My Girlfriend is Santa Claus & Together We Must Stop the Christmas Apocalypse Based on a True Story

A wise man, Sir Gaylord Kumquat IV to be exact, once said to never meet your heroes, for we often place them upon fantastic pedestals in our imagination, pedestals of gold and ivory stretching up into the clouds, and when you do meet them— your hero, that is— they are never as friendly or intelligent or pleasant-smelling as you had thought. Imagine, dear reader, if you had met Arnold Schwarzenegger, and in a flustered bout of star-struckedness you asked for his autograph, only for him to say “Get away from me, kid. You bother me,” and then he took a big bite out of a baby sandwich. What horror! ‘Tis better to have never met, than to have fanboyed and have lost!

A similar pang of disillusionment lingered in Peter’s heart as Santa guided him through a dizzying array of rooms, corridors, and staircases. His eyes bounced back and forth from intricate architectural details— wainscots and spandrels carved like oaken lace, stain glass and beveled windows— and Santa Claus herself, with her great black ponytail swinging back and forth like a beautiful pendulum as she walked. She was so far flung from the Santa that was etched into every December fantasy, every song and movie, and it wasn’t just because of the gender thing. No!

Santa was supposed to be a jolly old elf, wasn’t he— or she? All smiles and blushes and sipping Coca-Cola while laughing “ho ho ho!” right? But after a silent dinner and now this silent tour, Peter wondered who Santa really was, or if she even liked him at all. Who was this dour, humorless girl, stomping around in riding boots, her hat brim pulled down over her eyes? This Santa looked more like she would punt a child through a pane of glass, sooner than she’d hand out teddy bears and Legos to orphans.

The further they walked the less insane the workshop became, until Peter felt like he was within a very old, very drafty mansion. A great spiraling staircase sounded hollow under their steps, and the wood floors crackled with he age of centuries. As they passed through the gingerbread Victorian labyrinth, doors creaked open and elvish eyes peered out at him. Soft giggles followed him, and when he turned to look back slender figures jumped off into shadow and doors briskly shut.

Santa handed him a giant brass key, larger than his hand, and heavy as a brick of lead.

“This is a skeleton key. It opens this door to your bedchamber. Try it.”

Peter unlocked the door and Santa walked into the darkness. A fireplace magically fwooshed to life and Santa lit a quintet of candles on a table. The window was opaque with ice, as if Jack Frost had been erotically tonguing the glass panes. There was a bed, a table, some chairs, and nothing that reminded him of home.

“Lock your door at night and don’t let any of the elves inside,” Santa said. “Get some rest. Tomorrow we begin your training.”

“My training to defeat the Holy Spirit?”

“To kill the Holy Spirit.”

“What makes you think I can kill a god… or the God?”

“You can do it. Maybe not now. But you will.”

Santa stood at the door, candelabra in hand, fire on her face and in her hair, and looked at Peter as if she wanted him to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. So she repeated, “Get some rest,” and closed the door. Peter locked it and walked around the silent room.

Peter took in his new accommodations with mild disappointment, but surely that was only because he was too shellshocked to feel the raw outrage he ought to feel! As the warehouse worker who has been impaled by a forklift might not immediately feel their grave wound, so too did the true horror of his new bedroom not yet sink into his idiotic mind! Oh what an appalling bedroom it was! Where to even begin?

Where there could have been a television there was none. Where there should have been outlets there were none. In fact, the room had nothing electrical! Not even a lamp! The closest thing to entertainment Peter had were candles and a crackling fireplace! This wasn’t Santa’s workshop at all! It was an Amish farmhouse! How on Earth would Peter pass the time? Churn some butter? Are you truly going to let this pass, Peter?

If he were home right now, he’d be in his basement button-mashing to DeathBlood with his friends— not real friends, but online friends— the modern facsimile of friendship. Oh Peter, I can practically feel your gamertag slipping down the leader board every moment youaren’t playing! Which, to be quite honest, might not seem important— but teenage boys don’t have very much going on in their lives, which is by society’s design.

Peter flopped into bed and stared at the ceiling as the smell of burning firewood filled the room. He pondered many pondersome things in his solitary Amish confinement. What even was the Holy Spirit? A bird? A ghost? Pure light? How was he supposed to kill a part of the Holy Trinity? Was it omnipotent? Could it read minds? If it wanted, couldn’t it make Peter’s head explode into globs of gore?

While these sullen and morbid thoughts swirled around in Peter’s head, a dark creature scurried across his room, faster than the tintinnabulation of a bell. Peter only saw the faint shadow dart past in the corner of his eye, yet when he looked, the floor was barren. Perhaps it was only a trick of a light— the ghost of an ember scuttling across the floor.

For several minutes Peter tossed back and forth, sitting up and laying down, wondering if he would stay in the North Pole for this suicide mission or return to his dreary wasteland of a country, but as he weighed these two options, both equally horrible, his thoughts were disturbed by the strange black phantom zipping across his room once more. Each time he turned his head to catch it, he found himself staring at an empty hardwood floor. Again and again it evaded his sight! Was it his imagination? How was this menace to Peter’s solitude so silent? Was he truly going crazy?

He sat on the bed, crossed his arms, and stared at the floor like a mad man. Peter decided that he would not look away from this unassuming stretch of floor. He would not let this strange hallucination slip by a twelfth time. He was prepared to sit and watch for minutes, maybe even a full hour. He didn’t have to wait long, though, as he spotted a black mouse scampering from one side of the room to the other, its black tail chasing after its tiny black body.

“Oh, that’s cute,” he said.

He watched the floor as if it were a television and waited for the mouse to scamper by again. When it did he giggled and kicked his feet in glee. For you see, there is an instinct buried deep within all humans, and when we come upon an adorable, fuzzy, little critter, be it a pink-nosed kitten, a heckin’ good-boy pupper, a bushy-tailed squirrel, or even a mouse, this maternal impulse forces us against our will to pet it, to protect it, to bring it food, even if we must risk contracting rabies— it’s worth it for a photo of a squirrel eating a chocolate popsicle out of your hand!

Even Peter, with all his vulgarities, cruelty, and general dumbassery, had this weak point for fluffy furballs, just as much as anyone else. And mice were in fact Peter’s favorite animal in the whole wide world. What was not to like about them? They had cute little ears, and cute little tails, and they were so adorably small, and the way they nibbled at food was so adorably cute! He jumped up and knew that his purpose in life, at this very moment, was to go and get some food for this little mouse.

He dashed down the hallway of the unimaginably large workshop, encountering no one this time, and hurried down the steps, hoping that his mouse roommate would not vanish off into its mouse realm to never be seen again. When an elf on her way to wherever spotted Peter, she asked what he was up to and why he was so out of breath, to which he answered:

“Where is the kitchen?”

What followed was a dizzying array of directions. A breathless, high speed babble of turn left and right and left and right and go down a flight of stairs here and go up another flight of stairs there and to get off at the second landing here and the fifth landing here, and continued in such manner that Peter stopped listening to her entirely because there was no way in a million years that he would ever remember such directions without first writing them down. So he thanked her before she finished and ran off towards the kitchen, repeating her first few directions in his head.

“A mouse, a mouse, there’s a mouse in the house!” Peter sang to himself.

Little did Peter know, that the mouse within his bedroom was no ordinary mouse. And this impulse decision to feed it would in fact change the fates of everyone at the North Pole, but most of all, it would impact Peter’s life.