I know how you feel, a napkin agrees. He has to squint a little, in order to decipher the handwriting in his current state.

When your job is everything you are, and you can't bear to part with it.

"Yeah," he agrees, stabbing a finger into the napkin. "Yeah, exactly like that. And I — I don't want to stop, of course I don't. I just wish ... that this year I could do something new."

And sometimes, just sometimes ...

When you put your heart into a wish, no matter who you are, from the smallest baby to the man in the sleigh himself ...

Sometimes, when you make a wish ...

It comes true.

She's had a long day. She loves what she does, really. She's proud to serve her community.

But sometimes her community is very dumb.

It's an acknowledged risk which community mediators and other service personnel like her face. The people who most need her help, day to day — they're the ones who don't have their lives together. So she sees a lot of people who have trouble living in the society everyone has built, and that can wear on you.

It's a few days after the winter solstice, and she just wants to spend the evening on the phone with her partner out in Big Lake City.

She opens her closet door to hang up her uniform, and —

— opens it onto a large room, tastefully furnished in warm colors and lit by a crackling fire, instead.

A large man sitting on a stool at the other end of the room perks up and waves her in.

"Merry Christmas!" he cries. "Oh — but you should put on some clothes; the landlords prohibit nudity in the bar."

Kyaris blinks and goes to grab a soft robe from its hook. She tentatively steps inside.

She has ... several questions. Starting with 'What happened to my closet?' and continuing all the way through 'Am I hallucinating?'.

The one she actually asks is "What's Christmas?"

The man looks as though someone just slapped him across the face.

"What's Christmas?" he repeats. "What's Christmas? Why, it's the most wonderful holiday of the year!"

He waves a hand, and a swirl of snow curls through the air.

"It's a festival of lights and laughter in the darkest part of the year. A time to spend with family and friends, and enjoy the holiday cheer! A time to give presents, and remember how much we all mean to one another," he explains.

"Well, I don't think we have that in Central River City," she tells him. "Although it sounds wonderful. A few days ago we had the solstice festival of lights, which sounds similar — it's not a time for presents, though."

The man taps his white gloved finger against his beard in thought.

"Well, the solstice is like Christmas, in a lot of places," he allows. "That's ... that's the oldest part. The return of the sun. That's the core of it. But ..."

The man trails off, staring past her and out her closet door.

"I think everyone needs a present, sometimes. Here."

He pulls a large brown sack out of nowhere, and draws out a neatly folded pile of fabric.

She takes the fabric and unfolds it to reveal a fluffy green robe, exactly in her size.

"Thank you," she says.

"If there's a whole city of people who've never heard of Christmas, I think that's worth checking things out, while we're still between the ticks of the clock," he announces, levering himself to his feet. "Here, would you get the door for me?"

"The ... door into my bedroom?"

She glances back at the closed bar door, noticing the stars out the window for the first time.

Her hand surreptitiously reaches into her robe, finding her phone on the end of its thong, and tapping one of the buttons in the pattern for 'silently call Emergency Services'. Her phone buzzes to let her know that it has no Network connectivity.

"Well, it doesn't always lead to your bedroom," the man explains. "It leads somewhere different for everyone, you see. If I were to step through that door, I'd go back to the house I was delivering presents to before I took a ... break."

Kyaris maneuvers him back toward the bar with body language, taking a seat herself.

"I'm not saying no, but I think I want a little more idea of what your plan is, if that's okay," she says. She's had a long shift, but she's had a lot of practice speaking with that calm and reasonable tone. "You want to give people presents?"

"Yes, that's right!" the man agrees. "It's what I do. I'm the spirit of the season, aren't I? The one who embodies the tradition and makes it Christmas, the same way that Bar is the one who makes this place a bar, isn't she?"

Hello, a suddenly appearing napkin by Kyaris's elbow reads. The first drink is free.

One of them is having a break with reality, and Kyaris really hopes for the sake of her career that it's him. But that seems increasingly unlikely, really.

"Uh. I will have a cold ginger kvass, if you have that," she replies.

A clear glass mug containing the cloudy liquid appears on the surface of the bar. It is served in the traditional þereminian style: in a thick-walled cold glass vessel, no ice, with visible shreds of ginger in it.

She takes a sip. It's pretty good — and, importantly, not really sold in Central River City. She picked up the taste for it on a visit to Largest Waterfall City, and always has to order it from overseas.

She regards the mug thoughtfully for a moment, and then returns her attention to the man.

"I'm sorry — I just realized I haven't given my name. I'm Kyaris; how should I refer to you?"

The man strokes his beard in thought.

"I've had many names. Some people say the first was Nicholas of Myra, but I think I prefer Santa, all things considered."

"It's good to meet you, Santa," Kyaris replies, taking another sip of her kvass. It's good, if noticeably different than the kind she usually gets, so it would be a shame for it to go to waste.

"And you as well!" Santa agrees. "I so rarely get to meet people, on Christmas night. So much to do ..."

He leans forward.

"But there's always room for more. Tell me, how do people in your city give gifts?"

"Well — when you're good friends with someone, so that you can judge their tastes well, and you know what they'll find aversive, sometimes you'll feel motivated to share something with them," Kyaris explains. "So you'll buy or make them a present, and ... give it to them."

She runs a finger thoughtfully around the rim of her mug.

"I guess there's other kinds of presents as well. Parents give their kids a lot of presents, because kids are sometimes too young to know all the things that they'll enjoy, so a parent can frequently give them things that they will turn out to like but don't know to ask for. Usually they can use the self-exploration guides by twelve or so, so it's less usual to give gifts to a child older than that — but everyone is different," she continues.

"Then there's courting gifts, which are really a different thing. Oh — and it's always appropriate to gift money to someone, since it's fungible, so that's quite common."

Santa looks somewhat aghast.

"So you ... don't have any gift-giving holidays at all?" he clarifies.