The North Pole had seen better days. The magic had grown thin, the elves had unionized, and Jolly Old St. Dick—a far less refined cousin to the famous Santa—had decided he was finished with the "jolly" part of the job entirely.

He sat in the corner of his workshop, which now smelled less like peppermint and pine needles and more like a backed-up sewage line in a heatwave. He was currently nursing a lukewarm bottle of cheap lager, his velvet suit stained with gravy and something unidentifiable that had been festering since mid-November.

A young elf, eager to get the toy-making quotas back on track, tentatively approached him. "Sir? The reindeer are hungry, and the sleigh hasn't been waxed since '98."

St. Dick didn't even look up. He just let out a low, guttural rumble that seemed to vibrate the very floorboards of the workshop. It was the kind of sound that usually preceded a volcanic eruption, or at the very least, a small-town environmental disaster.

Suddenly, with the force of a pressurized steam pipe, a cloud of neon-green, sulfuric smog billowed out from behind him. It didn’t just hang in the air; it had a texture. It roiled and hissed, clinging to the walls and turning the bright, festive red paint a sickly, muted grey upon contact. The poor elf didn’t even have time to scream; he simply stood there, his eyes watering, his tiny bells wilting, as the sheer viscosity of the gas knocked him flat on his back.

"Ho. Ho. Hork," St. Dick wheezed, his belly shaking like a bowl full of jellied eels.

It was his signature move—the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" special. He didn't believe in coal for naughty children anymore; he believed in atmospheric poisoning.

He stood up, his trousers hanging precariously low, and stumbled toward the sleigh. Every step was a gamble, a rhythmic poot-hiss that left a trail of toxic green fog in his wake. The reindeer, sensing the shift in air quality, had long ago chewed through their tethers and bolted toward the South Pole.

St. Dick didn't care. He climbed into the sleigh, took a swig of his beer, and let out one final, world-ending blast that turned the surrounding snow a vibrant, radioactive lime. The sound was like a thunderclap echoing through a bathroom stall.

As he drifted off into a nap, the green cloud slowly expanding to fill the entire North Pole, he let out a toothless, raspy chuckle. It wasn't the Christmas anyone wanted, but for St. Dick, it was the only Christmas that mattered.

"Merry Christmas to all," he muttered into his beard, "and to all... stay upwind."