It’s His Love of Giving That Keeps Him Going In Whatever Works, we feature an interesting person discussing some aspect of his or her career or special project. Today’s columnist is Santa Claus.

Question: What is your fantasy job?

Answer: Having Christmas every day, not just once a year.

Q: What is the most fun you’ve had at work?

A: The most fun had to be that first Christmas. I’ll never forget how excited I was. I never wanted it to end--there was snow on the trees, the sleigh was humming over fields, the moon was full. We raced that moon long into morning . . . but it’s still all fun. There isn’t a toy I’ve made that I haven’t played with, and every Christmas is a new adventure.

Q: How did you train your reindeer to fly?

A: Now, that’s a story! I never trained them to do anything, really. They’ve always sort of just known what to do. But flying! The first time it happened, Donner and Blitzen and I were caught in a storm. It didn’t look as if we’d ever get to all the children. For a while there, it didn’t even look as if we’d make it home! There was a tremendous crash, and we came to a complete standstill. We couldn’t budge the sleigh an inch. We were freezing. I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. All of a sudden I heard music. Then I heard a voice calling, saying to look to the sky. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew it was our last hope. The sleigh started to glow and tremble until it worked itself out of the rocks and snow, and then suddenly we were moving--but we were moving up! And we ended up high above the storm, as if we were among the stars.

Q: How many elves do you employ?

A: More than I’ve ever been able to count! And they don’t get paid. They are so much a part of the magic of Christmas that it’s hard to remember there was ever a Christmas without them. Indeed, I first made the acquaintance of the elf Giraldus--he was trapped under a fallen tree. The next day I awoke, went out my door, and before me was an enormous new building and hundreds of tiny elves, all of them singing. Giraldus and the elves had built me a new workshop. We’ve been together ever since.

Q: Most people probably don’t know you’ve worked as a . . .

A: . . . I was a carpenter. Still am, as a matter of fact. I don’t do as much as I used to do, but I keep my hand in. My adoptive father was a carpenter and he taught me to love working with wood. I wanted to be just like him.

Q: What do you love about what you do?

A: The pure, sheer joy of giving. I learned so very long ago that it’s no good owning something if you can’t give it to someone else to appreciate. A very wise man taught me that. The greatest gifts are those that leave your hands empty and your heart full.

Q: What do you hate about your job?

A: I can’t conceive of hating anything. There’s far too much to love in this world. However, things I’m not overly fond of are icy, stormy Christmas Eve nights and the years when the naughty list gets too long.

Q: What’s the hardest part of your work?

A: The hardest part is not being able to visit with all of the children. They write me so many letters and ask me so many questions that I’ve always wished I could sit down with each and every one of them and tell them everything they want to know. But the world is so big, and there are so many stories to tell that I simply wouldn’t know where to begin or end--and I’d probably never finish my Christmas rounds!

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Well, right now, of course, I’m traveling around the country to tell everyone about my autobiography, “Santa: My Life & Times.” But my publisher knows my time is limited. My most important project is to finish getting ready for Christmas Eve--I still haven’t checked my list for the second time, and this is the time of year when we get most of our letters.

Q: How do you deal with the stress of your job?

A: Things are a lot different now than they were when I first started. In those early days, there seemed to be so much before me that I was nearly overwhelmed by the size of my task. I worked at my carpentry bench from dawn until long after dark, carving, sanding and painting the toys. It’s important to know how to ask for help and how to accept help. That was the key to managing it all back then. My mother, my father and Mrs. Claus--of course, we weren’t yet married--all helped and soon the whole village was lending a hand as we got ready for my Christmas travels. Today, of course, with the elves and the workshop, stress isn’t really a consideration.

Q: What’s something most people don’t know about what you do?

A: I don’t think people know about the Inventing Room. It’s a room in which we all gather--Mrs. Claus, the elves and I--to draw up plans, show off new designs and argue, quibble and squabble. The elves are incredibly good at arguing, quibbling and squabbling--much more so than I am. None of us takes that part too seriously because if you know elves, you know that hard work and mischief making are pretty much the same thing to them. Also, most people don’t know how I fit all the toys in one bag--and I don’t either! Mrs. Claus and the Master Seamstress Elves gave me the bag, which they wove from spider webs. It holds any amount of toys and it never gets any heavier than when it was empty!

Q: What do you want to do when you retire?

A: Whatever could make you think I’d ever retire? This is the best job in the world. Christmas is immortal, and so am I.

Q: How did you meet Mrs. Claus?

A: My Sara is from a neighboring village. We knew each other since childhood. We played together and shared daydreams and secrets. However, it wasn’t until she heard of my work, and showed up at my door to offer her help, that we knew we’d work side by side forever.

Q: What is the workshop like?

A: It’s enormous. There are whittling benches and weaving chambers, rumbling conveyor belts and bottomless storage bins, sanding rooms and painting rooms, inventing rooms and playing rooms, viewing rooms and growing rooms, even an enormous kitchen with great big caldrons of chocolate and spun sugar.

Q: When did people begin having Christmas trees?

A: It was in Mexico that I first got the idea for the Christmas tree. I was delivering gifts when I saw a curious sight. Colorful fruit and peppers had been set out to dry on the boughs of a little pine. It looked so beautiful that it seemed the perfect place to leave my gifts. And so I did. I liked it so much that I went back to all the other houses and decorated their trees with colored paper and bits of tinsel and tiny toys. The next year, people all over the world were decorating trees themselves. Pretty soon, they began bringing them inside.

Santa Claus’ new autobiography, “Santa: My Life & Times” (Avon Books), is now in bookstores.