Ok, I’ve picked the Top 8. You’ll be voting for the best of these. They are all posted below. Again, you are voting for the worst opening to a potential Christmas novel. 

#1 Hunter: Tiny shards of Santa filled a half dozen evidence bags, piled neatly on the mantle with obvious care. “It was a deadly combination”, began Inspector Spilkus. “Flatulence– touched off by a burning ember. Milk and cookies? Egg nog? Unfortunately for Mr. Kringle, his lactose intolerance did NOT make this the happiest time of the year.” 

So, initially, at least, like the trapdoor on Santa’s scorched Long Johns, the case appeared to be open and shut.

#2 Yeem: Rude Elf maundered through the Christmas crowd at Walmart in search of discount ground beef for that night’s supper. Hamburg stew: water, salt, ground beef (80/20), and celery. He had been experimenting with Depression-Era recipes for quite some time now and though the sodium made his fingers swell, he could hardly think of eating anything hardier. His weak constitution wouldn’t tolerate it anyhow. Charla was coming over for dinner tonight. God, she had great cans…

#3 Dating Survival: The sirens closed in on the St. Nicholas estate. Inside, Santa hadn’t eaten in days. Candycane colored gun in hand, watching tv from his desk with a red velvet bullet proof vest on, he watched as five children’s hospitals burned to the ground in some kind of a coincidental terrorist act. The recession had really hit home this year, and Santa had to make his cuts too.

#4 Chip Chantry: Santa, drunk off the power, and high from the “snowball” he just snorted off of Sarah Palin’s OF AGE daughter’s stomach, leapt into the sleigh, before the glacier was too small to take off. The glacier was melting because those c#nts in Washington refuse to deal with climate change the way it should be- just ask @guardianuk. 

Anyway, as the coked-up beast vaulted his massive, sweaty framed onto his vehicle, he aggressively slurred, “On Dasher! On Dancer! On Prancer! On– AH, what the F@CK??!! GET THE F@CK OFF THE BACK OF MY SLEIGH, CHRIS HENRY! GET OFF THE GODDAMN SLEIGH!”

#5 Lefty Smutface: Santa had too much egg nog at some nightclub on Locust Street, he left his reindeer floating 50 feet above the dive bar shitting on transsexuals who squealed in terror as their B 52 singers hairdo’s were squashed by falling s***. 
” Jeeze Louise! I spent 130 dollars at my hair dressers and that flying elk ruined it!” a patron screamed.
A worker for Philadelphia Animal Control approached Santa and said ” Sir, there’s something you gotta do about those reindeer s***ting on the Lady Gaga’s”
Santa took off his red suit jacket, revealing a red wife beater and a bicep tattoo of a pitbull with a dead pitbull in it’s mouth. Santa grinned and said ” Son, I hope you bought a lot of body bags…”

#6 AW Santa glanced from the List as Mrs. Claus entered, ensconced in an aura of steaming cinnamon-sugar cookies. Their eyes locked. After so many millenia, the ache still crept up his core whenever he spied her dowdy silver ‘do, her horn-rimmed bifocals, and the plump, fleshy rolls bursting from her frumpy gingham jumper. He stood and slid his fuzzy gloves seductively along her ample midriff …

#7 Steve-O: The wrestlers arrived at the recording studio, one by one. Koko B Ware brought hot cocoa. Big John Studd dressed like Santa. Hillibilly Jim even brought his Irish Setter dressed as a reindeer. Some of the biggest names in WWF history were going to record “Jingle Bell Rock” and donate the proceeds to charity. However, George “the Animal” Steele had different plans. VERY different plans. 

#8 Chris Morganti: “Snow tires don’t sing when you put chains on them!” Santa Claus drunkenly exclaimed. “Ees good,” Hugo Chavez chuckled. “Ees good joke.”

“Enough!” Barack Obama yelled, his fist slamming angrily on the table. “Now is not the time for racist jokes! Now is the time for us to use Santa’s gift-giving operation as a front to corner the world narcotics market.”

In the corner, Adam Lambert sat silently, listening. “The fools,” he thought.