Once upon a time, at an orphanage in New York City, a baby girl was put to sleep by the one of the nuns who cared for the children. It was Christmas Eve night, and when a red-suited stranger entered the room where the tiny girl slept beside so many others like her, she grew curious. That was one of the things that the nuns always said about her, she was the most curious little girl they'd ever seen. They thought that she would make such a good child for a family in want of a baby, but time and again, she was passed up for someone else.
While the red-suited man piled presents beneath the meager Christmas tree, the baby girl managed to escape from her crib. She slid down the sheets and crawled across the room, finding a big, brown, open bag beside the fireplace. There was a teddy bear sticking out from the bag, and the little girl decided that she had to have it. When she grabbed hold, she noticed that it wasn't the only thing in the bag and so she crawled further inside. Before she knew it, she had reached the bottom and the sack closed around her, leaving her trapped inside.
She was all giggles and smiles as she played with the toys in the bag while the red-suited man made his rounds on Christmas Eve night and when he returned home and set his bag down in a room full of his treasured workers, the baby girl crawled out, being met by surprised and excited faces.
"What in the name of Sam Hill is that?" Asked the red-suited man, looking down at the baby.
"It's a human!" One of the elves cried, kneeling down to have a look at her. "Santa! It's a human!"
"Now how did you get in here, little one?" Santa scooped her up and she laughed as his whiskers tickled her chin. "What are we supposed to do with you?"
"Santa." One of the older elves shuffled forward, he'd wanted so long to have a baby of his own, but he'd been so caught up in his work that he'd never found the time to settled down. "Let me raise her."
"As you wish, Pierce. Seems like it'll be too hard to figure out where she came from now."
Pierce the elf took the baby into his home and raised her as his home, calling her Brittany after the first name he noticed on Santa's nice list. She grew twice as fast as he and the other elves expected and by the time she was eight, she was taller than Pierce and all the others. Brittany didn't seem to notice though, she went to school with the other elf children and before long, Pierce took her into the garage with Santa's sleigh and started her on her tinker training.
Everyone was surprised that Brittany never figured out that she wasn't an elf, but it became common knowledge among the elves that no one should ever tell her. She would figure it out when she was ready and Pierce was very protective of her. Even as she grew into adulthood, he wanted to keep the little girl he raised as his very own safe from anything that might hurt her. The problem was, when she began building toys with the other elves, it became increasingly apparent that she wasn't like the others.
"Jingles." Brittany looked up at the head-elf one day while she was hard at work building Etch-a-Sketches. "I think I'm going to be a little behind schedule."
"That's alright, Brittany. How many did you get done?"
"Um…eighty-seven."
"Eighty…seven?" Jingles opened up his scroll and looked down at his chart. "Well, that puts you nine-hundred-seventeen behind schedule."
"I'm sorry." She frowned, tinkering with the toy in her hands.
Frustrated with the slow progress, Jingles put Brittany where he put the other special elves, in toy testing. Brittany was miserable, being scared out of her pants every time she turned a Jack-in-the-Box and he jumped out at her. Still though, she worked hard, trying to make her Papa Elf proud of her. On the second day, she heard Jingles talking and she peeked her head up over the rafters that were barely tall enough to hold her in.
"Can you help me pick up the slack on those Etch-a-Sketches, Delfy? We're still behind from where Brittany left us. She's killing me."
"You got it, boss. Do you think she'll ever figure it out?"
"If she hasn't figured out that she's human yet, she never will."
Brittany's whole world felt like it was spinning out of control when she heard the words "she's human" and she tried to get a grip on herself. Her whole life passed before her eyes, from the fact that she'd been taller than Papa Elf since she was a kid to the fact that she was always picked first at basketball so she could dunk the ball. But human? All she had ever known was being an elf and if she was human, then where did she come from? Head still reeling, she walked out into the workshop and Jingles looked up at her.
"Hey Brittany, are you okay?"
"I…just need a little water." She told him, before fainting face forward and nearly crushing Delfy.
When she came to, she ran home as fast as she could and locked herself in the bathroom. Her knees touched her chin as she crouched down on the toilet seat and she could hear Papa Elf banging on the door. She didn't want to talk to him, she didn't want to talk to anyone. All she wanted was to go back in time to before she learned that her whole life was a lie. But she knew she couldn't avoid him, her father had a way about him that meant he wouldn't go away until she would talk to him.
"Please, Papa. I just want to be alone."
"Brittany, I think we need to talk." Pierce called gently
"I don't wanna."
"I know, but we should have had this conversation a long time ago. Come out now please."
Sniffling, Brittany stood up and let herself out of the bathroom, ducking under the door. She followed Papa Elf into the living room and when he sat in his cozy chair, she sat right down on his lap. She had always known that she was too big to sit there any longer, but she didn't care, she loved being close to her dad and he never seemed to mind.
"Jingles said I'm a human." She sniffled. "Is that true?"
"It's true, honey." Pierce told her, patting her leg. "You came to the North Pole when you were just a baby and I took you in and raised you. Once you got bigger than all the other elves and hadn't figured it out, I was hoping you never would."
"But how did I get here?"
"You crawled into Santa's sack and he brought you here. It took Santa awhile to figure out where you came from, but it turns out, you came from an orphanage in New York City after your mother put you up for adoption."
"New York City? That sounds like a magical place."
"Here, stand up." Pierce gently got Brittany off his lap and went over to his shelf to pull down a snow globe. "This is New York City and this building right here is the Empire State Building. That's where your mother works."
"My mother? I have a mother?"
"Her name is Whitney Pierce, absolutely no relation to me and she was very young when you were born."
"I need to see her, Papa Elf! How do I get to New York City?"
"I think before you do anything." Pierce raised an eye brow. "We ought to talk to Santa."
Normally, just before Christmas, it was impossible to get an appointment with Santa, what with all the running around he had to do to get ready for his big night, but considering the big reveal of Brittany's parentage, he made an exception and called for Pierce and Brittany to come to his cottage. The whole way over there, Brittany was incredibly nervous and still kept wishing that she didn't know anything about Whitney Pierce and New York, but it was a little late for that and part of her was…fascinated. She had never left the North Pole before…at least not that she remembered, and the idea that she had a mother, something that she had always wanted even though Papa Elf had been an amazing father, so she wanted to find her.
"Well Brittany, I can't say I was looking forward to this day coming." Santa started. "But here we are."
"I'm really not an elf?"
"You're really not an elf. But that doesn't mean you're any less special in the North Pole."
"I want to find my mother."
"Before you go on off to New York City, there are a few things I ought to tell you. One: gum you find on the street is not free candy, don't touch it. Two: if you see something called a peep show, that doesn't mean you get a sneak peak at Christmas presents, stay away. Three: there's something about your mother."
"What about her?"
"You're not going to like to hear this, but…she's on the Naughty List."
"The Naughty List?!" Brittany screamed, face contorted in horror. "How did this happen?"
"Now, now. You know that the Naughty List isn't permanent, sometimes people just lose their Christmas Spirit and need help finding it. I think you might be able to help her get it back."
"So I can go?"
"You can go."
It took Brittany nearly two days to get across the river at the North Pole, through the Candy Cane Forest and eventually walk through the Lincoln Tunnel, but when she reached New York City, she was absolutely amazed. Maybe she had always been a little easy to please, but the city looked like the most wonderful thing she had ever seen and she couldn't even stop long enough to admire everything because she was so desperate to get to her mother. But she did take time to congratulate the diner that won the world's best cup of coffee—because how cool is that?—and take paper after paper from the guys outside of the store that claimed everything was one dollar. Only one dollar! That was like Christmas every day!
She looked down at her snow globe and then up at the building in front of her when she reached the Empire State Building and she was sure that she was in the right place. Her mother was in that building, on the fifteenth floor, Santa had told her and she was just so excited to meet her. Brittany had never seen an elevator before, so when she got in, she excitedly pushed every single button, lighting up the panel like a Christmas tree and showing the man next to her who didn't seem nearly as excited as she was. She was even so excited that she forgot to give him a hug as she got out on the fifteenth floor and approached the woman sitting at a desk.
"Hi! Are you Whitney Pierce? I'm Brittany the Elf!"
"Oh how cute! A Christmas-Gram! Hold on just one second." The woman pushed a button on her desk and Brittany heard a grumbling woman's voice on the other end. "Mrs. Pierce, you have a Christmas-Gram!"
"I want a Christmas-Gram!" Brittany clapped her hands together. "What is that?"
"Oh, you are too cute! Go on in, she's expecting you."
"Mom!" Brittany cried out when she walked in the door of the closed office. "You're here! Hi! Can I give you a hug?"
"What the hell is this?" Whitney snapped. "Who sent you?"
"I came from the North Pole, just to see you!"
"Right, right. Just get on with it, sing your song so I can get back to work."
"A song? You want me to sing a song?" The crowd began to gather in the office and Brittany blushed a little bit. "Okay…um. Merry Christmas! You're my mom and you want me to sing, so I'm sing-ing. Mommy! I love you! I love you! I love you!"
"That was…something. Normally they just put my name into 'Jingle Bells' or something."
"So can I hug you now, Mom?"
"Someone call security." Whitney snapped. "Does this look like the place for a joke to you?"
"But—"
Before Brittany could say anything else, two men were dragging her back into the elevator as she begged them to let her go. She was so close to hugging her mom, she couldn't be take away from her now. She had to get her off the Naughty List, this was absolutely urgent business but those guys were really strong and she couldn't get herself away from them.
"I'll see you soon!" She cheered once they let her go.
"Oh no you won't, you won't be back here any time soon!" One of them shouted.
"Yeah, go back to Gimbal's where you belong."
Brittany had no idea what Gimbal's was, but as luck would have it, she saw a big sign announcing that it was a giant store on the next street. Everything inside was decorated, not quite like the North Pole, but enough for it to feel a little bit like Christmastime and Brittany walked inside, filled with wonder. She had just gotten to the second floor when someone grabbed her by the shoulder and she spun her head around.
"Hey elf, get back to work!" He shouted.
"Where am I?"
"You're in the North Pole, where do you think?"
"This isn't the North Pole! If this is the North Pole, where are the reindeer?"
"Are you trying to be cute with me, kid?" The man snapped. "Get back to work, Santa is coming tomorrow!"
"Santa! Oh my God! Santa is coming!" Brittany jumped up and down and clapped her hands and then, just when she was starting to get excited, she turned her head and stopped dead in her tracks.
There, decorating the Christmas tree was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen—not that she had seen many human women, but still. Brittany felt her heart go into her throat and her palms go sweaty as she stared at the woman dressed like an elf hanging silver ornaments from the tree. She wanted to go talk to her, to tell her that she was beautiful, but she knew that was probably a bad idea.
"Hey you." The woman snapped. "What are you staring it?
"It's just…" Brittany stammered. "I've never met another human who shares my affinity for elf culture."
"Are you messing with me? Who told you to mess with me? Was it Schuester?"
"No, no one told me to. I'm being serious. It's Christmas, the best time of the year!"
"Yeah…psht…okay."
"What do you mean?"
"We're all just trying to get by, okay?"
"Get by? How could we just be getting by when Santa is coming? We have so much to do! And guess what? We should sing! The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear."
"I don't sing."
"Oh come on, singing is easy. It's just look talking only louder and longer and you move your voice up and down."
"I know how to sing, I just don't."
"Why not? Singing is my favorite!"
"Okay, weirdo."
"I'm actually Brittany. Brittany the Elf."
"Okay." The woman rolled her eyes a little but then a hint of a smile crossed her face. "I'm Santana."