[ WP ] It turns out your husband of 40 years has been Santa Claus for at least the last decade .

Christmas Eve 11:30 P.M. 
 
 I wake up. 
 
 He's still not back. 
 
 Every year he goes out drinking, or so he says. 
 
 He never comes back before 5 A.M. Sometimes even later. 
 
 Something about forgetting the disappointments of childhood Christmases. 
 
 The first few years we would fight. 
 
 I could n't sleep when he was out like this. 
 
 He would come home in a drunken stupor, smelling of eggnog and pine. 
 
 Eventually I realized I could n't stop him. 
 
 Perhaps it was best I just let him go. 
 
 I still could n't sleep. 
 
 I would wake every twenty minutes to see if he was home. 
 
 Now we pretend it never even happened. 
 
 I pretend I'm asleep when he comes home. 
 
 Pretend I do n't see him stumble into the room and slip into the bed net to me. 
 
 The next morning we would drink our coffee in silence. 
 
 He seemed to reflect on, if not regret, the night before. 
 
 But this year would be different, this year I'd had enough. 
 
 40 years of marriage and on this day, I do n't even know who my husband is. 
 
 I could n't take it anymore. 
 
 So I followed him. 
 
 He arrived at a bar appropriately named for the holidays, `` Santa's Workshop''. 
 
 I looked through the window but I could n't find him among the patrons. 
 
 So I went in. 
 
 He was n't there. 
 
 I went up to the bartender and asked if he'd seen where my husband went. 
 
 He said he had n't seen him. 
 
 He was acting suspicious. 
 
 My heat started racing. 
 
 I headed to the bathrooms. 
 
 The bartender stopped me. He said I could n't go in there. 
 
 But nothing could stop me now. I had to know. Where was my husband. 
 
 I burst through the door of the mens bathroom. 
 
 There were three men in the urinals that jumped as a woman came through the door. My husband was not one of them. 
 
 I slammed open each stall one by one. 
 
 I expected to find my husband behind each one with a whore. 
 
 He was n't there. 
 
 But I noticed something. 
 
 A smell. 
 
 A smell I realized I had smelled before. 
 
 A certain mix of eggnog and pine, a smell I had smelled on my husband every year on Christmas day. 
 
 So I went in. 
 
 It was a normal toilet from first inspection. 
 
 But upon looking up I noticed a branch of mistletoe. 
 
 I pulled on it. 
 
 The wall opened up and I found myself in a workshop of sorts. 
 
 About fifty or so small men all turned to look at me as I entered. 
 
 Production seemed to halt as they stared. 
 
 Before I could react, they were on me. 
 
 Pulling me down. 
 
 `` Stop! ``, I screamed, `` Where is my husband!?'' 
 
 The last thing I remember was a needle, pressing into my neck. 
 
 The police searched for a time. 
 
 But eventually it became just another cold case. 
 
 A person gone missing on Christmas Eve. 
 
 No body to be found.
