Santa is rightly regarded as a jolly old man with his fingers on the naughty or nice pulse.
So on top of the goodness or otherwise of kids around the world we’re told – even it seems their sleep habits and propensity to cry without reason; as “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” reminds us, he is a stalker par excellence – that it’s near impossible to catch him out.
Unless, of course, you’re Australian Pug by the name of Pig who has somehow managed to sneak right under Santa’s gift allocation radar to the extent that his rampant greed doesn’t even register a concerning blip.
In fact, for the purposes of Pig the Elf, he is the very epitome of the Christmas Spirit, sporting a bright red festive onesie, an enthusiasm for the festive season that would make an out-of-control extrovert looks shy and retiring by comparison, and a gift list so long you can probably it from space.
Or an overhead sleight … or perhaps not.
It’s entirely possible the radiating goodness of Pig’s best friend Trevor, a Wiener-Dog of such upstanding good character and virtue that he happily trots off to bed while Pig prowls the loungeroom waiting for Santa’s arrival, has obscured Pig’s present-obsessed narcissism.
Or perhaps Santa is so busy focusing on boys and girls that he misses Pugs whose only response to Christmas is to announce loudly to anyone who’ll listen that they want their many request presents and they want them now.
Whatever the reason, Santa comes in for quite the shock when he arrives at the home of Pig and Trevor to discover that maybe he wants to amp the sensitivity of his naughty-or-nice radar to track the movements of errant dogs.
The real joy of Pig the Elf by Australian author Aaron Blabey is the sheer glee with which the mischievously greedy Pug approaches Christmas.
In keeping with his larger-than-life persona, which has seen the hilariously mean-spirited little dog become one of the rising stars of modern children’s books, Pig cares not for subtlety or playing by the rules, despite the fact that his hang-it-all attitude usually ends up attracting him a great karmic kick up the posterior.
Pig, it seems, never learns his lesson although after the rather unfortunate incident with a Christmas tree, you can help wondering if the irascible dog, who made his first appearance in 2014’s Pig the Pug, might rethink his thoroughly self-centred approach to everything in life and not just Christmas.
But that’s half the charm of this delightful Christmas-obsessed antihero of sorts.
He never seems to understand, except in passing, that his approach to life never earns the bouquets of delight he thinks are going to come his way.
But then that fits with personalities like Pig who are never deterred by setbacks, blame others for their misfortune and never seem to connect the dots.
In Pig the Elf, you never get to see if the Pug comes to realise the folly of his actions but then in some ways that doesn’t matter since the sweetness of his “lovely friend” Trevor provides more than enough vibrant good cheer for both the dogs.
And perhaps that’s why this book, packed full of gorgeous illustrations and rhyming couplets that leap off the page with a joie de vivre – it’s hard not read it out loud and wait for each word to trip off your tongue, so perfectly-written is every line – is such a treat to read, and absolutely hilarious into the bargain, deserving to become a Christmas classic.
Because no matter how fallible we are or how much we mess things up, Christmas a time of year seems to take it all in it stride, although you could be forgiven for wondering if Santa will be quite co charitable after his run-in with the most enthusiastic Pug to ever celebrate the festive season.