Mrs Claus's Letter to ConsultantCafe.com
Subject: When the magic starts to crack
Dear Consultant Café,
I don’t usually write outside the Pole, but I fear Christmas is slipping through my mittens. Something is very wrong up here. I can’t quite untangle it, but the signs are everywhere.
A hundred years ago, there were roughly 500 million children under ten. Today, there are more than 1.2 billion. Back then, there were no planes; now there seem to be millions. That’s more than double the magic we once had to deliver, and it shows.
I am buried alive in letters. They come by the millions, arriving faster than the sorting elves can breathe. Our post room looks like an avalanche of hope and sticky glitter. Santa tries to keep up, bless him, but his mind is overflowing with names. He wakes at night whispering lists in his sleep, mixing up Nicoles and Nicholases, and muttering about data integrity and privacy for the naughty ones. He’s never been this tired. The sparkle in his eyes is still there, but it flickers like a candle in a snowstorm.
The reindeer are anxious, too. They’ve seen the night skies fill with planes, drones, and delivery fleets. Comet’s been running simulations on collision probabilities and refuses to fly without a risk register. Even Rudolph’s nose dims when someone mentions “air-traffic control.” The elves are working around the clock, fuelled by cocoa and the fear of disappointing a precious child, but the backlog only grows. I walk through the workshop at midnight and see little hands trembling over toy parts, eyes red from exhaustion. It breaks my heart.
Two nights ago, during the annual Reindeer Night-Flight Rehearsal, the sleigh’s guidance charms flickered out mid-air. Air traffic control radar mistook us for a freight drone over Frankfurt. We came within thirty metres of a 747 disaster. Dasher still won’t speak. Prancer has developed a nervous tic in his antlers. The reindeer are demanding a safety management framework before take-off. And I can’t blame them.
I can feel the magic thinning, not gone, but stretched too far. It’s as if belief itself is running at 98 per cent utilisation. We can’t simply work harder; the world has outgrown our old ways. We need to scale, to modernise, to go digital and green, but without losing the warmth that makes Christmas… Christmas. Christmas must feel more human, more connected, and more magical than ever, not automated, not industrial, but renewed. But I don’t know where to start.
I’m writing to ask, can ConsultantCafé help us? Can you bring your frameworks and fresh thinking to the North Pole? Because if we don’t find a way soon, I fear the spirit of Christmas won’t just dim, it might quietly burn out and get cold.
With hope, and far too many unread messages,
Mrs Claus
Chief Operating Elf, North Pole Enterprises
ConsultantCafe Response
Subject: Brewing clarity for the North Pole
Dear Mrs Claus,
Your letter moved every one of us here at Consultant Café. We read it aloud in the office this morning — and shared it with the Consultant Café community. The part about Santa’s nightmares made the room fall silent. Even our most battle-hardened project managers were seen dabbing their eyes with Post-it notes.
We can only imagine the weight you’re carrying — the exhaustion, the worry, the fear that something so cherished, so pure, could falter under its own wonder. You’ve kept the world’s longest-running miracle alive for centuries, and now you find yourself managing it like an overstretched enterprise held together by goodwill, caffeine, and the last threads of magic. Please know this: you’re not alone. Every organisation that grows beyond its own enchantment eventually faces this moment, when the mission outgrows the model.
Consultant Café would be honoured to help. We see it not just as an engagement, but as a responsibility — to help save Christmas and enhance it. To make it greener, smarter, and even more magical for the children and parents who believe, and for the North Pole staff who make belief possible. We bring structure where chaos creeps in, evidence where emotion clouds judgment, and design where tradition deserves protection. Together, we can reimagine how Christmas operates — without ever losing what it means.
The scale of this transformation deserves a considered investment decision, which we’d be delighted to help the Christmas Boardshape and approve through a structured process. To get started, Consultant Café proposes a Discovery Phase, a short, focused effort to understand the true scope of the challenge, uncover root causes, and identify clear pathways forward. This will include consultations with elves, reindeer, Santa, and your cherished customers, capability assessments, and a draft Investment Logic Map for the Board’s review.
Once the investment decision is made, we’d love to continue supporting North Pole Enterprises through the transformation, guiding digital modernisation, workforce renewal, governance uplift, and the uplift of Christmas as a sustainable, inclusive, and deeply human enterprise.
With your blessing, we’d love to share this journey. This transformation carries lessons every consultant can learn from: how to blend heart with logic, heritage with innovation, and governance with grace. Through a series of articles on Consultant Café, we would like to chronicle lessons learned; respectfully, insightfully, and always with your permission —so the ConsultantCafe community can carry forward the spirit of good consulting and good Christmas alike.
Mrs Claus, your courage to ask for help may well have saved Christmas. We would be humbled if you would allow us to share this journey with you.
With empathy, admiration, and endless respect,
The ConsultantCafé Team and its world of members
Even magic deserves good management.
Here's how we went about it