Book Review: The Reign of the Anti-Santas

Reviewed by Elena Bellaart

Business intrigue, international crime, and bawdy humor abound in this adults-only take on Christmas.

In The Reign of the Anti-Santas, Colin Dodds takes readers on an inventive romp through the ugly history of the business we know as Christmas. Narrated by an elf named Elvin—“Don’t laugh. Fine, laugh a little,” he instructs—the story follows the rise and fall of the original Santa, a huge and terrifying presence with a voracious appetite for food, sleep, and sex. One Christmas Eve, a young Elvin finds himself stuck on Santa’s sleigh as he makes his deliveries around the world. Though initially fearful of Santa’s wrath, Elvin winds up making himself useful and earning a permanent place in the ranks of Christmas elves, a coveted role in an elf society marked by post-war poverty. 

Things snowball from here as Elvin is drawn deeper into the financial woes and ugly business dealings of the Christmas company. After a bad business deal with Rudolph and a deadly reindeer crash turn the company board and public opinion against him, Santa goes into retirement and leaves the business to his children, each more deranged and violent than the last. 

SJ, a “prep school stoner jock,” is succeeded by Nicky, a would-be movie star with a scorned girlfriend. But worst of all is Krissy, who weaponizes the Naughty and Nice list to control all entries and exits to the North Pole, instituting a bloody authoritarian regime at home while committing increasingly depraved murders abroad during his annual Christmas deliveries. 

As the business optics of Christmas get worse and worse, the company changes hands between various corporations and private equity firms, each with an equally misguided plan to rebrand and revamp the corporation and the North Pole. Finally, when it looks like Christmas—and time as we know it—may be over for good, Elvin and the original Santa must figure out how to save the business, the elves, and the world. 

The corporate politics and economic pressures that plague Christmas make for a clever, humorous read. There are some raunchy and gory scenes though, too, as when Elvin is outcast from the North Pole after repeated sexual encounters with Mrs. Claus, or a group of elves meet a grisly end at the hands of Krissy. The inner workings of the Christmas corporation may be explained in lengthy detail at times, but the conceit of the novel is enjoyable and the writing strong throughout. 

And although it’s a comedy, much of the narration is quite striking and would feel right at home in a serious piece of historical fiction, as when Elvin describes tracking the news from the Pole during his years living in Orange County: “From the top of the world, crumbs of news slipped down the longitude lines to me, where they clumped together in the heat.” 

The Reign of the Anti-Santas is sure to appeal to Christmas cynics and comedy readers with a love for irreverent humor.

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