Thomas Nast. “Merry Old Santa Claus”
From the meridian down it was roasting oneself like a chicken stuffed in a pressure cooker, at about thousand degrees Celsius. That used to be the thermal sensation, at least. Every part of him started to itch, particularly the darkest corners of his body. The costume grew tighter with every single stop, and his belly swelled outrageously. And it’s not because it wasn’t pretty bloated since ever, but the heat made the swelling worse. On top of that, there wasn’t any single chimney to go down for. That did not make the things easier. The houses were small and narrow, some of them about to fall apart, and a lot of their roofs fully potholed and cracked. The lightest touch of the sleigh could make them crumbling down and hohoho, merry and last Christmas.
Let alone the magic powders; they always performed better in a suitable environment, namely cold, snowed and white. But in those places there wasn’t even a snow pen or a cool breeze, not at that time of the year, and the powders used to get wet to the point that they tended to fail at the most inappropriate moments. Not even in the largest houses, with suitable and roomy chimneys, he felt safe enough by those latitudes: one night he got stuck inside one of them for about two hours. He couldn’t tell the moment when the idea of spreading his range to the rest of earth came up with to him, neither that ritual of coming in through roofs and chimneys. He had to have felt either really enthusiastic or really boring.
That’s why he avoided to stay a long time in such places. He used to park the sleigh on a slope or hill nearby and went down to the most suitable houses according to his weight and width, left just two or three presents and moved off a little further down, fast, very fast, faster as the heat became unbearable inside his costume. Before the night came to an end, he forced the pace to go back into the north and cool off himself with a cold air breath and a drink on the rocks. Ah… Better. And he fell asleep, grateful for the department stores, the consumerism and the lack of faith, which would make less obvious his discriminatory negligence.
Searing Words 