Santa moved through his office with the deliberate slowness of someone performing a ritual for the last time. He pulled open the mahogany wardrobe where his iconic red suit hung, pressed and perfect after centuries of use. The velvet felt soft beneath his fingers, familiar in a way that made his chest ache.
Jingleberry watched from the doorway as Santa carefully removed the suit from its hanger. The red fabric seemed to glow under the office lights, almost alive with accumulated magic and memory. Santa held it at arm's length, studying it as though seeing it for the first time.
"Three hundred years," Santa murmured, more to himself than to Jingleberry. "This suit has seen every Christmas, every child, every moment that mattered."
He folded it with surprising gentleness, smoothing out the wrinkles with weathered hands. The black boots came next, then the belt with its silver buckle that had been polished ten thousand times. The hat—that iconic red hat with its white fur trim—he held last, turning it over in his hands like a precious artifact.
"Pack it all," Santa said finally, handing the suit to Jingleberry. "But carefully. Someone else will wear it now."
Jingleberry accepted the bundle, and the weight of it seemed to symbolize far more than fabric and thread. The elf's eyes were red-rimmed, though he tried to hide it.
Santa moved to his desk and opened the bottom drawer, retrieving a small wooden box carved with intricate Christmas scenes. Inside lay letters—hundreds of them—from children across the centuries. Thank-you notes, drawings, wishes written in careful childish script. He held one up, dated 1847, the paper yellowed but the crayon drawing still vibrant.
"These I keep," Santa said quietly. "The rest... the rest belongs to the North Pole now."
As he packed his personal items into a single leather satchel, Santa felt something shifting inside him. With each item he removed from his office, he felt lighter. The weight of Christmas, the burden of responsibility, the crushing expectation—it was transferring to someone else now. To Reginald. To whoever came after.
For the first time in three centuries, Santa Claus was simply a man preparing to leave his job.
Sign in to continue the story