The Grumpy Santa Tour of America is certainly no picnic for our erstwhile Christmas icon — 66 flights, 48 states, 12 days — enough said …

We expected a few glitches and for our normally cheery Santa to get a bit — well … grumpy from time to time — and he delivered.

Now my job is to keep Grumpy cooking — make his life as easy as possible — and reroute his 44 reservations based on what is happening on the ground in real-time — I personally haven’t gotten much sleep and was getting a bit — surly.

But the ELF and I had to perk Grumpy up with with a short Skype Video Chat in the Detroit Airport (I was able to upgrade them to First Class and it was 90 minutes not 30 as Grumpy has some time zone issues).

My 7 year old daughter got into the act — she was at first frightened by our 6′ 7″ ELF, but warmed up as soon as she thought “Santa’s Helper” might deliver some goods …