up the sky like a piece of fabric. Since the space is compressed, Delibird can travel from one place to another much faster than normal. Once Delibird reaches the correct position in the bunched sky, Palkia stretches space back out so that the sleigh arrives at the correct home. Palkia’s powers are strong enough to compress thousands of miles of space into only a few yet delicate enough to not disturb the activity on the ground below. Santa Delibird has to carefully plan out its route with Palkia each year so that space manipulation doesn’t interfere with any aircraft. Palkia also creates a portal to an alternate dimension inside Delibird’s gift bag so that an infinite number of presents can fit inside the small, red sack on the sleigh.
Dialga, the temporal Pokemon, distorts time so that Santa Delibird has enough time to deliver presents to everyone who celebrates Christmas. Dialga places Santa Delibird, the Stantler, and the sleigh in a special time bubble where one standard hour equates to around 50 hours. Anyone outside the time bubble who sees Santa Delibird and company will perceive them as existing in a normal time flow, but to Delibird, everybody else is moving very slowly. With assistance from both Palkia and Dialga, the entire present-delivering journey takes about 300 time bubble hours, or about six standard hours.
Although Christmas is Santa Delibird’s big night, the North Pole spends all year preparing the presents for Christmas. The gift workshop is brimming with Pokemon who keep it running 364 days a year. The gear Pokemon, Klink, Klang and Klinklang, run much of the machinery. Living gears are sometimes unreliable, but they spin faster than any non-living gear can on its own, and they don’t wear down over time. Because these Pokemon refuse to turn with other individuals that are not part of their gear system, each gear Pokemon is separated by multiple non-living gears. These gears have to be tiny to keep up with the rotation speeds that Klink, Klang, and Klinklang produce. Although tiny gears don’t produce as much power, the living gears provide more than enough power to make up for this fact. These little gears get worn out easily, so the living gears also have the meta task of powering the machines that create more little gears.
The North Pole has lots of machinery, but Pokemon build toys by hand as well! Timburr and Gurdurr lead much of the toy-making effort. Gurdurr are the supervisors that keep the workshop running smoothly. They make sure that every Pokemon is working hard and help any Pokemon who is struggling. Because they are so strong, Gurdurr also organizes all the toys by type once assembly is complete. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Gurdurr load all the presents into the sack and onto the sleigh. Many species of Pokemon build toys at the North Pole, but Timburr are the most numerous. Timburr are well-known for their construction skills; although they usually work on buildings and other large structures, they are also skilled at assembling smaller items. Timburr spend most of their time in the workshop building toys and gifts to deliver on Christmas Eve. Working at the North Pole is more fun than it sounds. There are always snacks and sweets around. Pokemon can take breaks whenever they need one because Dialga can slow down time if all the presents won’t be done in time for Christmas Eve. The workshop can get hot, so the Glaceon there use Icy Wind periodically to cool the air. Galarian Weezing keeps the air clean, too, with its Neutralizing Gas ability. Every Pokemon enjoys living at the North Pole!
Keeping the workshop hidden from the prying eyes of unwanted visitors is a difficult task. Santa Delibird and his Christmas crew want to preserve the wonderful mystery of their existence! To keep their work a secret, many Pokemon work together to keep the North Pole blanketed in a near constant snowstorm. The move Hail isn’t enough; the ability Snow Warning is necessary to maintain the impenetrable wall of wind and snow. Three Pokemon species have this important task: Abomasnow, Aurorus and Alolan Ninetales. Alolan Ninetales possesses some of the psychic abilities of its ancestor Kantonian Ninetales, so this Pokemon is the first to detect any possible intruder. After Alolan Ninetales finds a threat, it communicates telepathically with other Ninetales, Aurorus and Abomasnow. Since Abomasnow looks like a snow-covered tree when standing still, these Pokemon stand watch all over the North Pole. Once they receive the intruder message from Alolan Ninetales, the Abomasnow closest to the breach strengthen the blizzard to force the intruder back. Nearby Aurorus rush to the scene if the snow does not deter the trespasser. Aurorus can freeze enemies and create a wall of ice to block them from advancing. Once the trespasser is frozen and pacified, Alolan Ninetales arrives. It uses the move Confuse Ray to to jumble the visitor’s memories of the attack beyond comprehension. Abomasnow then knocks them away with its strong arms. The launching punch breaks the icy encasement so that the intruder is free to leave once landing in the snow. Nobody unwelcome will enter the North Pole as long as these Pokemon are watching.
I could expand the Pokemon version of the Santa Legend even further, but I think that I have done a good job of explaining the basics. I have really been enjoying writing these new, more creative articles this year! I hope all you Pokemon trainers enjoyed this article, and I’ll bring you another excellent Pokemon article in January.