On a crisp wintry evening, Mr. Claus, adorned in limited edition red Uggs, sits by the fireplace in his North Pole mansion. Taking a long sip from his caramel macchiato, he tears open another envelope from his mail.
This time of the year was understandably busy but it didn’t help that he had procrastinated on getting to all the children’s e-mails to binge watch Riverdale. Scrolling past some junk mail detailing Christmas sales, he clicked on one dated from only a few days back. He rolled his eyes and exclaimed, “Ugh, Becky wants a Barbie doll again? That is so 2002. This is the year of body positivity honey, no unrealistic beauty standards for you nuh-uh”.
It seemed to him that the lists only got longer and longer every year. After a few hours of perusing through children’s demands and sorting them into “naughty” and “nice” on his Excel Spreadsheet, he decided to hit the road. “Rudolph!” he yelled, “Get the reindeers ready, we’re leaving in a few”.
“Honey, have a quick bite before you leave. I’ve prepared your favourite — steak with a side of mashed potatoes,” said Mrs. Claus, as she set the dinner table.
Mr. Claus’s head whipped towards her, his beard sashaying with the movement, “STEAK? YOU WANT ME TO EAT STEAK?”
“Now what’s wrong with steak? That’s been your Christmas dinner for decades!”
“OMG, I’m vegan now. You are so insensitive, ugh” he said, turning away. He put on his coat, slipped on his red beanie complete with a white pom-pom, and made his way out the door and to his sled
After strapping in the bags of presents, he prepared the sled for takeoff. “What’s the first stop boss?” inquired Rudolph.
“Don’t even talk to me before I’ve had my coffee. Let’s make a quick stop at Starbucks first”.
The reindeers sleighed through the crisp wintery air and into the parking lot of a Starbucks. Santa hurriedly made his way into the establishment and immediately smiled as the familiar scent of coffee and cake wafted to his nose. “Good evening, what can I get for you?”, said the bored barista.
“Grande chai tea latte, 3 pump, skim milk, lite water, no foam and searing hot, I mean it.” He scrolled through his Instagram feed as he waited on his order, occasionally pausing to check his stats. Upon receiving his order, he swiped right and pointed his camera at his cup. After a few minutes of editing and adding a few stickers, he added the picture on his story. It featured his cup with “Cloz” scribbled on it, a black and white filter, a blue sticker with cursive spelling out “yasss” and a multi-coloured one saying in all caps “MOOD”. And thus began his journey of spreading joy and consumerism.
With every new house that he snuck into, he promised himself that he would stop eating cookies from the next one onwards, he did have a diet to stick to. “Screw it, I deserve to treat myself. I’ll make it my new year’s resolution” he settled.
After a long evening of shimmying down chimneys, depositing gifts and scarfing down cookies, Mr. Claus returned to the comfort of his home. After having a glass of water, he pulled out his camera and positioned it on the tripod and pointed it towards himself and proceeded to sit down on the edge of the bed. He pressed record and begun.
“Hi guys! Welcome back to my channel. As you all know, this is day 24 of Vlogmas and I’m so sorry but I could hardly vlog today, with all the presents delivery and all. You guys know I love ALL of you and I couldn’t just leave you hanging so today I’m going to do a little storytime video for y’all. So I was going through my inbox to read all the mail from these annoying children and just going about my job and my wife calls me for dinner. I’m famished and I make my way to the kitchen, so excited to have a lovely dinner and there’s a DEAD ANIMAL ON THE TABLE” he excalimed, aptly gesticulating with every sentence.
“Like, it was this piece of steak with some potatoes on the side like um hello, I’m trying to cut off carbs. Not to mention I’m on a strict all-organic, vegan diet. Like, Mrs. Claus was trying to practically kill me, I can’t even”.
The monologue went on like this for around half an hour as Mr. Claus decribed every detail of his night at length, exaggerating every event with a false sense of victimhood.
“And remember don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up and smash that subscribe button. Hit the notification icon and become a part of the notification squad! Now I’m going to hit the sack. Merry Christmas to all my Clausers, love you all!”
–Anushka Chikkara for MTTN
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