Grant checks his phone again and then the address in front of him. 1225 Merry Drive, an address that sounds so stupid that it can only be real, because no city developer would use that name unironically. He laughs at himself for even being there, but he has no real choice. He needs a job that works well with his college hours, and this place pays well for only being open from October to January. The only thing that concerns him is what they actually do. The application reads nothing but "customer management", which he finds confusing.

He sighs. Nothing better to do than walk in and apply for the job, so he walks up the three steps and into the building. The door opens with no resistance, and the room that greets him is so full of Christmas cheer that it almost looks disgusting. He almost considers turning around and leaving, but nothing really seemed wrong about the place, so he simply walks over to the desk and the cute girl with a little bit of a reddish color to the tip of her nose sitting behind it.

"I'm here for a job," he says, trying to peek down her shirt.

She glances up at him, a look of amusement on her face, then pulls a piece of paper out of a folder. "Sign this and the job's yours," she says, her voice full of mirth and glee.

"That's it?" he asks.

"That's it. We're really pressed for applicants these days and the boss isn't too picky."

"When will I start?" he asks just after signing at the bottom of the page. He doesn't even read it, he's just happy to have a guaranteed job.

She takes the paper and points to a hallway. "You have a locker right down there, fourth room on the right, next to the garage."

'Next to the garage?' he wonders, not certain of what that means. This place doesn't seem big enough to have a locker room, let alone a garage. Come to think of it, he doesn't even know where the room for that hallway comes from, the building looks so small.

Still, Grant follows her directions, down the hallway, fourth room on the right, next to a door labeled Garage. He opens the door to what he assumes is the locker room, steps inside and finds a simple room, four walls and exactly one locker...

With the name Grant on it.

He considers rushing back to the front desk and asking the cute girl from before what was going on, but he can't. The door locks behind him, and a single light comes on above the locker.

'Take it, Grant,' says a voice in his head. He doesn't understand why, he's simply compelled. He should be breaking down the door and running out of the building, but he doesn't physically and, more importantly, doesn't seem to want to, either. He actually wants to open the locker.

He opens the locker and finds inside what appears to be a dress. He takes it out of the locker and looks it over. It's red and green, with buttons shaped like gingerbread cookies and a large candy cane graphic on the back. He sees a name tag on the chest, but the name isn't his.

Gina, it reads.

'I'm not putting this on,' he tells himself, but of course his hands have a mind of their own. He strips off the clothing he was wearing and finds himself pulling the dress over his head. He knows the dress can't actually fit, he's too big for it. That girl at the front could probably wear it, but not him.

Of course, he's wrong about that.

He's smaller now, smaller even than the girl at the front desk. He doesn't understand how this is happening, but nothing about this place seems to make sense, really. Instead, he wonders why his chest feels so strange. Sure, he's wearing a dress and he's shrunk, but, he can't be...

He is! He absolutely is!

Grant watches as the front of the dress pushes outward, almost obnoxiously so. He nearly falls over because of the mounds he's growing, they're so large to him. In seconds, the mounds are finished, and his breathing grows shallow. He needs to get out, he needs to escape.

But how? He arrived in winter clothes, and now he's wearing a dress and not even any shoes, how is he supposed to survive outside dressed like this?

He remembers that his old clothes were discarded on the floor and goes to pick them up, but they're gone! The only things that remain are a pair of red and green high heeled boots with bells attached to them and a similar red and green Santa hat with a bell on top.

Once more, he finds himself putting on the boots, finding they go all the way to his thighs, and then putting on the hat. His hair now cascades past his shoulders and his balance feels so much different. He regains control of his body in time to realize that he's not Grant anymore.

The door to the locker room opens and two people stand in the doorway. One is a larger man with a snowy, white beard and the other is the girl from the front desk. The large man steps forward, and Gina almost wants to laugh. The man is the spitting image of Santa Claus, almost as if he stepped out of the collective consciousness of Christmas.

"She's a nice one, Rhonda," he says, "she'll do just fine."

"What did you do to me?!" Gina shouts, somewhat surprised that she's able to. Her voice sounds high and squeeky.

Santa takes a step closer. "Now, now, nothing without your consent."

"I didn't..." She shuts up. Of course she did. That application. She knows damn well she signed it.

"Don't worry, dear, you'll be out of here come January, and the job isn't too hard. Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork!"

She sighs. "What is I even do here?"

He laughs, that jolly Ho Ho Ho sound so stereotypically credited to him. "Why, the List, of course. Somebody has to organize it so that the nice people get presents and the naughty people get coal."

"You actually do that?"

The girl from the front desk - Rhonda - steps forward. "Well, coal these days is a pretty valuable thing. The Naughty List just gets crappy presents these days."

Gina sighs again. "And do I go back to being me in January?"

Santa laughs again. "Oh, dear, of course not. Don't worry, though, nobody remembers the old you." With that, Santa turns and leaves the room, his laughing fading as he gets further away.

"Wait, if all I'm doing is working on a list, why did I need to be a girl?"

Rhonda puts her hands on her hips. "I asked that question when I applied for the driving job, the boss just seems to prefer it that way. How he ever stays married is beyond me, Mrs. Claus is so much nicer than he is..."