The Narrator
The narrator is not identified by named nor any distinguishing characteristics like gender or age. It is easy enough to assume the narrator is at least middle-age and likely nearly senior status. At any rate, this person has lived long enough to have gone past the point of joyously celebrating the Christmas season and has reached a point of grumpy discontent with almost just about every ritual associated with the holidays.
This person has not moved to the extremity of Scrooge—at the very last, there is no obvious expression of miserliness. The overall tone is a bit closer to that of Grinch; the book is not so much an account of hating the whole Christmas season, but there is ample evidence of having reached the point of being fed up with certain specific aspects.
The critique of those holiday aspects is presented in a manner that indicates the narrator is educated, intelligent, has developed a finely honed sense of sharp-edged ironic detachment. His pop cultural awareness ranges from singer Vera-Ellen to Stephen King’s IT to A Charlie Brown Christmas. Although sardonic and mordant in criticism of Christmas icons, there is also a sense of nostalgic disappointment lying just beneath that further indicates he is definitely not a Scrooge-like misanthrope, but perhaps someone wishing Christmas was more a celebration of Christ than Claus.
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is presented as a character on two different levels. In the first, he is the man in the red velvet suit who in reality is just a heavy-drinking person lucking into a one-month-a-year job because he is overweight. Santa the man is also presented as being somewhat akin to an evil clown in that he gives off a kind of creepy vibe just as capable of scaring children placed into his lap as he is capable of bewitching them with his slightly mystical legendary status.
Santa Claus is also presented as a conceptual character. This aspect inspires even greater suspicion. The narrator is moved to question the location of headquarters at the North Pole as being a cover for ulterior motives. Indeed, his very altruism in dispensing gifts to kids around the world serves only to increase the narrator’s negative perception. If for nothing else that is genuinely questionable about his job, the simple fact that he commits multiple instances of breaking and entering should be a red flag setting off sirens.
