Santabomination

Eldritch Christmas to all, and to all a good End of the World as We Know It!

My name is Claus, king of kings;
Look on my toys, ye Mighty, and despair!

— Description of the Santa's Dominion upgrade, Cookie Clicker

Santa Claus is an unusual man, ain't he? He's a spaceless, timeless immortal male senior citizen that seems to change his name and ethnicity depending on whatever country he exists in. He is omniscient (how else would he know if you've been bad or good? or when you're sleeping?) and omnipresent (he can drop the right selection of gifts in every house on the planet with no one ever seeing him despite being a fat man apparently getting in through the chimney) and he can survive things that should kill a normal man his age (eating everybody's cookies and milk, living in the inhospitable wastes of the Northern hemisphere, nearly getting shot down by the U.S. military every year for being an unregistered airborne entity, etc).

Often times this trope applies to Santa if it involves less the Christian side of Christmas (that is unless Yahweh is more the eldritch-horror type unsurprisingly) and more with the various Pagan traditions that apply to the holiday, various rituals of protection that have long since lost their original purpose over the years and have become modern Christmas traditions, meaning that the fundamentalists were right and Santa is a Pagan idol that could possibly destroy the Earth. Children don't give him milk and cookies as a "please and thank you" for the presents; they are offerings to appease his ever-slumbering rage, waiting for the day when he rains jolly doom upon the world. After all, "Santa" is an anagram of "Satan"...

Now the kind of Eldritch Abomination would depend on the kind of traditions that would placate him. As a Humanoid Abomination, it is pretty much self-explanatory. The fact that he is able to survive whatever diabetic coma that keeps him away the other 364 days of the year speaks for itself. As an Animalistic Abomination, he does not have flying reindeer pulling the sleigh, he is the flying reindeer, or at least some kind of Yule-Goat commonly confused for his more malicious counterpart. As a Botanical Abomination, Christmas trees can act as an effigy in its likeness, the various Christmas ornaments his many eyes or eggs or something. As a Mechanical Abomination, toys and holiday themed appliances spring to life as monstrous predators or violent soldiers that cause chaos and destruction wherever they go.

Oftentimes, this overlaps with Bad Santa and The Krampus. Might be a Pseudo-Santa if the character barely resembles the standard Saint Nick. Compare Badass Santa and The Grinch. See also Adaptational Abomination, Adorable Abomination and Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• In the supplemental material for Volume 2 of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mina's Arctic expedition encounters a frightful-looking old shaman in a flayed reindeer skin, who claims he projects himself and his spirit animals across the globe and delivers good cheer to all the world's children, though his physical form stays behind writhing and vomiting from the mushrooms he has to take to do it. He's at least a kinder and more sympathetic version than most, as the text introduces him grieving over the body of a Coca-Cola representative who tried to interrupt the ceremony and sign him to a licensing deal, causing his "little helpers" to tear the man apart as poor Santa watched.
• Rick and Morty introduces the disturbing Mr. Chimney in the spin-off comics. He's a strange, man-shaped creature with dozens of insectoid legs who sees and knows everything, eats lost teenage boys, and isn't allowed within 100 feet of a school.
• During the King in Black event, Santa Claus became venomized and was forced to be put down by Iron Man before he could cause any further destruction.

Fan Works

• Dragon Ball Z Abridged: In the abridged version of Plan to Eradicate The Saiyans, re-titled to Plan To Eradicate Christmas, Doctor Raichi and Hatchiyak are adapted as being Santa Claus, who has grown fed up with all the naughtiness in the world and decides to destroy the Earth. The main cast also refers to Santa's second form (being Hatchiyak) as Super Santa.
• Sword Art Online Abridged: Kirito fights a giant evil Santa called Nicholas the Renegade for the Christmas event, following a rumor that it drops an item that can resurrect a dead player. It's a hat.
• In the "definitive Lord of the Rings e-text", the Balrog is also Santa.
  The shadow-thing burst into fire as it landed and yet remained unharmed. Its streaming mane of snow-white locks kindled and blazed behind it. In its right hand it held a sword, like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs. The thing was garbed all in red velvet and about its head was a floppy red hat. Upon its feet were two smoldering pink slippers.
• Lost, the second story in The Smeet Series, features Zim's Santa Suit monster (see Western Animation below) showing up on Hoth and attacking the group.
• A Christmas-themed fic in the Discworld written by A.A. Pessimal deals with the Rodinian version of Santa, Ded Moroz, and his faithful grand-daughter, Sneguroschka, when they visit Ankh-Morpork to manifest to Rodinians there. A six-year-old girl, daughter of a witch and one who is developing magic herself, sees the essential truth: for all but this one night of the Winter, Ded Moroz and Sneguroschka have their primal true selves, who are not the generous benevolent Lord Frost and his grand-daughter who is Friend To All Good Children. Tatiana Popova speaks their true names. She then looks, largely unafraid, at Morozko, the Winter King, and Maslenitsa, the terrible and inhuman Goddess Of Winter Storm and Blizzards. ^note Maslenitsa commends Tatiana on her discernment and on showing a brave face, then returns to her Sneguroschka-form.

Films — Live-Action

• In the Finnish Dark Fantasy Horror film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Joulupukki (the Finnish equivalent of Santa Claus) is portrayed as a massive goat-like entity comparable to The Krampus frozen in a massive block of ice, having long since been imprisoned in Korvatunturi by the Saami people. It is served by a race of Humanoid Abominations that all look like identical skinny, bearded old men that are its Christmas Elves, who are implied to have been ordinary people before being turned into identical Ambiguously Human minions.
  • The short film on which it's based is built around the premise that Father Christmases are not human, but extremely dangerous wild animals who have to be hunted down and carefully trained.
• Santa's Slay reveals that Santa is actually The Antichrist and that he only delivers toys to good little girls and boys because he lost a bet with an Archangel. When the bet is off, he returns to being a demonic bringer of chaos and destruction who begins his killing spree in the (ironically named) town of Hell's Township.
• The Dutch horror movie Sint involves a man discovering the hard way that Sinterklaas is the ghost of a psychotic Knight Templar who reappears alongside his army every thirty-five years to inflict mass murder on cities and towns. While the heroes manage to give the ghost a bloody nose this time, it’s all but flat out stated that it didn’t stop him.

Literature

• The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids parodies the Santa's Existence Clause by proposing that Father Christmas is actually a sentient interdimensional meme which infects as many worlds as it can; belief in a fictional Santa is the first stage, after which a real, physical Santa Claus will gradually begin to coalesce until he was always there as far as anyone can tell. The individual Santas aren't actually malevolent, but the Cupids are still quite keen to not let this happen to their world.
• Discworld:
  • Soul Music offhandedly mentions the Hogfather, the local Santa Claus equivalent who goes around giving gifts of meat to good children, and bags of bloody bones to bad children.
    There is a song about him. It begins: "You'd better watch out..."
  • Hogfather uses him as a central figure (or rather the central victim of the Auditors' plots). It turns out that the Hogfather's sleigh is drawn by massive boars instead of cute little pigs, he lives in a castle made entirely of bones (or at least ice carved to look like bones), and embodies thousands of years' worth of different winter traditions, from bonfires and ritual sacrifices made to ensure the swift return of spring to his current form of a jolly old fellow who gives out toys and treats.
• The Laundry Files short story "Overtime", in which Bob realises that, this close to CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (aka The End of the World as We Know It) belief in pretty much anything could summon an Eldritch Abomination. And that includes the Filler of Stockings, Lurker in Fireplaces, the King in Red.
  There are things out there in the void, hungry things hidden in the gaps between universes, that come when they’re called. Tonight, hundreds of millions of innocent children are calling Santa.
  
  Who’s really coming down your chimney tonight?
• The Snata in Sky Pirates! is an Emotion Eater that feeds on fear, and appears as barely-humanoid figure dressed in furs black with ancient blood who rambles incessantly and disconcertingly about how its victim has been very naughty this year. It's actually completely mindless, and this is all instinctive rote behaviour.

Live-Action TV

• Discussed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Tara asks Anya if Santa ever existed. She says he did but disemboweled children rather than bringing them presents.
  • In the Alternate Universe middle-grade novel New School Nightmare, Santa is instead a vampire who uses kids' letters to bypass the Must Be Invited rule.
• Probably not Santa-themed but the Red Dwarf episode, "Out Of Time" mentioned the gang spent the previous Christmas being attacked by something called the "Pan-Dimensional Liquid Beast".

Theatre

• Wiggly from Black Friday is a Cthulhu expy with tentacles made from green tinsel and tries to invade Earth by releasing a hit toy during the Christmas shopping season.

Video Games

• A post-game sidequest in BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm features "The Spirit of CTH'RISTMAS," an unholy fusion of Santa's cap and Cthulhu that shows up out of nowhere to attack a shopping mall during its annual holiday sale. Afterwards, the locals are just as confused about the whole ordeal as you are.
  Shopper: I think we've learned a valuable lesson here today. I just wish someone could tell me what it is. Something about commercialism, maybe?
• Bravely Second: Ba'al II; Redshirt. It's a demonic aberration that resembles a mix between a Santa Hat and a withered, crimson Christmas tree. Supposedly, it was created by a warped memory of a couple during Christmas.
• In Cookie Clicker, Santa was introduced in the Christmas update, appearing in an icon in the corner. It starts off as a Festive test tube, before becoming holiday decorations (tree ornament, wreath Christmas tree) becoming elf (from a fetus to old age), to the actual Santa Claus before it evolves into an Eldritch Abomination of unfathomable horror. Though apart from the change in appearance, he continues to act as he always did.
• Surreal gothic browser game Fallen London has Mr. Sacks, aka "The Crimson Beast of Winter", a hooded, faceless, only vaguely Humanoid Abomination who appears every December. He doesn't give people gifts; the people of London are instead supposed to give gifts to him. He accepts anything from abstract things like your "best regards", to fine wines, to parts of your body... or even you, if you're foolish enough not to have anything else to offer. But something of yours WILL end up in his sack. And unlike Santa, he doesn't just appear on Christmas Eve. No, Mr. Sacks visits you on each of the twelve days before Christmas. And he expects a gift with each visit. It's also heavily implied that Mr. Sacks is actually a title, rather than the name of one being. On the 9th night of Sacksmas, this reaches peak horror, when it is, somehow, the mostly dead Mr. Eaten who appears as Mr. Sacks. It reveals as much if you are in its service, as a Seeker. If on the 9th night, you offer it Mr. Eaten's name, it confirms this by saying:
  Mr. Sacks: The light on the edge of sleep was mine. I was Mr Candles. I will not be again.
  • In the Spin-Off game Sunless Sea, your captain may be called upon to perform three deliveries for Mr. Sacks. Refusing him is implied to be bad for your long-term well-being. Accepting is likewise likely to be bad for you short-term. Accepting and taking too long with it is likely to be the worst (and last) idea you'll ever have.
• Narrowly averted in the Halloween Town level of Kingdom Hearts II; Maleficent intends to create one of these by turning Santa into a Heartless, but Sora and company stop her before that happens (of course, Oogie-Boogie bumping into her while she was in the process of doing so did her no favours either).
• Kingdom of Loathing: The 2008 Crimbo event (the KoL version of Christmas) resulted in the Crimbomination. It's also about as unbeatable as a typical Eldritch Abomination, no punching out Cthulhu here. Even the guard that was assigned to the factory has been driven completely insane just from looking at it. It was created by human hands, or at least by penguin flippers. The Crimbo factory was taken over forcefully by the Penguin Mafia, and the Crimbo Elves were forced to work in a factory powered by grimicite, which is highly radioactive and caused the elves to mutate. After curing a lot of elves of their mutation, the remaining mutated elves fused together to create the Crimbomination. The Kingdom's adventurers were able to weaken it to the point where the penguins could seal it in a gigantic crate.
  • Unsurprisingly to anyone who knows KoL penguins, they released it next year at the end of Crimbo 2009. The player community brainwashed it into becoming the new Uncle Crimbo, and it showed up in the 2010 Crimbo event... as a Corrupt Corporate Executive running the bland, soulless corporation CRIMBCO.
• Rudolta of the Sleigh from Lobotomy Corporation is an abomination vaguely resembling Rudolph, Santa and the sleigh. Santa is represented by a bag of organs on top of Rudolph, who is a patchwork nightmare vaguely resembling the titular red-nosed reindeer.

Webcomics

• In Belzebubs, Satan Claus/Father Antichristmas is a strange, demonic creature that visits the Belzebub's household every year. Leviathan thinks that he is just their dad in a costume since his dad is always conveniently out... only when he removes the goat-skull mask just as their dad walks in, he goes into a homicidal rage, forcing them to behead Satan Claus with an axe.
  Satan Claus: .oH oH oH
• In a Penny Arcade two-parter, sensing that his daughter Ronia is getting wise to Santa not actually existing, Tycho for ...some reason decides to up the ante by telling her that the real reason for Christmas trees, cookies for Santa and gifts is for protection from a Humanoid Abomination that's basically a Christmas-themed version of the King in Yellow.
• At some point in Sluggy Freelance, Santa becomes infected with The Virus from aliens that invade worlds by such methods, and turns into an alien monster — who's still obliged to make and deliver gifts and so has no time to plan the Alien Invasion.

Web Original

• This artwork, depicting a Moon-beast in a jolly Santa costume, along with its Men of Leng slaves dressed as elves.
• Creepypasta Cookoff: The inflatable Santa in a story by C. Lonnquist. It has a disturbing Slasher Smile and kills a cat to eat it.
• Walter from the Crypt TV series Milk & Cookies is a hideous, blue-skinned, demonic cross between Santa and Krampus who is constantly drooling blood that is implied to be toxic. He also swallows people whole and regurgitates them as lumps of coal.
• Cyriak:
  • In The Spirit of Christmas, a Santa monster that's fused with his reindeer drills a child's head open and leaves a present inside.
  • The Magic of Christmas has Santa tied up with tinsel inside a Christmas tree, pooping out Christmas presents. The presents then hatch into spiders made of ornaments which proceed to devour him.
• SCP Foundation: SCP-4666 ("The Yule Man") is a grotesque parody of Santa and The Krampus. Every winter, he sneaks into family homes and gruesomely tortures the inhabitants before killing them. In most cases, he takes one of the children alive, forcing them to work in his secret lair and make toys from human remains, with the toys being given to one of the families he haunts 15% of the time instead of the torture and murder. If a child can’t make enough toys, he either eats them, tortures them to death, or uses their body parts as materials to make more toys.
• Will McDaniel's video The Christmas Grotto has a bizarre... thing that looks like it's made of raw meat pose as Santa to lure Will inside a dirty-looking trailer. It turns out to be the lure for some kind of subterranean creature that swallows up the trailer with Will inside.

Western Animation

• The Big Mouth Christmas special, "A Very Big Mouth Christmas" the Jansen twins say that back in Holland they had Vader Johan, a Krampus-looking creature who would visit children on Christmas Eve in order to kill them and take their bones. The children would hide in coffins to try and convince Johan they're already dead and pray to the Mongoose King in the hopes he'll come and fight off Vader Johan.
• The in-universe equivalent to Santa Claus from Chowder is Knish Krinkle, a caterpillar-esque creature that travels around the world Knishmas night. He comes down a chimney and if the Shmingerbread House (a life-size gingerbread house) left for him tastes good, he'll regurgitate gifts for the owners. If he doesn't like it, he'll go into an Unstoppable Rage and destroy the house.
• In the Invader Zim Christmas Episode "The Most Horrible X-mas Ever", Zim downloaded humanity's collective knowledge of Christmas into a gel-based Vortian liquid in which every molecule is a miniature hard drive, turning it into a Santa suit with a brain interface so that he could use it to take over Christmas and, from there, all of Earth. Unfortunately, A.I. Is a Crapshoot goes into full effect as the suit starts to gain sapience independent of Zim, becoming convinced that it is Santa. The Santa personality starts to wrestle control away from Zim whenever something especially Christmasy happens (like children asking for hugs or when GIR starts singing Christmas songs). Zim ultimately loses control of the Vortian Santa, but manages to escape eternal imprisonment in the entity by sheer luck before it grows into a monster, with Dib banishing it into space. In the distant future, it is revealed that the Santa is not only still alive, but returns every Christmas to wreak havoc, cities since having been enclosed in protective domes with giant milk and cookies left to placate its rage.
• The Love, Death & Robots short All Through The House (based on a short story by Joachim Heijndermans) has a grotesque red xenomorph-style Santa Claus that can sniff out a child's 'goodness' and regurgitate the perfect gifts if it approves. After an ominous warning to "stay good", the children unfortunate enough to witness it lie awake wondering what would've happened to them if they hadn't been good.
• In the Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode "Girl Hair," Space Ghost ends up killing Hanson so they can't snitch on him after he runs over the ToothFairy in his spaceship. Later, he's spooked when Santa appears at Ghost Planet and expects to be chewed out, only to be surprised when Santa declares that Space Ghost is a very good boy for killing the Tooth Fairy, because "I've been trying to kill her myself for years!"
  Moltar: But... why, Santa, why?
  Santa: So that I could be the Tooth Fairy, Moltar! Then Santa could use all the little children's teeth to make bizarre and twisted toys for Santa's own amusement. Hohohohoho!
  Space Ghost: (thinking) That doesn't sound like the Santa I know...
  "Santa": That's because I'm not the Santa you know, Space Ghost! I'm Bizarro Santa, from the Electroid Dimension! (transforms into a screaming pile of flesh, claws, and teeth)
• The Jesus VS Frosty short that predated South Park had the boys terrorized by an evil, tentacled Frosty the Snowman. When they ask Santa for help, he grows tentacles revealing himself to be Frosty in disguise and kills Kenny.

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Bow down, bow down, before the power of Santa
->Or be crushed, be crushed, by... his jolly boots of doom!\\