Elf Secret Service

History

While most children associate them solely with the protection of Santa Claus, the Elf Secret Service was originally created in the 16th century to oversee the potentially charged relations between humans, elves and other magical creatures. For every elf that helped a shoemaker, there was another who tricked a princess out of her firstborn…that is, until the Elf Secret Service stepped in.

By the 18th century, the ESS was concentrating on aiding the burgeoning efforts of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus (not to mention the short-lived and unpopular Fingernail Fairy). Christmas was especially tricky. In Victorian England, a miserly banker named Ebenezer Scrooge started a wave of humbuggery that led to certain individuals dressing as Santa Claus and committing fraud, or cat burglary. In other parts of the world, merchants had taken to mass-producing toys that they then fraudulently sold to unwitting parents, explaining that Santa was now charging for the delivery of toys, and had subcontracted them to do so. The ESS now had its hands full with Christmas crime, and its shift in focus led to a name change, to Santa’s Secret Service.

The chaotic nature of the twentieth century called for increased security for magical bigwigs such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and once again, Santa’s Secret Service stepped up to the task. As Christmas gained in popularity, however, the number of departments needed to handle it grew faster than Santa’s belly. With a staff of over 300 elves working in 15 different divisions—including Electronic Fraud, Tree Fraud and the Department of Department Store Santas—the Investigative Branch is the largest of Santa’s Secret Service.