Glee the Christmas Goblin follows a group of mischievous goblins who set out to save Christmas after Santa’s elves hide the children’s presents, discovering the joy of giving along the way. What draws you to write children’s literature?

Jones: Children’s stories are often where our earliest ideas about courage, kindness, and identity begin. Before children can explain those values, they can already recognize them in the characters they love.

Olivo: We wanted to create a story that encourages positive behavior without using threats, shame, or fear. Glee is mischievous, imperfect, and still learning, which makes his growth more meaningful. Children do not need perfect heroes. They need heroes who show them that making a mistake does not define you, but what you choose to do next can.

The elves hide the presents because they’re tired of watching children receive gifts. What inspired this unusual twist on the traditional Christmas story?

Olivo: We began with a question: What if the people responsible for giving Christmas presents became convinced that children had forgotten how to give? That allowed us to reverse the traditional roles. The elves, usually seen as Christmas heroes, create the problem because their disappointment leads them to make the wrong choice. Meanwhile, the goblins, who are expected to take and cause trouble, become the unlikely characters capable of putting things right. That reversal reflects something we deeply believe: people are more complex than the labels placed on them. Good intentions can still lead to poor decisions, and someone with an imperfect past can choose to do something extraordinary. In our story, Christmas is not saved by the characters who appear to be the best. It is saved by those willing to change.

How did you develop the personalities and relationships among Glee and the other goblins?

Jones: We approached the goblins as a group of imperfect friends rather than as a collection of moral examples. They have different instincts, fears, strengths, and definitions of what it means to do the right thing. Those differences naturally create humor and conflict, but they also make the group stronger. Glee became the emotional center because he is caught between the goblin he has always been and the person he is discovering he can become. His friends challenge that transformation in different ways. Some encourage him, some question him, and others would be perfectly happy returning to ordinary goblin mischief. Their relationships reflect a lesson we wanted to explore honestly: change rarely happens in isolation. The people around us can resist our growth, complicate it, or help make it possible. Friendship does not require everyone to be the same. It asks them to keep choosing one another while they learn how to become better.

If Glee could return for another adventure, what kind of Christmas or holiday trouble might he find himself in?

Olivo: Glee would probably learn the right lesson and then apply it in the most spectacularly wrong way. Perhaps he decides that if giving brings joy, the answer is to give everyone everything they could possibly want.

Jones: Soon, the workshop is empty, the sleigh is dangerously overloaded, and Christmas has become complete chaos. Glee would then have to discover that generosity is not measured by how much we give, but by how carefully we understand what another person truly needs. That feels like the heart of any future Glee adventure: a well-intentioned mistake, plenty of goblin-sized chaos, and a deeper lesson hidden somewhere inside the trouble.

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