What does Santa Claus do with his vertically challenged helpers in funny green hats and felt booties, now that he’s headed to Rio for another long offseason?

We assumed the little pixies built iPods in the sweatshop all year long. Maybe took a few long weekends at the Keebler treehouse B&B.

Turns out their magical hideaway is right here in T-Town.

A few observant Nose readers pointed out the neon letters on Holgate Street: “Tacoma Elf Storage.”

It was August when we first cracked wise about the Dome District sign. Then it was restored to full brilliance, until recently, when someone – a holiday prankster, perhaps? – decided to dim it again.

The missing red letter is starting to grow on us. Could be Tacoma’s most famous burnout since Ray Corpuz.

And as local Christmas traditions go, this’d be far cheaper than lighting up the Narrows bridge like the third runway at Sea-Tac.

That sign got us pondering what mischief could be made if other local landmarks were to lose a letter or two.We realize some of these joints don’t have neon out front. Just play along for the sport of it:

 • Ho Nob.

 • tarbuck’s.

 • Poodle Do.

 • Silver loud Inn.

 • he Spa.

 • coma General Hospital.

 • Museum of lass (and call the vice squad if it drops one more letter).

Before the holiday season is gone entirely, we can’t let two of the silliest moments pass without comment:

 •  The Postal Service and a Washington State Patrol bomb squad subdue a suspicious-looking item addressed to Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders. After blasting it with a water cannon, they deem it a harmless gift from a friend of hizzoner.

 • Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels pens a “Letter to Santa” bemoaning global warming and speculating how reindeer will survive if all the polar ice melts. At a community tree-lighting, his staff hands out energy-efficient light bulbs and “Save Santa” stickers.

No truth to the rumor that Nickels ordered all local screenings of “It’s a Wonderful Life” replaced with “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Where’s a water cannon when you need one?

Good to see Tacoma’s Art Wang appointed to the board of the Legal Foundation of Washington. But something caught our eye in the announcement from Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Wang, it noted, “is a Seattle University and University of Puget Sound School of Law adjunct professor.”

Sadly the UPS school of law doesn’t exist anymore. Hasn’t since 1993, when it was bought by Seattle University and then shunted off to Seattle in ’99.

Someone down in Oly should know this stuff. Maybe this will ring a bell: It was located in the old Rhodes department store downtown which, as a consolation prize, was remodeled as a state office building.

The same one the guv is now intent on closing and selling.

Not that we’re still bitter.

Also coming out of the guv’s office recently was the anointing of the state’s first poet laureate, a post the Legislature created to ballyhoo the benefits of verse and Washington’s special places.

Kind of like Gregoire’s personal minstrel, minus the tights.

Her choice of Samuel Green, a San Juan County resident (which makes him practically Canadian), provides a chance to react using our two favorite forms of poetry.

The haiku:

Our new laureate

should stick with haiku because

Not much rhymes with Pysht

The dirty limerick:

Nevermore a state poet we lack

Sir Sam Green is hardly a hack.

But the Nose loves him not.

We wanted Sir Mix-A-Lot,

Auburn author of “Baby Got Back.”

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