Congratulations. You have been hired as Santa Claus.Let us be clear: you did not earn this. There were no interviews, no resumes, no tedious panel discussions about your five-year plan. You were chosen for one simple, pragmatic, and utterly terrifying reason: the suit fit. The last one stopped screaming, and the dimensions of your shoulders, the length of your inseam, matched the crimson wool and white fur.
The mantle is yours. The sleigh is primed, the reindeer are pawing at the frost-laden roof with a restless energy that speaks of ancient pathways. Your global delivery window is imminent. But before you take up the reins, you must understand: this is not a role of mere gift-giving. It is a custodianship of a delicate, powerful, and perilous magic. There are rules. They are not suggestions. Ignore them, and you will not simply be fired. You will be unmade. Pay particular attention to the last one.
The Nature of the Mantle Santa Claus
First, disabuse yourself of the cultural cartoon. You are not a jolly, retired grandfather baking cookies in a polar workshop. You are a seasonal force, a necessary symbol woven into the fabric of belief, fear, and hope that peaks on a single night. The suit is not a costume; it is a symbiotic vessel. It contains the collective expectation of millions of children and the residual echoes of every man who wore it before you.
The “job,” therefore, is one of preservation and precision. The magic operates on strict, paradoxical laws—whimsical on the surface, iron-clad beneath. Your predecessor learned this, to his detriment. His screaming has finally subsided. Let his experience be your primer.
The Rules for Survival
Rule No. 1: Never, under any circumstance, deliver a present to street address No. 6, 6 6.
The numbering will vary—sometimes it’s a standalone “6” on a quaint cul-de-sac, sometimes it’s “666” on a dimly lit lane that wasn’t there yesterday. The house may look inviting, with warm lights and stockings hung. Ignore it. The entity within is not a child. It may wear a child’s shape, it may whisper a child’s wishes, but it is a void that feeds on the magic of unconditional giving. To place a gift on that hearth is to anchor yourself to its hunger.
The chimney will become a throat, the fireplace a maw. You will be trapped, not in brick and mortar, but in a perpetual, silent Christmas Eve, your sack forever full yet eternally draining, a ghost in a machine of endless, joyless consumption. The sleigh cannot retrieve you. You will simply become part of the address’s decor.
Rule No. 2: Never remove the suit. Not to sleep. Not to eat.
The suit is your skin now. It will not soil, it will not tear. The urge to scratch, to feel fresh air on your neck, will be profound. Resist. The moment you manage to unclasp the belt, to peel back the red wool from your wrist, you will make a horrifying discovery: there is nobody underneath anymore. The “you” that pulled on the suit was absorbed, integrated. Your flesh, your memories, your love of coffee or jazz or gardening—all have been translated into the operating system of Santa Claus. If you see emptiness under the fur, do not panic.
It is not that you are gone; you have simply become elsewhere. Worse, the suit, offended by your attempt, will crawl back onto you. Its embrace will be colder, tighter, the fur feeling more like bristles, the buckles cinching with a resentful finality.
Rule No. 3: Do not let the children see your face. Not truly.
You will enter dim rooms, lit only by nightlights or the glow of a Christmas tree. A child may stir. If they squint through the gloom and murmur, “You don’t look like Santa,” remain calm. Ignore it. They’re remembering someone else. They are recalling the previous occupant of the suit, or a storybook illustration. Reassure them with a soft “Ho, ho, ho” and continue your work. This is normal.
However, if a child’s eyes snap open, clear and awake, and they look at you—really look at you—and then smile, saying with utter certainty, “You look better this year,” RUN. Do not finish placing the gift. Do not reach for the cookie. They are not seeing you, nor any past Santa.
They are seeing the suit’s true, shifting face, and they prefer it. That child is a sensitive, a beacon for things that watch from the edges of the myth. Your presence has been noted by more than just the child. Leave immediately.
Rule No. 4: If any reindeer’s antlers are burning, do not approach. The fire is not heat; it’s attention.
The reindeer are not animals. They are concepts given form: Dasher is Velocity, Prancer is Levity, Blitzen is Suddenness. Their antlers trace the ley lines of the night. Sometimes, they intersect with a point of fervent, desperate belief—a dying wish, a traumatic plea—and it manifests as a cold, spectral flame wreathing their antlers. This flame is attention. A focused, raw need from the waking world.Santa Claus
If the burning reindeer turns its head toward you, lower your eyes and back away slowly. You are not the object of its gaze. It is looking through you, at the source of the signal. To meet that gaze is to forge a direct connection, to pull that concentrated despair or longing into the sleigh with you. It will taint every gift you deliver from that moment on. Let the reindeer process the signal. The flame will extinguish when the path is cleared.
Rule No. 5: You must finish before sunrise.
This is the most non-negotiable rule, the linchpin of the entire enterprise. The magic of Santa Claus exists in the liminal space—the night, the boundary between the 24th and 25th, between waking and dream, belief and doubt. Sunrise is not just a celestial event; it is a sweeping erasure of that magical space.
If the sun’s first ray catches you mid-delivery, several things will happen at once. The sleigh will lose its buoyancy, landing itself on the nearest surface with a final, hollow thud. The reindeer will kneel. But not for you. They will kneel toward the east, in a posture of submission or perhaps mourning. The connection is severed.
And you? You will be stranded. The suit will become inert cloth, heavy and damp with melting frost. The boundless sack will be just a bag of toys. You will be a man in an absurd, fraying costume, surrounded by silent, kneeling beasts, as the ordinary world wakes up to a Christmas morning, some children inexplicably disappointed. The role will be vacant. Christmas needs a Santa Claus. The myth cannot lapse. Another will be found, hastily, before next year. Someone whose suit will fit.
And you… you will be left with the memory of the magic and the crushing weight of the normal, a king dethroned at dawn, forever hearing the echoes of sleigh bells in every passing wind.Santa Claus
The Final Benediction
So, take up the sack. Feel its bottomless weight. Grease the runners. Check the reins. The world below, shimmering with lights and dreams, awaits its annual validation. You are not a person tonight; you are a function, a delivery mechanism for hope, bound by sacred, terrifying protocols. You were chosen because the suit fit. Now you must ensure the suit survives the night. The previous wearer’s screams have faded. Do not let yours be the next to echo in the workshop void.
Good luck. The night is deep, the rules are absolute, and Christmas needs a Santa Claus.
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