In Santa's Workshop, Ignatius showed the elves all the new tools that had been unpacked and were standing ready for use. "We won't have any trouble getting Christmas out the door this year," Smith said proudly.

"Sure. But what about our Santa's surprise?" Erno said.

"Ta da!" Ignatius said as he flipped open the top of a large cardboard box. Inside were strobe lights, mini LEDs and under-chassis neon glow bars. "Some are blue, some green, some red and some white," Ignatius said.

"Ooooo," the elves all said together. "Did you bring them from Australia?" Amber asked. "No, I'm from Austria," Ignatius replied patiently.

"Well, let's get at it!" Percy said enthusiastically.

"Wait, not here in the Workshop - I know a secret cave where we can take Santa's sleigh," Roly said.

"Let's go," Percy said.

"Me too," Ignatius said.

The elves and Ignatius trooped off to the cave. Working quietly and quickly in the dim light of the ice cave the elves soon had Santa's sleigh, known as Old Magic, decked out with sparkling lights.

"That about does it," Erno said.

"Turn it on, turn it on," Amber cried. Erno pushed the 'sparkle button' and the sleigh lit up green, blue, red, and shimmering white - LEDs, strobes and neon glow. The lights shone out of the mouth of the cave and illuminated the night sky as though it were filled with northern lights.

Inside the cave, the lights also illuminated the walls. "Hey, take a look at this," Erno said. The walls of the cave were shimmering, icy but sparkling.

"The walls look like diamonds," Amber sighed.

"They are!" Dancer said, as he and the reindeer entered the cave, "We've been mining them for Santa's Christmas gift! Wait 'til you see the diamonds he'll be wearing to the Christmas concert tonight!" he giggled his reindeer laugh.

"The concert! We've got to boot it!" Erno said.

"Wait, I need to tell you something. . ." Ignatius called to the departing elves and reindeer. But it was too late - they were gone. "Ah well, I guess they'll find out sooner or later," he said to himself.

The elves ran from the cave and straight to the North Pole Community Centre where that night was the annual Christmas concert. In a matter of minutes Erno was on stage as Ice E, rapping a song about making toys, followed by the North Pole choir singing a selection of Christmas carols, then a number of solos and duets from the elves and other North Pole residents. The finale was a surprise to all. A spotlight illuminated centre stage. From the wings of the stage sprang a white-haired rapper - his snow white beard was braided into a billy goat-like goatee, a ball cap sat sideways on his head and glistening around his neck was a large sparkling letter 'S' in diamonds.

"O, O, my name is Claus, and I bring children toys just be-cause," he rapped, "Yeah, you gotta be good, you gotta be good," his song continued. Santa sang about Mrs. C and his posse of reindeer - who had given him the diamond necklace - and he sang about the elves and their Workshop.

The crowd thrilled to Santa's rhyming song and clapped until it seemed the walls of the Community Centre were shaking in time to the song.