Joyful, all Ye Nations Rise: a Holiday Timeline

[raunchel]

Ouch, I almost feel sorry for him. But I am getting the feeling that at one point, he might become a dissident...

[stevep]

Dec 6, 2018 12:45:06 GMT raunchel said:

Ouch, I almost feel sorry for him. But I am getting the feeling that at one point, he might become a dissident...

  I rather hope not for his sake.  That can be highly detrimental for your health and that of family and friends and we know that Ceausescu will be about for a long time.

[spanishspy]

Airfield near Botosani
Romania
Christmas Eve
1988

"Okay, Mos Gerila, you are clear to take off." Mos Gerila's plane was not a jet plane; the old propeller plane had become too iconic for the national icon of Christmas to be cast aside so easily. The propeller started to whir, and behind him the jet planes that formed his escort were prepping to launch behind him.

Up went the old sleigh-yak, and then the Soviet imported fighters. Through the blackness of the night, they began moving up to where Santa Claus usually entered Romanian airspace.

Sure enough, there was the red light of Rudolf's nose.

. . .

Santa Claus was used to the Romanian spiel delivered every year by his opposite number Mos Gerila. It had been going on long enough, and Romanian children were not getting their presents.

A good forty years of this had desensitized Claus to it all.

Claus continued, saying the regular shibboleths to make the planes go away. They did.

Claus continued on in the direction of Bulgaria and Greece. The buzzing of the engines had faded away.

Until they didn't.

The faint whisper of a propeller was behind him. Claus turned around, and there was one plane behind him.

The single sleigh-yak of Mos Gerila.





North Pole
January 1986

The Soviet diplomatic plane landed on the air strip after it was cleared by the North Pole Air Force. The Soviet legation left the plane and were greeted by the carolers that doubled as a military band. The representatives of the two powers saluted as their anthems' played, and the honor guard of the North Pole Self-Defense Force escorted the mighty men to the sleighs that would take them to Claus' home.

There they would have negotiations.

"Eduard Ambrosiyevich," remarked Claus in Russian, "what brings you here? This is quite a short-notice call, and directly from the Kremlin at that."

Eduard Shevardnadze simply nodded.

"I have orders from our premier Gorbachev himself. To get right to the point, I have been ordered to extend full diplomatic recognition to your country and to begin negotiations immediately."

Claus was aghast. He knew that when a Soviet plane bearing the Foreign Minister came into your air space you let him in, but in something so generous? It was nigh preposterous.

Claus and Shevardnadze were not the only people in the room. There were both Soviets and Elves in the conference room.

"You mean to tell me the boycott is over?" asked Claus' foreign minister, Cornelius Candycane, astute as ever.

"Glasnost dictates many things, Cornelius Santavich," responded Shevardnadze. "This is one of many."

[spanishspy]

NORAD Headquarters
Colorado Springs
1986

The annoying jangling of the phone interrupted the otherwise tranquil work on which General Robert T. Herres concentrated. Grumpily, he picked up the phone. "General Herres," blurted the voice, "We have a rather important update for you."

"And this would be?" Herres did not appreciate the lack of clarity.

"We've detected a sleigh with escorts heading from the North Pole in the direction of what may be Moscow or Leningrad. We've checked with State and there's no indication that the Pole gave us any information at all about these excursions. We believe that the Pole and Moscow are reaching some sort of rapprochement. You're the first higher-up to hear."

Herres shook his head. "The President is not going to be happy about this. I'll get him on the line."

. . .

North Pole
1986

Claus was in his office and Foreign Minister Candycane had already left for Moscow with a substantial entourage.

Claudius Bellringer, Defense Minister, and Manius Tannenbaum, Interior Minister, and a few other elves clustered around the former's fireplace in his own cottage, which was on the other side of the main North Pole settlement than Claus' home. They were all sipping strong eggnog or peppermint wine and nibbling on the finest gingerbread the Pole had to offer.

"I'm certain you're aware why I have brought you here today," remarked Bellringer. "You all have been deeply, deeply skeptical of Candycane's excursion, as our meetings with Claus have made it clear."

The assembled elves nodded.

"We do know that the new administration in Moscow is liberalizing, but even if it does liberalize it will still be hostile to the institution of Christmas, which is something we cannot allow. I know a significant portion of you feel that Livingston Baubler was more right than anyone, most of all Santa Claus, is willing to admit. Communism as we know it is a dire threat to our very existence."

"Hear! Hear!" went the elves.

"And what do you propose to do about it?" asked Tannenbaum.

"I've been following news out of the Soviet Union with great interest. There is one figure that I have been following that I feel we, as our own small clique, ought to establish contact with. He's effectively the mayor of Moscow. A reformist. Someone we could use."

[spanishspy]

Romanian Airspace
Christmas Eve
1988

The Romanian Sleigh-Yak followed Santa Claus' sleigh as it coasted south through Romania. The sleigh-yak had no escort, which was not normal. It had had said escort sometime before but now it flew alone.

"Santa Claus!" called out the voice of Mos Gerila through the radio. He spoke in Russian, a language he knew that Claus spoke. "I speak to you not as an instrument of the Romanian state but as another human being."

Claus hesitated. The two craft remained in place relative to each other, both still heading south. "Mr. Claus, I beg of you to listen to me. I will land if necessary, but I would prefer beyond Romanian airspace."

Claus did not know what to think. "Keep on south. Land in Greece and I will consort with you directly," he responded, curious as to his counterpart's intentions.

They continued their push southwards. Near the border with Bulgaria, Claus noticed fighter jets following them, saying nothing and doing nothing other than following.

They continued over Bulgaria, which was a friendly country to Bucharest. But they peeled away once the two holiday harbingers entered into Greek airspace. Claus pulled down and landed in a field, and Mos Gerila did the same.

They exited their sleighs and met each other face to face. "Mos Gerila," asked Claus, "What is it that you ask of me?"

Mos Gerila stared into Claus' eyes with the stare of somebody who had great, life-altering trauma.

"Take me with you. Please. Ceaucescu is a monster."

Another pause.

"So you intend to defect?"

"Mr. Claus, after he came to power he first took me away from the children. Then he made me solely an airman. Then he started torturing me for not being loyal enough."

Claus looked into this man's eyes. He was in his sixties now, far from the strapping young lad that Mos Gerila was at the end of the war. His face was wrinkled beyond his age, suggesting that he had been the victim of some truly heinous things.

"Mr. Claus," pleaded Mos Gerila, "I don't know what else to say." He didn't need to say anything else. His stare spoke volumes.

"Mos Gerila," spoke Claus, his voice hoary in the cold, "you remind me of some children I had met many years ago. A butcher had lured them into his home and wanted to turn them into meat. I couldn't allow that."

He looked Mos Gerila right in the eyes, "And I cannot allow you to be dismembered by this regime either."

"Thank you, Mr. Claus," responded Mos Gerila. "Let me do one more thing."

Mos Gerila returned to the sleigh-yak. Claus wasn't sure what he was doing, but he appeared to be pouring something into the vehicle, some sort of liquid maybe.

He walked back and took out a match and lit it. He threw it towards his vehicle.

The Christmas vehicle of the Socialist Republic of Romania went up in flames.

[spanishspy]

Claus had brought Mos Gerila back to the North Pole after making the gift run in the rest of the world. He had gone on about the torture of his own person and the general totalitarian nightmare that Romania had become. Of all things, Mos Gerila seemed to make Ceausescu's contraception policies out as the most insane.

They had landed on the Pole the next day, and Mos Gerila was given a cabin in one of the residential districts. He was human, not elf, but the locals seemed to pay him no heed. He had glanced at the newspapers and his picture had appeared in it, but what it said was unknown on the basis that he did not read, or for that matter speak, a word of elvish.

But he was given newspapers and books in Russian that the Pole was able to acquire from the broader world, mostly the Eastern Bloc. When the reconnaissance teams went into Romania they would bring occasional news; it looked dire.

And so it continued for a year. 1988 segued into 1989 and the news from Romania became worse and worse.

Months of it. It was agony.

It was approaching yuletide once more. There was insanity in Timisoara. Tearing down churches to make more brutalist boxes? Ceausescu never ceased to confuse him.

There was a knock on the door. Mos Gerila opened it. There stood several elves in official North Pole uniforms. Around them stood elves in military uniforms holding terrifyingly large weapons. "Mos Gerila," said one of them, positioned as if he were their leader, "We have a preposition for you."

"And you would be?"

"My name is Claudius Bellringer, Minister of Defense of the North Pole. To put it simply, we want you to go back to Romania."

"You mean to send me back there?" he asked incredulously. "That rat Ceausescu tortured me!"

"Do you not feel the winds of change throughout the continent? Ceausescu is coming to an end, and soon. Do you want hand in that, Mos Gerila, or will you stand by and let your countrymen gain the revenge you never will otherwise?"

Bellringer stared him down. He was right, Mos Gerila conceded, somewhat reluctantly.

The torture.

The cruelty.

The theft of his one chance to make a difference. To make people happy.

It took him longer than expected, but his answer was "yes. I will. Will it be Timisoara?"

"We have our own plans in mind," responded Bellringer, smiling satisfied.

[stevep]

Dec 21, 2018 9:22:41 GMT spanishspy said:

Claus had brought Mos Gerila back to the North Pole after making the gift run in the rest of the world. He had gone on about the torture of his own person and the general totalitarian nightmare that Romania had become. Of all things, Mos Gerila seemed to make Ceausescu's contraception policies out as the most insane.

They had landed on the Pole the next day, and Mos Gerila was given a cabin in one of the residential districts. He was human, not elf, but the locals seemed to pay him no heed. He had glanced at the newspapers and his picture had appeared in it, but what it said was unknown on the basis that he did not read, or for that matter speak, a word of elvish.

But he was given newspapers and books in Russian that the Pole was able to acquire from the broader world, mostly the Eastern Bloc. When the reconnaissance teams went into Romania they would bring occasional news; it looked dire.

And so it continued for a year. 1988 segued into 1989 and the news from Romania became worse and worse.

Months of it. It was agony.

It was approaching yuletide once more. There was insanity in Timisoara. Tearing down churches to make more brutalist boxes? Ceausescu never ceased to confuse him.

There was a knock on the door. Mos Gerila opened it. There stood several elves in official North Pole uniforms. Around them stood elves in military uniforms holding terrifyingly large weapons. "Mos Gerila," said one of them, positioned as if he were their leader, "We have a preposition for you."

"And you would be?"

"My name is Claudius Bellringer, Minister of Defense of the North Pole. To put it simply, we want you to go back to Romania."

"You mean to send me back there?" he asked incredulously. "That rat Ceausescu tortured me!"

"Do you not feel the winds of change throughout the continent? Ceausescu is coming to an end, and soon. Do you want hand in that, Mos Gerila, or will you stand by and let your countrymen gain the revenge you never will otherwise?"

Bellringer stared him down. He was right, Mos Gerila conceded, somewhat reluctantly.

The torture.

The cruelty.

The theft of his one chance to make a difference. To make people happy.

It took him longer than expected, but his answer was "yes. I will. Will it be Timisoara?"

"We have our own plans in mind," responded Bellringer, smiling satisfied.

  That sounds ominous to me as we know Bellringer has his own agenda.  Also given his rather odd status at the Pole I would expect his disappearance to be noticed pretty quickly so whatever is being planned is presumably going to happen quickly.

[spanishspy]

The sleigh touched down in the field outside of Bucharest. Bellringer calmed the reindeer, and Mos Gerila and the rest of the entourage stepped out. In the distance, he could see a vehicle of some sort with its headlights on, and apparently coming towards them. "Should I be worried about that?" he asked Bellringer as he pointed towards the source of the light.

"No, by no means. We were expecting him. Indeed we had this set up for months."

"Months? You mean to tell me that you were planning for me to be here?"

"We have our ways, Mos Gerila," remarked Bellringer offhandedly.

The car came to them and stopped. Out of the driver's seat stepped a surprisingly familiar face.

It was Ioan Tomescu. The man who had made Petro Constantinescu into this ... thing.

The two Romanians simply looked at each other for a good minute. Bellringer waited for the discussion to begin.

"So they violated your conscience too?" asked Mos Gerila.

"They did. They made me do too many things to too many dissidents for me to continue to do so while being able to sleep soundly at night."

The look in his eyes told Mos Gerila all that he needed to know.

"I take it that you two have come to a concordance," commented Bellringer. "Mr. Tomescu, will you take your friend to Bucharest? I trust that you have a plan for this. Your homeland's future depends on it."

"Of course, Mr. Bellringer, of course."

[spanishspy]

"Was this the ethical thing to do? Going to Romania to undertake subversive activity outside of Claus' very knowledge?" asked Manius Tannenbaum as the sleigh took off into the skies over Romania.

"Look, if Claus can do his China escapade to go rescue a guy we had loss during the War, we can do this," responded Candycane. "Why do you have cold feet now?"

"Moultrie Mistletoe was an asset from the Pole, though! We don't have all that much quarrel with Moscow or with Bucharest!"

"They are enemies of the spirit of Christmas. You yourself saw the stuff in Hohman as well-intended, if nothing else."

Bellringer rolled his eyes, even as his teeth chattered due to the frigid winds.

. . .

Palace Square
Bucharest

"If I die here it would be a good death," Mos Gerila muttered to Tomescu as they stood among the crowds. There Ceausescu was preparing to give some wooden speech about Communism and opposition to the West and the other claptrap he expected.

"The people support you more than you know, Petru," responded the old scientist. The two old men stood there together, waiting for an opportune moment.

It went on and on and on and on and on. It was excruciating. "I can't take it any more," he grumbled to his compatriot.

He stood as tall as he could, and started yelling "Timisoara! Timisoara! Timisoara!"

The crowd didn't know what to do at first, but it soon joined in the jubilant throng of a people raging against tyranny.

From the distance, he could see Ceausescu looking very confused. He raised his right arm to quiet the protesters, expecting them to quiet.

They did not.

The dictator looked stunned.

Mos Gerila finally felt he had served his country.

[stevep]

Dec 23, 2018 7:45:32 GMT spanishspy said:

"Was this the ethical thing to do? Going to Romania to undertake subversive activity outside of Claus' very knowledge?" asked Manius Tannenbaum as the sleigh took off into the skies over Romania.

"Look, if Claus can do his China escapade to go rescue a guy we had loss during the War, we can do this," responded Candycane. "Why do you have cold feet now?"

"Moultrie Mistletoe was an asset from the Pole, though! We don't have all that much quarrel with Moscow or with Bucharest!"

"They are enemies of the spirit of Christmas. You yourself saw the stuff in Hohman as well-intended, if nothing else."

Bellringer rolled his eyes, even as his teeth chattered due to the frigid winds.

. . .

Palace Square
Bucharest

"If I die here it would be a good death," Mos Gerila muttered to Tomescu as they stood among the crowds. There Ceausescu was preparing to give some wooden speech about Communism and opposition to the West and the other claptrap he expected.

"The people support you more than you know, Petru," responded the old scientist. The two old men stood there together, waiting for an opportune moment.

It went on and on and on and on and on. It was excruciating. "I can't take it any more," he grumbled to his compatriot.

He stood as tall as he could, and started yelling "Timisoara! Timisoara! Timisoara!"

The crowd didn't know what to do at first, but it soon joined in the jubilant throng of a people raging against tyranny.

From the distance, he could see Ceausescu looking very confused. He raised his right arm to quiet the protesters, expecting them to quiet.

They did not.

The dictator looked stunned.

Mos Gerila finally felt he had served his country.

  So he's down as the man who triggers the collapse of the regime.  Some payback although I wish things had gone better for the country afterwards.

[spanishspy]

Christmas Day
1989

Santa Claus had been deeply worried about the disappearance of Mos Gerila, but the rush of work before the delivery on Christmas Day had taken up all of his time. It had started in October and all the gifts had been made and the sleigh had been loaded to bear.

And, given this particular international situation, he flew with escorts.

However, he was curious, and he had flown such that he went over Romania earlier than expected. Indeed he aimed right over Bucharest so that he might find Mos Gerila. As he saw the city, he slowed down and began to keep a tight watch on the city below.

"Nikolai Epifanovich!" cried a voice from the radio, speaking Russian. Claus was worried, and scanned around the sleigh. To his surprise, he saw a familiar plane.

The sleigh-yak.

"Mos Gerila? Is that you?"

"Yes, Santa, yes it is. You have come at a wonderful Christmas day. The nation is blossoming in its new freedom!"

"How so?"

"Let me show you!" Mos Gerila seemed jubilant, almost disturbingly so. He was a loose cannon who had suffered under another loose cannon and whose country was a cannon undergoing a profound and elongated loosening.

Mos Gerila swerved rightward, and Claus followed him, signalling to his escort to follow. They did so.

They came over some sort of fortification, with walls and buildings within said walls. In the middle of the base were two people being hauled against a wall in front of several men standing in a line.

There was a man and a woman. The woman yelled some angry words at her captors. The man was singing a tune that, after a moment, Claus realized was The Internationale.

The arms of the men changed position, and as Claus kept looking on he realized they were aiming guns at their captives. Before Claus could do anything, the guns fired and the man and the woman were dead.

"To quote an English song, Nikolai Epifanovich, 'Joyful, all ye Nations Rise.'"

[stevep]

Dec 24, 2018 7:32:57 GMT spanishspy said:

Christmas Day
1989

Santa Claus had been deeply worried about the disappearance of Mos Gerila, but the rush of work before the delivery on Christmas Day had taken up all of his time. It had started in October and all the gifts had been made and the sleigh had been loaded to bear.

And, given this particular international situation, he flew with escorts.

However, he was curious, and he had flown such that he went over Romania earlier than expected. Indeed he aimed right over Bucharest so that he might find Mos Gerila. As he saw the city, he slowed down and began to keep a tight watch on the city below.

"Nikolai Epifanovich!" cried a voice from the radio, speaking Russian. Claus was worried, and scanned around the sleigh. To his surprise, he saw a familiar plane.

The sleigh-yak.

"Mos Gerila? Is that you?"

"Yes, Santa, yes it is. You have come at a wonderful Christmas day. The nation is blossoming in its new freedom!"

"How so?"

"Let me show you!" Mos Gerila seemed jubilant, almost disturbingly so. He was a loose cannon who had suffered under another loose cannon and whose country was a cannon undergoing a profound and elongated loosening.

Mos Gerila swerved rightward, and Claus followed him, signalling to his escort to follow. They did so.

They came over some sort of fortification, with walls and buildings within said walls. In the middle of the base were two people being hauled against a wall in front of several men standing in a line.

There was a man and a woman. The woman yelled some angry words at her captors. The man was singing a tune that, after a moment, Claus realized was The Internationale.

The arms of the men changed position, and as Claus kept looking on he realized they were aiming guns at their captives. Before Claus could do anything, the guns fired and the man and the woman were dead.

"To quote an English song, Nikolai Epifanovich, 'Joyful, all ye Nations Rise.'"

  Unfortunately given the nature of the regime, once it fell something like this was always more likely than some sort of formal trial.  I've always been very relieved that the Soviet Union went down without collapsing into violent chaos.

  Anyway is that the end of it?  A fascinating and thoughtful story but rather grim.

[spanishspy]

Dec 24, 2018 9:32:19 GMT stevep said:

Dec 24, 2018 7:32:57 GMT spanishspy said:

Christmas Day
1989

Santa Claus had been deeply worried about the disappearance of Mos Gerila, but the rush of work before the delivery on Christmas Day had taken up all of his time. It had started in October and all the gifts had been made and the sleigh had been loaded to bear.

And, given this particular international situation, he flew with escorts.

However, he was curious, and he had flown such that he went over Romania earlier than expected. Indeed he aimed right over Bucharest so that he might find Mos Gerila. As he saw the city, he slowed down and began to keep a tight watch on the city below.

"Nikolai Epifanovich!" cried a voice from the radio, speaking Russian. Claus was worried, and scanned around the sleigh. To his surprise, he saw a familiar plane.

The sleigh-yak.

"Mos Gerila? Is that you?"

"Yes, Santa, yes it is. You have come at a wonderful Christmas day. The nation is blossoming in its new freedom!"

"How so?"

"Let me show you!" Mos Gerila seemed jubilant, almost disturbingly so. He was a loose cannon who had suffered under another loose cannon and whose country was a cannon undergoing a profound and elongated loosening.

Mos Gerila swerved rightward, and Claus followed him, signalling to his escort to follow. They did so.

They came over some sort of fortification, with walls and buildings within said walls. In the middle of the base were two people being hauled against a wall in front of several men standing in a line.

There was a man and a woman. The woman yelled some angry words at her captors. The man was singing a tune that, after a moment, Claus realized was The Internationale.

The arms of the men changed position, and as Claus kept looking on he realized they were aiming guns at their captives. Before Claus could do anything, the guns fired and the man and the woman were dead.

"To quote an English song, Nikolai Epifanovich, 'Joyful, all ye Nations Rise.'"

  Unfortunately given the nature of the regime, once it fell something like this was always more likely than some sort of formal trial.  I've always been very relieved that the Soviet Union went down without collapsing into violent chaos.

  Anyway is that the end of it?  A fascinating and thoughtful story but rather grim.

One last update comes tonight US Eastern time.

[spanishspy]

Christmas Day
1991

What he had seen in Bucharest, two years before, still hung over Claus' mind. But as he flew through the bitter winds of Russia he could only hope that it would end better here. He had a radio that he had ordered Cornelius Candycane, his highest aid and foreign minister, to continuously play Gorbachev's speech on the sleigh that night.

The President of the Soviet Union was resigning, and the empire itself was coming to an end.

Candycane was not on this plane solely for the radio; before the ride continued, he was to have a very brief stop in Moscow to meet with Gorbachev and his successor, Yeltsin. His foreign minister would help in that very much.

He landed in the parking lot in the Kremlin and was escorted into the building by armed guards. Candycane followed behind. As per his own request the guards had feed for the reindeer.

It was to be a short meeting. Claus still had the rest of his run to make and he was quite eager to get it done with; he had been preparing for months. The guards brought him into the conference room in which the meeting was taking place, and in there he saw two men.

Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

"Santa Epifanovich! Cornelius Santavich!" Gorbachev welcomed, and Yeltsin said similar. They shook hands.

"I want to thank you for coming here," said Yeltsin. He leaned in to Claus' ear, and whispered "and thank you for the aid you provided my cause."

Claus said nothing, mostly out of shock. He looked at Candycane, who responded with a confused look. This was something that would have to be discussed without the two Russians in their presence.

The meeting ended. Both promised the preservation of North Pole secrecy under the new Russian government, and Gorbachev had assured him that Shevardnadze would not reveal anything in Georgia. It was mostly pleasantries.

The sleigh took off, the red light of Rudolph's nose providing the majority of the light. Somewhere near Ryazan Claus' escort sleighs rejoined him.

"Mr. Candycane," asked Claus, "was it you sending aid to Yeltsin?"

The foreign minister was stunned. "No, sir, where did you get that notion?"

"That's what Mr. Yeltsin whispered to me."

Candycane's eyes widened in fear. "It was not me."

The minister looked out to the stars and shuddered. "It had to have been Bellringer."

"To hell with it all," Claus muttered. "And what can we do? Hope that Yeltsin doesn't reveal anything to the Russian government?"

"We will have to have a stern talking with the defense minister," responded Candycane. "He'll justify it with some 'spirit of Christmas' nonsense as he usually does."

And with that, they rode quietly in their unwanted triumph into the skies.

[spanishspy]

And thus concludes Joyful, All Ye Nations Rise. Can't say it turned out as well as I had wanted to but I think at least the Mos Gerila plot was okay.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.