The flames flickered in Sid’s dull eyes, as he listened to the harsh, dying screams of the stray cat. This alley never wanted for them, fortunately, and he had plied the old tomcat with a can of old tuna he had found in a nearby dumpster, his usual method. Then he threw it in a rusted metal garbage can, doused it with gasoline, and set it alight with one of his matches.

It brought little satisfaction: this was, after all, his third kill of the night. He had started with insects as a child, as so many psychopaths do, before graduating to small lizards, then birds, then various rodents, and now, finally, cats. The thrill had clearly all but gone, however, so it was clear to him he’d be moving on to dogs soon enough. Luckily for him, there were plenty of strays in this city. Of course, after dogs, the next step was obvious, and the final line would be crossed. Not that this scared him, mind you. He was actually looking forward to it. In fact, he even had some targets already in mind…

The flames finally began to die down, and the smell of the burnt, dead animal wafted toward him. Sid breathed in deeply, and sighed. This time of year always seemed to bring out the worst in him. Sure, he was always bad, but he never hunted quite as frequently as he did around Christmas time. A psychologist or social worker, if Sid bothered to see one, would probably deduce that, having come from an unhappy, broken family, Sid naturally resented a holiday that emphasized togetherness and love, and thus the 18-year-old acted out even more so than usual.

An even better psychologist, however, might be able to see even beyond that: that Sid really wanted the whole world to burn too, and his ritualistic animal murders were the expression of his true desires, just on a smaller scale.

Above him, from somewhere on the neighboring rooftops, Sid heard the ringing of bells. This being the holiday season, he paid little mind to it. People were constantly ringing fucking bells this time of year, when they weren’t singing, shopping, or stuffing their fat faces with even more fattening food than usual.

But then he heard something else, something, much more alarming: footsteps. Sid turned and looked down the darkened alley. What if it was a cop? Now this thought actually struck him with fear. Sid was too old for juvie now. If he got arrested, he’d be doing real, hard time. He wasn’t going to let that happen, though. He’d run if he had to. And if he couldn’t run fast enough, there was always the handy switchblade in his pocket…

“It turns out I might just be skipping dogs after all,” he thought with dark amusement.

A figure emerged from the darkness, and, to Sid’s relief it wasn’t a cop: it was an old, fat man, dressed as Santa Claus, and smoking a cigar. But even a Scrooge like Sid had to admit: he looked perfect, like he had just stepped off the label of a Coke bottle, or out of one of those corny Christmas movies.

Still, Sid had no love for the Big Man, nor was he keen to have anyone snooping around the scene of one of his hunts. He would scare him off, even using the switchblade if he had to.

“You get lost on the way to the mall, fat boy?” Sid yelled.

The man took a drag from the stogie, removed it from his mouth, and blew a thick cloud of smoke into the cold night air. Sid wasn’t sure if it was just his eyes playing tricks on him, but the smoke actually seemed to form the shape of a snowman, before it dissipated.
“So that’s what you do for fun, kid?” the man asked, nodding toward the trash can.

“Fuck,” Sid thought. He knew. How long had the creep been lurking in the shadows, watching? Or maybe he had been looking down from the rooftops? That would explain the bells he had heard, after all.

In any case, Sid was now even more resolved to get rid of the interloper, no matter what it took. He took the switchblade out of his pocket, pressing the button to set the knife into place. He held it up, and it glinted the under the light of the full December moon.
“Why don’t you go home to Mrs. Claus?” Sid said.

The Santa dropped the cigar, and stamped it out with the heel of his foot. “Well, you see, that’s exactly the problem.” He began to walk towards Sid, seemingly totally unafraid of the weapon he wielded.

Sid waved the blade at him. “Listen, man, I’m not afraid to use this!”

The Santa laughed. “Oh, I know. You’ve used it plenty, haven’t you? Let’s see: 30 various rodents, 14 reptiles, 20 birds, and 10 cats. And God knows how many bugs. But let me tell you something, that won’t work on me.” He slapped his prodigious stomach. “Unbreakable skin, you see!”

Sid lunged, and pressed the knife against the Santa’s chest. But, somehow, impossibly, it didn’t even pierce the fabric.

“Oh yeah, the suit’s impenetrable too, Sid,” he said with a wink.

Now Sid was really scared. This was impossible! He had used that same knife, just like the Santa said, on countless animals before. He had even used it effectively in a few street fights before, too. It should have had no problem cutting through the simple red fabric.
And, even more alarmingly, how did he know Sid’s name?

Panicking, Sid dropped the knife, turned, and ran down the alley. He hadn’t checked out this end of it beforehand, and was praying it would open up on the street, and not be blocked by, say, a fence with barbed wire atop it.

Instead, he found an obstacle of an entirely different sort: a large, red sleigh, and before it, nine reindeer. You know their names: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph.

Rudolph, red nose glowing, and at his rightful place at the front of the pack, huffed angrily, ducked his head, and pressed his ornate antlers forward. The message was clear: you aren’t getting out this way, bitch.

Sid turned to see that Santa had followed him.

“Look, I’ll do you the courtesy of explaining the whole thing to you, not that you’ll remember any of it in the end,” he said. “See, the thing is, Santa is immortal, but Mrs. Claus is not. You can imagine how many I’ve gone through in 2000 years then, right?”

Not responding, Sid turned again towards the reindeer, prompting Rudolph to bark and stomp one of his legs. He still wasn’t getting through.

Santa continued. “So, when one of my Mrs. Clauses sadly passes away of natural causes, I have to go out and find a new one. And sure, I could just find some big old broad who wants to live the high life in their golden years, but what’s the fun in that? Especially, when I can make one just as easily!”

Now he produced a wide, intricately -detailed gold ring from the pocket of his jacket, and held it up to show Sid.

“I’ll let you in a little secret: sure, Santa’s mostly nice. The way it works is, me and the elves will provide good little boys and girls with one or two presents that their parents, for some reason, can’t remember buying themselves. Naturally, they’ll assume they just forgot they bought it, or that the other parent got it and never told them beforehand. It’s always something small and old-school, though, like a rocking horse or a wooden sword. We stick to the classics, right? We’re not building fucking Xboxes up there!”

He continued. “But there’s nothing that says Santa can ONLY be good, you know? I mean, who is, right? It’s Ying and Yang and all that shit, although that is a different religion, I admit. So I allow myself a little outlet: whenever a Mrs. Claus dies, I go out and make a new one: from a sadistic little fuck like you!”

There was an awkward pause, as if something was supposed to have been triggered by what he had just said.

“I knew you two weren’t ready for prime time,” he shouted.

At that, two elves jumped out of the sleigh: green-skinned, and, in full Santa’s Workshop regalia.

“Sorry about that, boss!” yelled Pip, the bigger of the two. “We were sleeping!’

“We’re not used to this time zone, you know?” added Kip, his companion.

Santa rolled his eyes, and tossed the ring to Pip, while Kip grabbed Sid’s arms. Despite his miniature stature, Sid found him surprisingly strong, too strong to break free from.

Pip examined the ring. “I think we’ve all really missed a feminine presence in the North Pole, boss.”

“And Mrs. Claus’ pies!” said Kip, as he restrained the struggling Sid. “Will her’s taste the same?”

“No, they never do,” replied Santa, wistfully. “Now let’s get on with it, Christmas is in 3 days! And Santa can’t focus if his balls are full!”
Obeying his master, Pip shoved the ring onto Sid’s ring finger.

“Why do you keep referring to me as a girl?” Sid asked, as his finger plumped up and expanded to fill out the ring that had just been about 2 sizes too big for him.

Kip loosened his grip, allowing Sid use of his arms again. He immediately tried to remove the ring, but it was firmly stuck on his chubby digit. And to his horror, he noticed that not only had his fingernail grown outward, but there was red nail polish on it as well. Well, that explained why they kept referring to Sid as female, apparently.

“NOOOOOO!” he screamed, but it was too late. The rest of his fingers followed, each growing until they resembled small sausages. Then the nails grew outward in turn, that same red nail polish appearing atop them all.

The rest of his body was next, each and every part becoming bigger and softer. His stomach got it the worst, bulging outward until he couldn’t even see the ratty, beat-up sneakers on his feet anymore. It was so prodigious, actually, that it actually hung below his wife beater. Sid instinctually grabbed it, feeling the sheer mass of it with his hands. It was fucking heavy.

Santa, for his part, simply watched, and licked his lips hungrily.

As he felt his hips painfully start to widen, Sid knew that he was starting to feminize as well. Santa’s raging erection, outlined under his pants, only confirmed it.

He felt his ass grow, to the point his stained jeans began to rip from the strain of it, while, his now-flabby chest swelled, and morphed into a pair of G-sized breasts. This was followed by his nipples and areola, which turned even pinker, until they were almost the same color as his new boobs.

The final changes happened almost simultaneously: Sid’s hair grew out until it reached the top of his shelf-life ass, then turned gray. At the same time, his penis and testes retracted inward, becoming a plump vagina, and his face morphed into that of a beautiful, albeit old, woman.

When his eyes turned from brown to a striking ocean blue, the transformation was complete: Sid was no more. In his place was Barbara Claus, who, as far as she knew, had always been female.

Santa stepped forward, removing his coat, and handing it to his wife.

“Jeez, Barb, you’ll catch your death dressed like that! What are you doing out here anyway?” he asked her.

For a moment Barbara looked confused, as if she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. Then the moment passed, and she shook her head. She placed her husband’s coat over her shoulders.

“Oh, you know me. Sometimes I get homesick, and I ask the reindeer to take him down here to remember what my life used to be like, before I became Mrs. Claus!” she replied.

She leaned forward and gave Santa a long, deep, passionate kiss. Never one to miss an opportunity, he began grabbing her 50-inch ass cheeks with each hand. Kip and Pip gave each other a knowing look.

When their kiss finally ended, husband and wife began walking hand in hand to the sleigh, followed dutifully by the elves.
“Y’know, when I was a little girl, I used to say that, when I grew up, I’d marry Santa Claus!” said Barbara. “I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, but how for many others did it come true?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” replied Santa.

Barbara wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she didn’t let it bother her. He was an immortal being, of course, and so was far wiser than Barbara could ever imagine, wife or not. She was sure it made sense, at least to him, and that’s all that mattered.

The couple got into the sleigh, along with the elves, and the reindeer lifted off into the air. Christmas was just three days away, and there wasn’t a moment to spare.

…

Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true, because Santa and Barbara did little else until the Big Night but have sex. Barbara couldn’t even remember the last time her husband had exhibited such virile energy. Not since their honeymoon, at least, and that was 42 years ago!
The elves, slaving away all the while, grumbled about Unionization.

And when Barbara waved goodbye to Santa on Christmas Eve, his sleigh packed with presents for the good Christian children of the world, she finally settled on a reason to explain her husband’s voracious sexual appetite of the past few days: he had simply been excited for the holiday, of course. After all, he was Santa Claus himself!

But if we asked Santa, he would have offered a different explanation. Sid had been 18 years old. Now she was 60. From experience, he knew he wouldn’t have more than 20 years with this Mrs. Claus.

He had to enjoy her while he could

…

It was now July 2023, and, as predicted, Barbara had sadly passed on from natural causes. Santa would take his time to mourn her, as he did all of his Mrs. Clauses, and Barbara especially. She had been a loving and supportive wife, and kind to not only the reindeer and elves, but all of the animals of the North Pole.

However, Santa couldn’t help but let his mind wander and begin thinking about what his choices were with regard to the next Mrs. Santa Claus. This being the brave new 21st century, he had decided to change things up a bit. For the past 2000-odd years, all of his wives had been white. Now, he had resolved to branch out a little and pick a Latina. It’s not like Central and South America wanted for naughty boys, especially with those awful cartels around!

In fact, Santa decided he would have TWO Hispanic Mrs. Clauses! He was the Goddamn Santa Claus, after all! Why shouldn’t he have two wives? Sure, forging a second ring would be a huge pain in the ass, but it would be well worth it in the end!

It may have only been July, but it looked like Christmas was coming early this year – for Santa himself!