‘Twas the night before Christmas 2025

Last night was indeed the night before Christmas. We had just finished some card games for a very small party, leaving the two of us to curl up with our annual reading of ‘Twas. Will we be able to save Father Christmas this year? It happened once, but more often we die of exposure or get eaten by a giant cat. But tonight, we’re chock full of Christmas spirit and feeling good about our chances.

What’s that? A thump on the roof, a thud and a crash downstairs – someone’s burglarizing us on Christmas Eve! I run downstairs to investigate. The front door is closed and locked,and I creep into the living room. On the fireplace are some seasonal greeting cards, and this is neat: in the flickering fireplace light, there’s an optical illusion that the little street fair scene on the card is moving. I squint at it and… whoa that’s uncanny, it really looks like… I find myself standing in the street fair, on the frozen edge of a lake under a bridge. Okay that’s freaky. Then I see a dark shape in a red suit scampering off out of the crowd. That’s the same movement that caught my eye, and I take off after it.

We get out into the middle of the river, and the shape stops and turns. It’s wearing a Santa suit, and carrying a giant wicker basket on their back. From the sleeves stick spindly, dark hands with long talons. And inside the hood is… darkness. I recoil in fear, and feel the ice cracking under my feet. The faceless darkness makes a low laughing sound, and the whole thing vanishes. I creep backward slowly from the ice, a really tense moment as it creaks and cracks, and slowly but safely I make my way back to the thicker ice of the fair. Whew.

I wander the fair briefly, enjoying a bag of roasted chestnuts and taking in the sights. Why do I have shilling coins in my pocket? Because this is a dream, and things like that happen. It gets even sillier when the man running a puppet show gives me a free magic box, which he says can make me small or make me quick, whatever that means. Dreams, am I right? And then I wake up… back in the living room, hunched over the postcards. I slowly back away, and decide to move on to the kitchen.

The back door is hanging open, and I hear something moving out there. They’re getting away! Have at you, knave! As I get outside, they scramble up the drain pipe and I follow suit. But alas, I roll a 22 and fail my endurance test. I lose my grip and fall back into the snow, bruised and shaken, and watching the would-be thieves flying away! Wait, what? Flying away, in a sleigh, into the night. Did I get burgled by Santa Claus?

As I lie there in the snow, watching helplessly as the thief flies away, I put my hand in my pocket and find that queer little magic box from my dream. Oh this is bizarre. I rub on it and wish to be fast, and I take off like a shot, racing into the night. You ever play Saints Row IV? It’s a lot like that, but across the fields and the woods. I’m racing as fast as lightning, outpacing the sleigh, catching up to… up to the… oh hell, the magic is wearing off… and I’m now miles away from anything, in the woods in the snow, watching the sleigh get away. Damn. I should have just let them go, and filed an insurance claim in the morning.

I wander in the snow, getting colder by the hour, and starting to lose hope. But up ahead, a light! A cottage! A good-looking man with arms befitting a blacksmith. Oh hello! I’ll stop to say, that I’m old enough that I was around before Grindr. Back in the day, if we wanted a hookup we would wear pajamas and wander the woods, in the snow, uphill both ways, waiting for some nice man to invite us inside for a cup of tea and a cuddle. I put on the charm, but he either is not getting the hint or is not interested, and either way that’s fine cuz I’m not a creep. He makes a damn fine vegetable stew, though, and I’m warmed up in a short while.

He’s also in for some bad news: plot exposition. That sleigh was Santa’s sleigh, but Santa is missing and Krampus was the one flying it. It’s on me to walk north into the mountains to save Santa. He would help me, but he took an arrow to the knee and he’s behind on re-watching The X Files on Netflix, so thank you and good night. I ask if maybe he has some clothing I could wear, as it’s below freezing outside. Nope, but he does give me a wood axe. That’s nice if I have to kill something or chop wood, but hypothermia is my major concern. No? Really? Okay then, off I go.