🎅On The Naughty List 🤶

Written for Day 13 of my Christmas Advent Challenge!

“Oh my god, Santa is a young bloke”, my work colleague, Jaqueline giggled.

All of us girls who worked in the HR department at a posh London PR company had all convened for after-work drinks before Christmas.

We’d stopped at a bar in the nearby shopping centre, only to see a Santa’s grotto set up right in front of our favourite haunt. After a few drinks, we’d stumbled out and that was when Jaqueline had spotted the man in red. How she knew he was young, was beyond me. He wore a white beard, a fake belly, and glasses.

“One of us should go and sit on his lap”, whispered my other colleague, Shauna, who gave us wicked smiles.

“Not me!” Jacqueline refused. “I’m not risking upsetting my fiancé over a daft dare”.

“And I’m completely gay”, the fourth and final member of our group, Lucy, piped in. “I don’t want any part in that het nonsense!”

“That just leaves you”, Shauna pointed at me, and I raised a brow at her.

“Why not you?!”

“Because I issued the dare, duh”, Shauna rolled her eyes as if I should have known this. “The dare issuer doesn’t do their own dare! But if you do this then I promise I’ll do any dare you ask!”

Well, that was potentially giving me way too much power. Though I did owe her one after Shauna’s last Birthday party where I lost a bet, and she made me call up our boss and greet him as “baby boy” in a stupid voice. I did it and thankfully our boss has a good sense of humour and forgave me, but still. The point remains, she needs taking down a peg or two.

“Fine. I’ll do this. I just go and sit on the Santa’s lap?” I huffed out after a moment of thinking.

“Yep, oh, and tell him what you want for Christmas”, Shauna laughed. “Make sure to say you’ve been a very naughty girl”.

“Shauna, you need to chill”, Jaqueline exclaimed. “I don’t think Caitlin is going to start dirty-talking Santa!”

“Why not? She’s been single for months and Santa might be looking for his Mrs Clause, you don’t know that!” our friend argued. “She’s gorgeous, he’d be daft not to go for it”.

“How’d do you know Santa’s not a creep?” Lucy pointed out.

Shauna rolled her eyes. “I doubt he’d be allowed to work with kids if that was the case but if he acts weird, we’ll be watching from right here anyway. You can give us the one finger as a signal if you need us to rescue you”.

“Hey, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want”, Jaqueline grabbed my shoulder. “Shauna is the Queen of terrible ideas”.

“Which is why I have to do this”, I whispered back at her. “If she has to do anything I dare her to, maybe I can give her something ridiculous enough to put her off this shit for a long time”.

“Well then…I thank you for your selfless sacrifice in trying to spare us from hurricane Shauna’s horrible post-drink games”, Jaqueline said to me before I squared my shoulders and joined the long queue to see Santa.

Of course, I got some weird looks from the parents who were standing in line with their children, but a dare is a dare, and the boss incident was way worse than this. The queue slowly but gradually begins to shorten until it’s my turn to be called forward.

The worker elf gave me a weird look as I followed her to Santa’s throne where the bloke dressed in red was sat. Without looking, I primly sat myself down on his lap.

“Ho, ho, ho, what is your name young — wait- Caitlin?!” Santa’s voice went high-pitched at the end as he said my name. I jump, surprised that Santa knew my name and then I peer down at the Santa’s face.

“Fuck, Trevor?!”

My blue eyes widened as I recognised the face of my ex-boyfriend. We’d been together for four years and counting before he’d suddenly decided that we weren’t working about five months ago. I’d not heard from him since he took his stuff from our flat and left for what I thought were greener pastures.

“What…what are you doing here, Caitlin? Visiting Santa, really?” Trevor stared at me and then glanced over to where my colleagues were watching. “Was this Shauna’s doing again? You need to stop doing those stupid arse stunts she makes you do”.

“I don’t see how any of that’s your business since you walked out on me”, I remind him angrily as the feelings I’d so carefully kept locked away came spilling out. “And now you’re working as a Santa? For what? Did you get bored of your job teaching?!”

“I got laid off, okay?!” Trevor scowled at me through the beard. Suddenly I had the urge to giggle at how ridiculous this whole scene was. “I’m trying to make some extra money to cover the bills”.

“Oh, it sucks when someone dumps you out of the blue, doesn’t it?!” I retort, my voice dripping in bitterness. I’d not even tried to date anyone else since we split. My heart still resolutely belonged to Trevour even though he’d made it clear he didn’t want it anymore.

“I dumped you because I got laid off”, he snapped. “I didn’t want you to be stuck with a jobless loser like me, okay? I thought I was doing you a favour. You always were way too good for me. Everyone said so”.

My temper flared. “Who the hell is everyone?”

“I…” Trevor’s eyes flickered to my colleagues so fast that I might not have noticed had I been able to stare at anywhere other than his eyes. The rest of his face was covered by that stupid beard.

“Who?” I asked again, sharply. I wanted to know which of those women were meddling in my relationship so I could throttle them myself.

“I told you that you shouldn’t spend so much time listening to Shauna”, he sighed, not looking at me.

Suddenly I began to see Shauna in a whole new light. All those times that she pressured me to do humiliating things that could have cost me my job. And all those pointed comments about Trevor being too good-looking for someone like me but of course, it was only a joke, ha-ha.

“You’re a fucking hypocrite”, I said as I turned my attention back to Trevor. Revenge would come for Shauna as surely as the sun would set. I needed to take care of this right now. “Whatever Shauna said to you caused you to walk out on our four-year relationship. You listened to her over anything I ever said to you about how much I loved you”.

Trevor’s expression turned pained; I could see that much even beneath the Santa costume. “I know. I’m sorry. I regretted it the moment I left but I couldn’t undo what I did”.

“It’s not too late you know”, I leaned down and whispered into his ear. “All I want for Christmas this year is you, you daft muppet”.

“Really? Even though I’m kind of jobless now besides from this Santa gig?” he peered at me through hopeful eyes.

“Yes! Now do you want to help me get revenge on that bitch or not?” I smirked at Trevor who was more than interested in seeing Shauna receive justice. Karma would be a bitch. In front of everyone, I planted a kiss on Trevor’s mouth, ignoring the itchy material of the beard before pulling away.

“I’ll be adding you to my naughty list, young lady”, Trevor growled at me as I struggled to contain my laughter.

I ignored the baffled looks of the crowd as I headed back towards my colleagues. Shauna looked a little worried. Probably realised that she gave me carte blanche on daring her and knew that she deserved the absolute worst I could give.

“Shauna, I dare you to tell Jaqueline what happened to her favourite Funko pop, the one she got from her visit to San Diego Comic-Con, you know the one worth more than your iPad and iPhone put together”, I said, and watched as Shauna’s face whitened and a stony look appeared on Jacquline’s own.

“What happened to my Holographic Darth Maul glow-in-the-dark Funko pop, Shauna? You told me that Steve the janitor stole it, and I believed you. I reported him and now he fucking refuses to empty my bin and always gives me the evil eye as soon as he sees me”.

“Err…about that…I might have sold it on eBay”, Shauna whimpered, confessing to the crime she’d only ever told me about after drinking too much at the office Christmas party last year.

When she was sober, she’d persuaded me to keep my silence by reminding me she still had some incriminating photos of me on her phone that she had never shared. Yet.

Now I thought about it, Shauna was the actual worst.

I’d make sure Santa added her to the naughty list this year and every year afterwards.

“Well, I better be off ladies. Looks like I’ve still got some Christmas shopping to do”, I said, thinking of Trevor.

I could still hear Jaqueline yelling as I headed into Marks and Spencer's, a whole floor up.

The words for this challenge were Santa’s grotto, running into an ex and Christmas Shopping. Sort of a mini rom-com!

Make sure to check out my Christmas Challenge and see all the responses in the tag #ChristmasAdventChallenge.

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