A Christmas Day column has been penned in the News Tribune since 1978. Here’s this year’s edition:

The recorded voice you hear when calling the News Tribune sports department after hours is an employee long since gone from the company. He just happened to be here when the phone system was new. So many faces, and personalities, have come through the newsroom the past 31 years.

One former News Tribuner was on Wisconsin Public Radio the other day talking about a book he’d written on ice fishing. Another had numerous bylines in the Los Angeles Times during the presidential campaign.

A former sports writer sends e-mails from Chicago about pop songs he’s written with hopes of getting airplay. A former photographer recently took a buyout in Minneapolis and is doing freelance work.

I guess you’ve heard the newspaper business is changing. Many folks have left our building the past few years, so it’s easier to remember names and faces now, there are fewer faces.

The holiday season has been the perfect tonic for a blue, blue economic year. Mail a few cards, string a few lights around the wreath you got from a dear friend and listen to the 1974 Christmas album by one of music’s purest voices, Karen Carpenter.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was playing on the small, CD jukebox at my condo, and I was dreaming. The wonderful mood, though, didn’t last; there was noise on the balcony. Someone was tapping on the sliding glass door, but there couldn’t be anyone out there. I’m on the second floor.

“Open up, pal, before I turn into a Popsicle. The thermometer says minus 10,” came a voice from outside.

At first, I saw no one, but on closer inspection there was a speck of a man dressed in a Santa outfit, all 4-foot-11 of him. And there was no mistaking his craggy visage, it was the Christmas Dwarf.

“You were expecting maybe Andre the Giant?” he said, barging into the living room, carefully missing the Elvis Presley train set on the floor. “My little red wagon ran out of gas on the freeway and I knew you’d be home. You never go anywhere.”

Oh my, yes, the Christmas Dwarf. The antithesis of all that is good and all that is bright, and a sports know-it-all who has dogged my every step at Christmas for lo many these years in Duluth.

“What little red wagon?” I asked the mischievous munchkin. “You’ve never owned a car.”

“Not that you know of,” said the lippy leprechaun. “But if you remember the 1970s, your newspaper used to promote its sports staff with an ad showing a reporter hanging out the driver’s window of a car. They called it The Little Red Wagon.

“I bought this one in 1978 and have it just about paid off. I’ve already been to Florence, Ala., for one football game and was headed to the Insight Bowl in Arizona when my tank ran dry. Got any cookies?”

Sure, I remember. Man, those were the days. Mike Gill, Jim Goebel, Roman Augustoviz, Gary Derong, Bruce Bennett, Bill Brophy, even Mark Stodghill. Big sports staff, big coverage area, no portable computers. We’re still fighting the battle to put out a good publication, things are just different.

“Not so many company cars today, but we blog like crazy and have a fancy Web site,” I said. “We’re part of a new journalism frontier and there’s no room for you. You can take some of that banana bread over there, my aunt Mary made it, but then it’s down to the Holiday station and back on the road.”

I walked into the kitchen and the banana bread was gone and so was the Dwarf. It was his briefest visit of the three decades. A track of dirty, watery snow could be seen down the hallway and out the front door. It’s possible he had other stops in town before getting to Tempe for New Year’s Eve. I thought I heard him say he knew Jim Heffernan.

Duluth’s most celebrated former newspaper columnist recently put out a book of his best stuff and there may be a copy with the Dwarf’s name on it.

Although the book signings are over, I can guarantee where Hef will be Jan. 31. Those with a sense of history will be at the Duluth Armory to honor the late great Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens who performed at the site 50 years ago, and then perished in a plane crash three days later. Heffernan was there in 1959 and has a sense of history. All good writers do.

The Christmas Dwarf is the alter ego of News Tribune writer Kevin Pates and has never worked in the newspaper business.