Pulling the sleigh of the Christmas story gendered practices at work

In this article, we deconstruct the Christmas Story by externalising and validating the interpretations of the work associated with the festive period. Through co-creative and ethnographic techniques, we aim to find common themes that allow us to reconsider the management of human and non-human work relationships. Our methods, Collaborative Story Craft (CSC) and Multispecies Ethnography (MSE), mediate a dialogue around the Christmas story and form the basis for our data gathering. Without assuming that there is a common understanding of the story, we investigate how existing characters are expected to play particular roles in order to enable a Christmas experience. As a result, we found five subject positions in the Christmas story: (1) the participant, (2) the child, (3) the elf, (4) the protector, and (5) the mother. We argue that these themes intersect with gendered practices of labour at work, shedding fresh light on the power imbalances that impact the work and lives of both humans and nonhumans alike.