As we cross the vast and frozen North Pole loading bay, crunching through greying snow and industrial salt, the public relations elf charged with accompanying me throughout Santa's secret industrial complex turns and scowls.
"Just make sure you keep your questions short and listen to everything he says," the elf says tersely. "This is the real Santa. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. He's a very busy man at this time of year."
After years of media silence the real Father Christmas has finally decided to grant an exclusive interview to The National.
"And don't even think about asking to sit on his knee," the elf hisses as we enter the four-storey glass atrium and are buzzed past reception.
Certainly sitting in his penthouse office in the 102-storey (yet mostly underground) Christmas Towers office complex which forms part of Santa's 10.8 million square metre industrial complex, the real Santa - or Nick as he asks to be called - is a bit of a disappointment. Yes there is a beard but it is grey rather than white and the real Santa dresses not in the red and white velvet outfit one comes to expect but rather in a smart grey business suit.
"The outfit is just to satisfy the sponsors, mainly Coca-Cola," says Nick. "We ship them out to franchisees around the globe but mostly here it's the logistics operation that we really deal with."
Certainly industrial shipping and present delivery forms a massive part of Santa's privately owned business empire. Mr Nick declines to say exactly how much the entire business is worth but analysts estimate the entire North Pole based company to be billions of dirhams.
Santa Inc a is huge global business. One of the biggest brands across the world, Santa has built up his global empire with a mix of determination and canny marketing techniques.
"We were the first global business to succeed with using a one on one marketing strategy which involved talking to customers each individually with the knee technique," says Mr Nick. "These days we are on Facebook and Twitter but we also get a huge amount of our business by post still. Given that many of our customers are very young we still see a lot of them using the old fashioned sticking the letter up the chimney technique. We're trying to discourage that these days as it's very labour intensive."
E-commerce now forms a huge part of the business. According to market research company comScore online retail sales in the United States alone on Black Friday or November 23 topped US$1.042billion (Dh6.17bn) - a 26 per cent increase spent on the same day the previous year.
According to the Adobe Digital Index online shopping on the following Monday - November 26 - grew 17 per cent compared with 2011 to reach $1.98bn and sales made via mobile phones doubled.
And with global population figures now passing 56 billion people that equates to a lot of presents.
"Yes of course not everyone has been good so we can get some void orders. But then again most people get more than one present. In fact our statisticians have found that most people currently average around eight. We used to get requests mostly from Europe but now we're truly a global business," says Santa. "We're able to cross cultural, religious and ethnic boundaries. It's a huge logistical operation."
The Santa brand too is worth billions Mr Nick says although he refuses to say exactly how much this equates to in dirhams.
When asked whether he was considering moving his massive workshop facility from The North Pole to an undisclosed Middle East and North Africa-based location to leverage the region's excellent geographical connections to the rest of the world particularly emerging markets in the east, Santa is dismissive.
"We are always looking at new and better ways of servicing our customers but we have a historic connection with the North Pole and we want to retain that connection," he says firmly. "Here we have the world's largest manufacturing facility. Yes it's not always best placed and in the most convenient location to effect deliveries but it's the only place large enough we have found to cater to our manufacturing needs."
What Santa fails to mention is that his North Pole location also exempts his business from all forms of corporation tax because it counts as international waters.
And with no room for missed deadlines, Santa says his workforce has doubled over the past three years alone.
"We have to deliver the right presents to the right children on deadline and on budget," says Mr Nick pointing out of his office window in the direction of the state of the art 1 million sq m elfen call centre the company opened last year. "We have a global brand to protect here and we make sure we don't get complaints. Any complaints are taken very very seriously indeed."
Mr Nick points out that by leveraging the world's global time zones he and his team are able to visit each customer within a 31-hour delivery window. That requires visiting roughly an average of 225.8m homes an hour on Christmas Eve. That equates to around something in the region of 63,000 presents a second.
"It's a tough delivery schedule but we do have some let up," admits Santa. "In Russia we deliver later on January 6 which gives the reindeer some respite."
But when asked about the thorny subject of Elf welfare Santa is far less forthcoming. Should Santa in a modern age draw his workforce entirely from Elfland, I ask. What diversity policies is he putting in place and does he adhere to any form of minimum wage?
At this point in the conversation Santa's PR elf steps in. "Santa has already answered these questions fully," he says, bundling me towards the door. "Any further questions please send an email."
* As imagined by Lucy Barnard
