If you'll indulge me, I'd like to dive once more into Christmas 2006 before heading on. This year (as I usually do) I received a book for Christmas . . . about Christmas. This year's Christmas tale was The Great Santa Search "as told to" Jeff Guinn by Santa Claus himself. This is the third installment in what is now being presented as The Christmas Chronicles. In this story, Santa tells how he participates in a Christmas Eve reality TV program for the FUN-TV network, a network dedicated to showing wholesome family-oriented programs. FUN-TV has always gotten the lion's share of Christmas season ratings until a few years ago when reality TV took America by storm.
Executive Bobbo (pronounced BOB - oh) Butler vows to save his network after last Christmas's flop of an offering, Merry Monkey. With the financial backing of the LastLong Toy Co. (notorious for toys that break only moments after they are opened), Bobbo spends the entire year gearing up for the best reality show of them all--the one that will help American viewers know who is the one real Santa Claus. Devising challenges such as reindeer roping, chimney sliding, and cookie eating, Bobbo and his staff scour the country for the ten most likely Santas. In the true fashion of the Christmas spirit and occasional references to the true Christmas story as well as the legends surrounding Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, Guinn offers another yuletide treasure.

If you missed The Autobiography of Santa Claus and How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas, you'll want to get all the scoop on how Leonardo Da Vinci and Ben Franklin along with St. Francis of Assisi, Attilla the Hun and Theodore Roosevelt became part of the North Pole gift-giving team. Now with his third Christmas story on the shelves, we can say, "Three cheers for the one who keeps Santa Claus alive in the hearts of Americans young and old."