Basic Trope: It's uncertain as to whether or not Santa Claus is real.
- Straight: An old man who resembles Santa gives little Alice a teddy bear and says, "Ho ho ho!". She believes that was Santa, while her brother Bob thinks he was just some random Good Samaritan. We never find out who is right.
- Exaggerated: The evidence is all over the place — On the one hand, the old man gave Alice a teddy bear and said, "Ho ho ho!", the local Mall Santa sometimes seems to be using magic (but it's portrayed in a way that leaves it ambiguous as to whether it really is magic), and reindeer hoofprints are seen in the snow. On the other hand, Alice and Bob's father Charles owns a Santa suit, their mother Diane supposedly disproves Santa's existence with an equation, and the handwriting on the letters from Santa looks like Charles's writing.
- Downplayed:
- The old man's identity is never revealed, but Charles did mention his uncle Eric visiting, so he was probably just Eric.
- There was a reindeer nearby, meaning that the old man was probably Santa, but the reindeer never flies, so it's still technically ambiguous.
- Justified:
- Inverted: There are glowing eyes under Alice's bed that could belong to the Boogeyman, but it could also have been a cat.
- Subverted:
- An old man gives Alice a teddy bear and says, "Ho ho ho!". Charles arrives and says, "Oh, you've met your Great-Uncle Eric?"
- An old man gives Alice a teddy bear and says, "Ho ho ho!". She and Bob wonder if he was Santa... until he climbs into a sleigh and flies off, proving he is.
- Double Subverted:
- But then a second old man walks by in the background and also says, "Ho ho ho!".
- Then, the sleigh crashes, revealing that it had a jet engine, leaving the question — does Santa's sleigh have a jet engine, or was that guy a Con Man?
- Parodied:
- Zigzagged:
- Averted:
- Santa is seen clearly from the get-go.
- Santa is explicitly stated to not be real.
- Enforced: "If we show Santa, people would complain about the sudden unrealism, but if we disprove him, it'd make the kiddies cry. Better leave it ambiguous."
- Lampshaded: "Wait— was that guy Santa or was he not?!"
- Invoked:
- Exploited:
- Defied: Alice stays up late to catch either Santa or her parents in the act, proving if he's real or not.
- Discussed:
- Conversed: "Did Santa really appear in that Christmas Episode or not?"
- Implied:
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs: The mystery of whether the old man is really Santa is treated like an unsolved case.
- Played for Drama: Alice dies of a fatal disease and it's left unclear whether she saw Santa or if he was a dying hallucination.
- Played for Horror: The old man was surely supernatural, but he may have been Santa, but may have been a demon.
Back to Santa Ambiguity.
