How to Get on Santa’s Naughty List

By the second week of December, the coal scuttle sat by the hearth like an empty mouth.

Mum kept saying it was fine, in the same tone she used when she said the roof only leaked “a little” and Dad’s cough was “just winter.” The truth was in the air anyway. The house had a brittle cold that clung to your fingers, that made the kettle take forever and turned your breath into a steady little ghost.

“We’ll manage,” Mum said, rubbing her hands together. “We always do.”

I watched my little sister, Evie, sleep in her coat on the sofa. Her cheeks were too pale. The calendar on the wall had Santa’s face on it, all rosy confidence. Like warmth was something you could just schedule.

That night, I sat on the rug with the old storybooks, the ones with the gold edges and the lies that still looked pretty. Santa gave toys to good children. Santa gave coal to naughty ones. Coal was, for once, the better deal.

All I had to do was become bad. Properly bad. Bad enough that some ancient judge in a red suit would take one look at my name and go, “Coal. Lots of it.”

How hard could it be?

Apparently, very.

The next morning I tried the obvious: I pinched Mum’s last biscuit from the tin and ate it slowly, like a villain in a play. I waited for lightning. Nothing happened. Mum just sighed when she saw the crumbs and said, “You growing again?”

I stepped on a crack in the pavement and did not care. I knocked on Mrs. Carroway’s door and said “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” which I’d heard was basically arson in her world. She stared at me, then pressed a mince pie into my hands like she was trying to cure me.

At school I attempted a swear word, but it came out as a cough. I “accidentally” spilled ink on my maths book. Mr. Hales only patted my shoulder. “Happens to the best of us.”

That was the problem. Everyone assumed I was one of “the best of us.” I hadn’t been noticed properly in years, which is normally a blessing, but it made moral collapse weirdly difficult.

That night, Evie woke with chattering teeth. Mum tucked extra blankets on her and looked at the fireplace like she was trying to will embers into existence.

So I went for the nuclear option.

I took Dad’s old boots from the cupboard, stuffed them with rags, and set them by the back door. I wrote a note in my neatest handwriting and propped it against the mantel.

DEAR SANTA,

I HAVE BEEN VERY GOOD.

PLEASE BRING TOYS FOR EVIE.

I DO NOT DESERVE ANYTHING.

I paused, then added a second page, because if you’re going to commit to something, commit.

ALSO, I THINK YOU’RE NOT REAL.

AND IF YOU ARE REAL, YOUR BEARD LOOKS ITCHY.

SORRY (NOT SORRY).

I tucked the letters into an envelope addressed to SANTA, NORTH POLE, JUDGEMENT DEPARTMENT.

Then I did the worst thing I could imagine.

I lied.

I crept into Mum’s room where she’d fallen asleep sitting up, the worry still on her face. I pressed my lips to her forehead and whispered, “It’s going to be warm soon.”

The words felt heavy, like stones in my mouth.

Outside, the night was sharp and clear. I set Dad’s boots under the bare apple tree and climbed onto the shed roof, my fingers numb on the frosted wood. The world was quiet in that deep December way, as if even sound was saving itself.

“Santa!” I hissed into the dark. “Oi. Santa!”

There was a soft rush overhead, like fabric pulled through air. A shadow passed over the moon.

Something landed in the garden with a thump that made the snow puff.

I slid down the shed and crept forward, heart hammering. In the dim light I saw a sack, fat and lumpy, tied with rope. Beside it, a single blackened lump sat like punctuation.

Coal.

Then a voice above me, low and amused.

“That note was rude.”

I looked up.

He was not quite like the pictures. Taller. Older in the eyes. Less jolly, more… tired. Like someone who’d spent centuries managing expectations.

“I needed coal,” I blurted. “For the fire. For my family.”

His gaze softened in a way that made me feel unbearably seen. “So you tried to be naughty.”

“I tried,” I said miserably. “I’m not very good at it.”

A brief smile tugged at his mouth. “No. You’re not.”

He hopped down, boots sinking into the snow. He crouched, lifted the sack’s edge, and I saw it was full of coal, enough to keep us warm through January. Maybe longer.

“But you lied to your mother,” he said gently.

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“That’s naughty,” he agreed.

I waited for the lecture. The punishment. The moral.

Instead, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in brown paper. He placed it in my hands. It was light, soft. A wool hat, hand-knit, the kind Mum could never spare time for.

“This isn’t a reward,” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “It’s a reminder.”

“A reminder of what?”

He looked toward the dark outline of our house. “That you don’t have to ruin yourself to keep people warm.”

I frowned. “Then why the coal?”

He tied the sack tighter and stood. “Because sometimes the world is cold and unfair and you’re a child in a drafty house. Morality is lovely, but it doesn’t boil kettles.”

He paused, then added, quieter, “And because I’m not only a list.”

He hefted the sack onto his shoulder like it weighed nothing. Before he stepped back into the night, he pointed one gloved finger at me.

“Next time,” he said, “ask.”

Then he was gone, and the garden was silent again.

I dragged the coal sack inside on shaking arms, leaving a trail of snow on the kitchen floor. Mum woke at the sound and stared, mouth open.

“Where did you…?”

I put the wool hat on Evie’s sleeping head. Her face relaxed, as if she could feel the promise of warmth before the fire was even lit.

I looked at Mum and, for once, told her the truth.

“I did something stupid,” I said. “But it worked.”

Mum pulled me into her arms, and I let myself be held.

The fire crackled to life an hour later, and the cold finally loosened its grip on the house.

Outside, somewhere beyond the chimneys and the dark, I imagined a tired man in red checking a list and, just for a moment, crossing out a line.