Santa and his Yuletide Blunder (Preview)

Having done this job for so long, St. Nick was really getting tired. Not about delivering presents to kids though, he absolutely loved that. Nothing in the world brought him more joy than to bring the children gifts that made them smile and laugh. Sadly, that did have some caveats, especially when it came to the sheer amount of cookies and milk he went through every Christmas night. As a result, he was extremely overweight, and constantly wheezed and squeezed whenever he tried to shimmy his way down a chimney. 

Everyone in his workshop took note of this, and his elves would spread rumors behind his back about if he was going to have a heart attack soon, or if he had diabetes and was about to lose a foot. Even Mrs. Claus started looking at her husband in a different light, noting how he was more prone to sleeping than to doing things in the shop. Of course, she wasn’t surprised when his sleep schedule left him waking up later and later each day. This didn’t fare too well after a while.

One morning, Santa groggily woke up in his bed to beams of sunlight streaming onto his face. His eyes scrunched in discomfort and he had to wait for his sight to adjust to the sudden change in his surroundings. From his vision, he could tell that Mrs. Claus had already gotten up and started her day. He groaned at the thought of the shit she was going to give him. Once his eyes finished adjusting though, he sprang out of bed in a hurry. He failed to account for the decreased amount of sunlight that far north, and so it was two in the afternoon…ON CHRISTMAS EVE!

He sprang out of bed in a panic, only to sit back down on his ample ass. The bed groaned in protest as the springs expanded and compressed in such a short span of time. His gut jiggled as well, making his legs spread apart due to it getting in the way while he sat. There was no way he was going to be able to get his sleigh ready and do all the prepwork needed to conduct that night’s deliveries. Was he going to have to cancel Christmas this year and give everyone and IOU? From the looks of it, that was going to be the case. 

Feeling dejected, he got out of bed, put on his traditional red suit and pants with the heavy black boots, and went into the kitchen with his head hanging down. His wife was in there, cooking some steak and eggs on the stove. She did not look pleased. 

“Looks like the lazy bum finally got up,” she said. “You have any idea what day it is?!” Santa sighed.

“I don’t need this right now dear. I’m already feeling like shit thinking about how many kids I’m going to let down,” he said. Mrs. Claus whipped around to face him, pointing the spatula fiercely in his direction. 

“What do you mean, ‘I’m going to let down?’” she spat. “You’re going to do deliver those presents no matter what. You are not getting out of this so easily because you don’t have the motivation to keep yourself in healthy, working order!”

“But dear, how in the world am I going to do that when I haven’t even gotten the sleigh ready?”

“I’m already ahead of you on that. I assigned the elves to do that for you, albeit with a lot of protest on their part since the reindeer don’t like the smell of elf. All you have to do is get in that sleigh and do your duty to deliver those presents.”

“I really hope that I’ll have the energy to do that though. Will my suit even fit me this year?”

“Don’t worry about that, I have that covered too. The first thing you need to do though is eat your breakfast.” She took the steak out of the pan and put it on a plate, followed by the eggs on top. She set the meal in front of him and walked out of the room, presumably to oversee the preparations for Santa’s midnight ride. With a sigh, he dug into his plate. Even though the woman was a pain in his ass, she was still an amazing. Probably part of the reason why he was so fat. 

He scarfed down the meal with unbridled gusto, savoring the rich, greasy flavors of the steak while smearing the golden yolk all over. If he had to be honest with himself, it was probably the best breakfast she had ever made him. In fact, he was feeling re-energized and amazing, like something in the food was giving him new life. 

“Dear lord woman, what did you do this steak?” he asked himself. He looked around the counter to see if there was any sign of something she added to the meat in the pan, but he couldn’t find anything. He didn’t care that much at the moment though, considering he finished his breakfast in the span of five minutes. And the worst part was he was still hungry! 

With a huff he got out his chair and proceeded over to the huge Amana refrigerator, a relic from the 50s. He pulled the steel handle to reveal a fully-stocked fridge, and began eating like a maniac. The funny thing was, he wasn’t feeling lethargic like he usually did whenever he ate that much. He just kept going and going. That was until he looked down. 

Santa blinked several times in disbelief at what he was seeing.Was it possible that his belly was receding? From what he saw, the buttons on the front of his coat were no longer straining from the size of his gut. Unfortunately, another grumble from his stomach prompted him to forget about that and continue eating. He continued shoveling fruit, vegetables, bread, leftovers, and whatever else was left in the fridge into his waiting mouth to satiate his almost insatiable hunger. At one point he even resorted to eating a stick of butter. However, his heart pumped without abandon, and he wasn’t wheezing as he stood in the fridge’s fluorescent glow. Without warning, he felt his clothes getting tight again, and stopped. 

“Ah great! Am I going to have to get this thing refitted?” he said to no one in particular. Looking at his suit, he saw something that froze him in his tracks. The sleeves of his red velvet coat were the source of the ripping sound, being that the arms inside were somehow tearing it apart from their sheer size. He poked at the bulge of his bicep, expecting it to give with considerable fat rolls, but it was hard and muscular to the touch! He checked his other arm, and the same was true there.

Santa groaned at the pressure he felt across his chest, and saw that top buttons were straining again from what looked like his swelling pectoral muscles. He ripped open his coat to examine what was happening and let a gasp at the changes occurring with his torso. What was once a bulging mass of jiggling fat rolls, pot belly, and man boobs was now a bulging mass of rippling pecs, abdominals, and obliques. In the minutes after he had eaten his breakfast, his was now ripped and shredded to a tee, rivaling the bodybuilders he occasionally would give gifts to if they were good athletes and refrained from using steroids. 

He noticed he was still growing, so he gave his biceps a massive flex to test them out. Not to his surprise, his arms exploded out of the confines of his sleeves to reveal huge muscles measuring probably 18 inches around, but not for long. The muscle underneath the skin undulated with activity, adding more and more mass to his already large size. The same was happening for his pecs and abs, making his chest go beyond 50 inches around and adding another row of abs to his six-pack, making a total of eight. 

He suddenly felt a pinch across his legs, and saw that everything down there was growing as well! With a grunt, he tore them off so he stood in the kitchen in nothing but his white briefs. His quads, hamstrings, and calves rippled with energy as they expanded to a more robust and sturdy framework of individual muscles. They looked strong and powerful like a prime racehorse.