The Chronicles Of Grant County

Santa Claus Begins His Trip
Around The World From Grant County

 In this photo, Santa Claus and the reindeer were seen flying (red circle) in the skies over Mexico on their way to the South Pacific.

Santa Claus and his nine reindeer began their annual global trip from Grant County late last night. 

The Chronicles Of Grant County – continuing its exclusive reporting on Santa Claus in Grant County – is now able to confirm that Santa Claus and his 9 reindeer took off from the Grant County Airport at approximately 9:53 PM on December 23rd. We are told that that specific time was chosen so that Santa Claus would be able to reach all countries throughout the world prior to the start of Christmas Day.

He has 24 hours to deliver presents to good little boys and good little girls in more than 200 countries worldwide. We have it on good authority that a number of boys and girls that may not have been as good as they could have been will also be receiving gifts from Santa Claus. In addition, a number of adults also anticipated to be receiving gifts from him this year.

We had agreed to embargo certain news while Santa Claus was in Grant County. We are now able to provide some of the key details of his stay here as well as how the reindeer who work with Santa Claus got ready for their global trip.

David Chapman at the Murray Ryan Visitor Center in Silver City indicated that the organization had an unusual request on the website of Visit Silver City on Monday. He stated that someone had asked about the availability of mushrooms and willow tree leaves in the area. "I confirmed that we do have those products in the region," he said.

Rebekah Wenger, Grant County Airport Manager, stated that based on a request received from a "special guest, we set aside storage space for mushrooms and willow tree leaves." We can now verify that supplies of both mushrooms and willow tree leaves were delivered to the Airport on Tuesday. The orders were addressed to Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, Dasher, Donner, Prancer, Rudolph, and Vixen.

In our exclusive interview with Santa Claus, he verified that his key workers love eating mushrooms and enjoy the taste of willow tree leaves. "I have an entire team of elves who do nothing but source these products using environmentally sensitive techniques," explained Santa Claus. "Those elves have been quite ingenious to locate sources in every time zone, except one, where these products are readily available for our needs." Santa Claus explained that because of nearby supplies in Labrador, it's not necessary to have local supplies in Newfoundland itself. (Newfoundland has its own time zone – one-half an hour earlier than the Atlantic Time Zone.)

"We recently delivered an order for 9 bales of willow tree leaves directly to the Grant County Airport," said Ray Garcia, General Manager at Sierra Vista Growers. This company, in Anthony and La Union, has been in business for 32 years with a focus on landscaping ornamental trees, xeriscape plants, fruit trees, vegetables and bedding plants. "The anonymous customer indicated it was for his employees. While it was easy to harvest the leaves from our willow trees, we thought the order rather odd since we only know that Alaskan caribou [reindeer] enjoy eating them – and well, who has caribou in Grant County?"

We now can confirm that Andrew, one of the elves who works in procurement for Santa Claus, had put in the order for the willow tree leaves. He also located a supplier of mushrooms in southern New Mexico that was able to deliver sufficient quantities needed for the reindeer.

Ms. Wenger stated that "all airport personnel were on hand to assure a fast turnaround so our guest was able to get on his way in a prompt fashion. There were no delays."

Prior to his departure from Grant County Airport, Santa Claus explained that he and his reindeer will make a quick dash in the skies over Mexico to get to the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean and begin delivering gifts in Kiribati, Tokelau, and Samoa. "From there, I'll be going to a number of the nations in the South Pacific as well as Australia and New Zealand," Santa Claus detailed. "From there, it's steady travel throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, and North America. I should be back in Grant County to deliver gifts locally in the late hours of Christmas Eve."

Santa Claus did request that we ask all children to get to sleep at their bedtime tonight.

"Tomorrow morning, children throughout the world will wake up to love," Santa Claus stated. "I realize that not everyone will be able to get everything that they may want, but I am an optimist at heart. Through the eyes of children grows the love that provides the joy for this season and year-round."

"Merry Christmas!"

Willow tree leaves were harvested to provide 9 bales of food for Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, Dasher, Donner, Prancer, Rudolph, and Vixen while the reindeer visited Grant County. (Photograph was provided courtesy of Sierra Vista Growers, December of 2021.)

Do you have questions about communities in Grant County?

A street name? A building?

Your questions may be used in a future news column.

Contact Richard McDonough at chroniclesofgrantcounty@mail.com.

If your email does not go through, please contact editor@grantcountybeat.com.

© 2021 Richard McDonough