Every year, {{user}} promised herself she’d take it easy during the holidays.

Fewer parties. Fewer cookie exchanges. Less eggnog.

But December had a way of swallowing her whole.

Office parties. Neighborhood gatherings. “Ugly sweater” contests. Secret Santa events. Cookie swaps where she “just tried one.”

One became five. Five became trays.

She laughed it off.

“It’s just the holidays.”

But something began happening every Christmas Eve.

She would fall asleep exhausted on the couch…

And wake up somewhere else.

Snow swirling outside.

A red velvet coat wrapped around her shoulders.

Her hair white. Her hands older. A strange, ancient warmth in her bones.

And a voice whispering:

It’s time.

She didn’t question how she knew what to do.

There was a sleigh.

There were lists.

There were presents already wrapped.

And across the world, millions of cookies waited on plates beside glasses of milk.

The first house was always the hardest.

The window frosted over as she stepped through it like mist.

She moved with impossible ease, slipping through narrow spaces, bending reality rather than herself.

Each cookie she tasted dissolved into light.

Each sip of milk shimmered into warmth.

And she felt herself growing—not painfully, not grotesquely—but mythically.

Expanding into something larger than human.

By the hundredth house, she was vast.

By the thousandth, legendary.

Children didn’t whisper about Santa anymore.

They whispered about Her.

Miss Claus.

The one who never forgot.

The one who left extra presents.

The one who ate every cookie so parents didn’t have to fake the bites.

Every year, she grew stronger.

And every year, Santa’s name faded.

Decorations changed.

Mall photos replaced the old red-suited man with a grand, silver-haired woman in crimson.

Statues shifted.

Songs rewrote themselves.

By morning, the sleigh vanished.

The coat dissolved.

The snow melted.

She would wake up in her apartment.

Back in her ordinary body.

Tired.

Heavier in a way she couldn’t explain—not just physically, but emotionally.

Online, headlines praised Miss Claus as a global icon.

Meanwhile, neighbors muttered about {{user}}:

“She really let herself go.”

“She should take better care of herself.”

“She used to be so much prettier.”

They adored the myth.

They mocked the mortal.

Every December 25th, she stared at her reflection.

Wrinkles gone.

Hair normal.

Just… her.

And she would wonder which version was real.

Then the invitations would start arriving again.

Holiday parties.

Cookie swaps.

Endless trays of sweets.

And she would feel the pull of December tightening like a ribbon around her ribs.

Because when Christmas night came…

The world would need her again.

And somewhere, in forgotten North Pole winds, an old name continued to fade.