December 16, 2025 • 23 mins
When my brother convinced our parents to leave the old Santa animatronic in the basement instead of displaying it upstairs, it wrapped its power cord around his neck in the dark — but not before whispering exactly what it wanted.
IN THIS EPISODE: My parents own a Santa animatronic – I think it tried to kill us! *** (Originally aired December 18, 2018)
SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…
“Better Watch Out, Better Not Cry” by Jameson Cumick for Creepypasta.com: https://tinyurl.com/y2jwog8j
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(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
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"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
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https://weirddarkness.com/SantaAnimatronic
#WeirdDarkness #CreepySanta #ChristmasHorror #HauntedAnimatronic #TrueScaryStories #HolidayHorror #ScaryChristmas #ParanormalStory #CreepyChristmas #HauntedDecoration
IN THIS EPISODE: My parents own a Santa animatronic – I think it tried to kill us! *** (Originally aired December 18, 2018)
SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…
“Better Watch Out, Better Not Cry” by Jameson Cumick for Creepypasta.com: https://tinyurl.com/y2jwog8j
Visit our Sponsors & Friends: https://weirddarkness.com/sponsors
Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate: https://weirddarkness.com/syndicate
Advertise in the Weird Darkness podcast or syndicated radio show: https://weirddarkness.com/advertise
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music Library, EpidemicSound and/or StoryBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ) Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and Nicolas Gasparini (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission of the artists.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2024, Weird Darkness.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
https://weirddarkness.com/SantaAnimatronic
#WeirdDarkness #CreepySanta #ChristmasHorror #HauntedAnimatronic #TrueScaryStories #HolidayHorror #ScaryChristmas #ParanormalStory #CreepyChristmas #HauntedDecoration
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
My parents own a Santa animatronic. I think it tried
to kill us. Now, I know what you might be thinking.
This story already sounds like a kid's overactive imagination during
a season that relies on the magic of imagination. I
don't mean to oversell it either. This wasn't some decades
long haunting where it terrorized us every Christmas. This was
(00:27):
a single incident, but one that my brother and I
would never forget. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, weirdos.
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird Darkness. Here you'll
(00:50):
find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lower the strange
and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterr macabre, unsolved and unexplained coming
up in this episode. It's a Christmas time creepy pasta
by James Kernick called Better Watch Out, Better not Cry. Now,
(01:14):
bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the weird darkness. Let me
(01:40):
give you some backstory first to paint a better picture.
My parents have always owned a Santa animatronic that we
kept inside our house during the Christmas season. I assume
my mom inherited him from my grandparents as they sold
the home we grew up in to my mother and father.
He stood just under six feet tall and looked like
(02:02):
a stereotypical Santa Claus. He was wide, with rosy red
cheeks and a reserved smile underneath a massive beard reaching
down to his belly. The traditional red and white attire
was topped off with shiny black boots. To be honest,
there was nothing particularly creepy about him to me, even
(02:22):
through the years. His color held well and he wasn't
like those dolls from the eighteen hundreds that I find
absolutely terrifying even today as an adult. I've included a
picture of him in my parents' current home, so you
know this isn't some oddity I just made up. Calling
him an animatronic is generous, but I guess that's roughly
(02:43):
what it was. He had a single, way too short
power cord that you plugged into a wall. There was
no switch when you plugged it in. Chris Kringle began
his jolly little movements immediately. He had a super limited
range of motion too. His legs were motionless, and instead
he swiveled back and forth at the hips. His right
(03:05):
arm would raise up as if waving and greeting as
he turned, and then it would lower back down as
he returned to his starting position. His left arm stayed
as motionless as his legs and wasn't even adjustable. There
were no lights or sounds other than the sound of
the moving parts. Having him plugged in didn't make sense
(03:27):
more often than not, considering we had all seen what
he could do and the sounds of him moving were
more annoying than anything else. He was mostly plugged in
for about thirty seconds for the sake of guests who
thought this little wave was cute, before we unplugged him
once more, and he returned to a motionless, festive space taker.
(03:48):
Over the years, even his minimal use began to wear
on him. His waist would still rotate, but his waving
arm would stutter as it struggled to raise. I remember
it sounded like a creaking door that just couldn't finish opening.
Eventually it stopped working all together, and we stopped plugging
(04:09):
him in entirely. Well that's not completely true. My brother
and I did a few times just to get a
laugh out of watching Santa doing the twist. Over the years,
my father moved him closer to a window near the
Christmas tree. It looked better that way. Having Santa peeking
out into the yard near our brightly decorated tree was
(04:29):
an upgrade from him standing in a corner staring at us. Inevitably,
his side to side rotation quit working as well, probably
the result of being moved up and down the stairs
for over twenty years, the basement being his home during
the other eleven months of the year. Our incident took
place well before his rotating days were over. My brother
(04:53):
Chase was about ten years old at the time I
was twelve. I don't remember exactly when my parents started
putting out Santa, but as far back as I could
recall celebrating Christmas, he was always there. Personally at that point,
the Santa animatronic barely caught the corner of my eye
during December. He stood out at the beginning of the month, sure,
(05:16):
but like all the other decorations, my brain just became
used to him being there. It didn't come so easy
for my brother. In later years, we'd both come to
laugh at his meager side to side twist, but the
years where his arm started to fail were much less
entertaining to my brother. Kids are afraid of a lot
of things, so who could blame him from being spooked
(05:39):
by a stuffed animatronic twice his size. His fear wasn't
limited to Santa's jagged movement either. If you walked down
the hall and forgot that Santa had been put out
on display, his presence would catch you off guard and
cause quite a scare. It happened to all of us,
save our father, but it seemed to catch my brother
(05:59):
on aware more often than the rest of us. That year,
Chase decided he had had quite enough of the already
dated Saint Nick and let my parents know about it.
It was still November, but now that Thanksgiving was over,
there wasn't even a week before it was time for
Christmas decorations. Can we just keep him in the basement
this year? He doesn't even work anymore, protested my brother,
(06:22):
as I walked into the kitchen for breakfast. Chase, we
bring him out every year. He's almost as much a
tradition in this house as the real Santa. My mother replied,
she was busy packing our lunches while she argued with
my clearly cranky little brother. My father was in the
other room, ironing his shirt for work, never really getting
involved in morning chatter. But he's old. Why can't we
(06:46):
just get normal decorations? None of my friends of a giant,
creepy Santa staring out the window, He whined, with all
the energy only a ten year old could have at
seven thirty in the morning. Doesn't that make us unique? Then,
my mom mused. You could hear her beginning to relent.
Packing lunch and getting her kids ready for school before
heading to her own full time job. Was tough on
(07:09):
only half a cup of coffee. No, it makes us weird,
and that was the end of that. It was easier
for my mom to give in than to stand there
and argue about Christmas decorations with her ten year old son.
Plus it meant one less decoration they had to lug
up from the basement. I had to admit I was impressed,
(07:29):
as Chase had come up with a handful of reasons
to keep the fat Man stored away without ever admitting
he was actually scared of our aging Santa. I think
I was just so used to having that Santa around
that I didn't notice. But I guess I could see
how someone might find him creepy. Thus, the old animatronic
stayed downstairs. When it came time to fill the house
(07:52):
to the brim with decorations. It was weird to see
the living room without Santa peeking out the window, but
much like when he'd been there, I stopped noticing after
a few days. A week later, our cousins Ben and
Tye came over to stay the night. While most of
our time was spent huddled around an N sixty four
(08:13):
playing Mario Kart or GoldenEye, we liked to mix it
up by playing hide and seek in the basement with
the lights off. It's not as freaky as it sounds.
We had a large basement, and thanks to a few windows,
along with the light of the moon, you could see
pretty well once your eyes adjusted to the darkness. Once
you walked down the stairs, on your right was an
(08:33):
unfinished room filled with a freezer, fridge and a mountain
of boxes and plastic crates filled to the brim with
decorations and knickknacks for other seasons. It led to another
smaller room that was filled with nothing more than our
father's outdated workout equipment, surrounded by foundation concrete and drywall.
(08:54):
On the left side of the staircase was a large
furnished room that served as me and my brother's hand outroom.
It led to my father's workshop and our basement garage.
Connecting the weight room to the workshop was a long,
thin corridor that my parents kept cluttered with all sorts
of rarely needed miscellaneous items. All in all, the basement
(09:16):
was pretty well set up as a hide and seek arena.
I was the oldest of all the cousins, which of
course naturally meant that I never was it to begin
the game. I wish I could say that I didn't
swing my weight and age around a lot as a kid,
but i'd be lying. Ty being the youngest inevitably inherited
that unfortunate title of it, and the rest of us
(09:38):
scattered throughout the basement. I quickly made my way into
the corridor, hoping to slip back into my dad's workshop,
into a spot I'd scouted out earlier. The corridor itself
was actually a miserable hiding spot. There was so much
junk that whoever was it would naturally bump into anyone
dumb enough to try and hide there. Still, it made
(09:59):
for a good sho shortcut and I figured it'd keep
Ben or Chase from seeing where my perfect hiding spot
was located. About halfway down the corridor, I came to
an awful realization something was blocking the rest of the path.
My eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet, so I
reached out to see if it was something I could
(10:20):
just push past. My hands found a large surface of
fake hair, and I realized exactly what was blocking my way.
My parents had left Santa Claus stuffed into the corridor
thanks to my brother's persistent complaining. He wasn't heavy per se,
but I didn't have the room to move him out
of my way. In the narrow hall. Before I could
(10:42):
head back the way I came, I heard a voice
call out from the top of the stairs. Ready or
not here I come, yelled Ty, his feet stomping on
the wooden stairs as he made his descent into the basement.
Out of time, I tried to stand up as straight
as possible and flatten myself against the wall next time
storage clause. It wasn't a great plan, but it was
(11:03):
the best I had at the moment. As I waited
for Tie to hopefully find Ben or my brother. First,
my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Slowly looking over
to Santa, I could see that he was facing me.
His lifeless eyes were narrowed from the molded smile placed
on his face. It probably just swiveled after I ran
(11:24):
into him, but it felt as if he had turned
to stare at me. I stood motionless, hoping that he
would stay as still as he did when standing in
our living room. I held my breath, feeling the pounding
of my heart beating harder and faster. Got you, screamed Tie,
as he grabbed my arm. I screamed too. It was
(11:46):
not my proudest moment. It didn't help that it took
a solid five minutes for Tie to stop his laughing fit,
set off by my reaction. Afterwards, I sat on the
couch in the main room while he hunted down Chase
and Ben. When they were finally found, all three laughed
themselves to tears as Tie did his best impression of
my scream. Not only was it embarrassing, but the rules
(12:10):
we played by dictated that the first person who was
found was it for the next round. Being the oldest,
I felt my wounded pride take the place of my
fear as I counted aloud at the top of the staircase.
I resolved that I would find them all so rapidly
that my hide and seek dominance would erase the squeak
(12:30):
of puberty's scream that I had shrieked out. Counting to fifty,
I bounded down the stairs and immediately headed back into
Santa's corridor. It was common for people to hide precisely
where the first person had been caught in the round prior,
so I was betting on some double reverse psychology. I
grinned as I spotted Santa, my eyes still adjusted to
(12:54):
the darkness. His body was turned away from me, this time,
meaning that one of them had previous squeezed by in
hopes that I couldn't follow, turning Santa's hips in the process.
As I approached him, I grabbed him in an attempt
to maneuver him out of the way so I could
slip by. His body immediately swayed back to face me,
and what I saw horrified me so much that nothing
(13:18):
but panic air escaped my throat. Pinned between his wide
body and his left immovable arm was my brother, his
eyes bulging in a panic as they found my own,
and I could see the cord wrapped tightly around his neck.
Santa nearly leaned against walls when plugged in since the
(13:38):
power cord was so short, but it was long enough
now to wrap around the neck of a ten year
old boy. I was frozen in shock as my mind
tried to process the scene in front of me, and
I only broke from my spell when Chase's one free
arm reached out towards me for help. I instantly lunged
to save him, but an arm shot up and caught
(13:58):
me square in the jaw and set me flying backwards. Dazed,
I looked up to see the raised arm of Santa,
the same arm that could no longer even move properly
when he was plugged in. The rest of his frame
slowly creaked away from me again, this swiveling frame carrying
my brother out of sight. I had no idea what
(14:20):
was happening. My legs were shaking, and the rest of
my body soon joined them in a tremble. What the
hell was this thing? I was so so frightened. But
then I thought about Chase being strangled on the other
side of whatever this terror was. I thought about his
bulging eyes, his face turning a deep purple that I
(14:42):
could even see in the darkness. No, I bellowed and
vaulted up and into the animatronic with all my weight.
All three of us came crashing down onto the concrete floor,
bringing down a cavalcade of other loosely stored items and
a resounding crash. I immediately pushed up off the now
motionless claws and grabbed for my brother. Finding his legs,
(15:04):
I pulled with all my might, and to my relief,
I yanked him free of the arm that had pinned him.
The power cord was no longer wrapped around his neck,
but as he coughed and wailed, I could see the
strangulation marks very clearly. Pulling him to his feet, we
ran toward the staircase, where we were met by our parents,
who had heard the loud crash and hurried to see
(15:26):
what had happened. Our cousins quickly emerged from their hiding
spots as our mother freaked out over my brother's injuries
and our father shouted about our reckless behavior. My parents
listened to neither my brother's nor my own frightened rendition
of the events that had transpired. They assumed my brother
(15:47):
had simply gotten tangled in the cords while trying to
hide getting stuck when his small frame was wedged between
Saint Nick's arm. The resulting fear, panic and pain was
responsible for his story that he had been grabbed by
the machine. My attempts to validate his story, even though
I didn't see everything, were dismissed as attempts to avoid punishment.
(16:09):
Two weeks of grounding put a pin in that, and
the truth was stuck with Chase and I forever. My
father eventually brought Santa upstairs to see if he had
taken on any significant damage. Surprisingly, the archaic contraption was
not broken or bent, despite the force of my tackle
and the unforgiving concrete floor. His only blemish was from
(16:32):
some dust he had picked up from his fall. My
father cleaned him up and he was going to take
him back down into the basement, when surprisingly, my brother protested,
can we put him in the living room, not the basement, please?
He pleaded. He had wailed for hours after the incident,
and fresh tears threatened the corner of his eyes. With
(16:52):
his bandaged neck, he made quite the sad sight. Our
father relented, probably out of pity, and returned Santa to
his spote looking out the window near our brightly lit tree.
He was brought out every year after that without so
much as a peep from my brother. I'm nearing thirty
now and my parents still have him up every Christmas.
(17:15):
That was the only incident we ever suffered at the
hands of our odd animatronic. It only took my brother
a few years to seemingly get over it. Most of
our Christmases during high school involved laughing at the side
to side rotation while the Beatles rendition of The Twist
played in the background. It did, however, take nine years
(17:35):
before we spoke to each other about what happened with
Santa in the corridor that night. My brother was a
senior in high school at that point and I was
visiting from college. I smuggled home some booze that I
had bought with my fake ID, and we were hanging
out in the same basement that we had spent most
of our childhood. We joked about the old TV we
(17:57):
used to watch, and laughed at how busted the joysticks
on our N sixty four controllers were from skin peeling
Mario party games. We were pretty drunk when the topic
finally switched to hide and Seek and the Santa incident.
Mom and Dad never believed us. Chase stated, Hell, some days,
(18:17):
I'm not even sure what all I remember, he finished
with a laugh. I don't think any adult would believe
what we saw. I still remember how your face looked
when it turned purple, I replied, wincing as the image
replayed in my mind. You know I never told you.
Thank you for saving me, he admitted, shaking his head
(18:37):
as if ashamed for never doing so. Now you're welcome
for me saving you from Santa Claus, I quipped, and
our drunken laughter filled the echoing basement. After a few moments,
Chase's face was serious again. There's something else I never
told you, he said, in a more solemn tone. What
is it, I inquired, not having realized my brother had
(18:59):
held on to something else after all this time. When
it's when he grabbed me, he whispered something in my
ear before he started strangling me, Chase confessed, his shoulders
sinking as if he had just unloaded the heaviest of burdens.
What what the hell did he say? I managed to
sputter out my surprise. Out pacing my words, Chase looked
(19:22):
at me and shook his head. It was a jumbled sentence,
but I remember every single word. His voice was hollow,
and each word came out like they were made by
grinding metal. My brother seemed to lose focus as he
said this, as if remembering for the first time in years.
I snapped my fingers a few times until his thousand
(19:43):
yards stare refocused. Jesus Christ, what did that thing say?
I insisted, having no idea how my brother held on
to this for so long. He blinked at me a
few times and finally spoke. He said, to me, Santa
decoration upstairs. Santa still works. Plug Santa in. With that,
(20:09):
Chase covered his eyes with his hand, trying to hold
the tears that came with the memories. We didn't talk
about it anymore that night, and to this day we'll
only mention it briefly to assure each other we didn't
imagine it at all. I also use those moments to
make sure Chase is doing okay, because he probably never
(20:30):
sought out the therapy he should have. You might be
wondering why the hell we don't take this thing out
into the woods and just burn it to ashes. Well,
there's a few reasons for that. First of all, I
don't want to have to explain to my parents that
their twenty nine year old son burned their Christmas decoration
to a crisp because it scared him once when he
(20:51):
was twelve. Second of all, it's been seventeen years and
not a single other incident has occurred with the now
motionless animatronic. Finally, I don't know what my brother actually
heard that night, but if what Chase said is the truth,
then all this Santa wanted was to be included alongside
(21:13):
our other Christmas decorations during the holidays. I'll probably never
know what the hell this thing really is, but I
do know that one day my parents will pass it
down to me. When that day comes, you can bet
they'll be standing by the window in my living room
for all the passing cars to see. If that spot
(21:34):
in my home for one month a year is all
I need to make sure I never see another purple
gasping face like my brother's, then I will gladly give
that gift every year as long as I live. Tis
the season. Thanks for listening. If you like the show,
(22:05):
please share it with someone you know who loves the
paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries
like you do the Christmas Creepy PASTA Better Watch Out,
Better not Cry was written by Jameson Kernick. Weird Darkness
is a production and trademark of Marler House Productions. Copyright
Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark,
(22:27):
I'll leave you with a little light verse John two,
Verse seventeen. The world and its desires pass away, but
the man who does the will of God lives forever.
And a final thought from Greg Giamalva, Gratitude is currency,
and it should be spent liberally. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks
(22:49):
for joining me in the Weird Darkness.
My parents own a Santa animatronic. I think it tried
to kill us. Now, I know what you might be thinking.
This story already sounds like a kid's overactive imagination during
a season that relies on the magic of imagination. I
don't mean to oversell it either. This wasn't some decades
long haunting where it terrorized us every Christmas. This was
(00:27):
a single incident, but one that my brother and I
would never forget. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, weirdos.
I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird Darkness. Here you'll
(00:50):
find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lower the strange
and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterr macabre, unsolved and unexplained coming
up in this episode. It's a Christmas time creepy pasta
by James Kernick called Better Watch Out, Better not Cry. Now,
(01:14):
bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the weird darkness. Let me
(01:40):
give you some backstory first to paint a better picture.
My parents have always owned a Santa animatronic that we
kept inside our house during the Christmas season. I assume
my mom inherited him from my grandparents as they sold
the home we grew up in to my mother and father.
He stood just under six feet tall and looked like
(02:02):
a stereotypical Santa Claus. He was wide, with rosy red
cheeks and a reserved smile underneath a massive beard reaching
down to his belly. The traditional red and white attire
was topped off with shiny black boots. To be honest,
there was nothing particularly creepy about him to me, even
(02:22):
through the years. His color held well and he wasn't
like those dolls from the eighteen hundreds that I find
absolutely terrifying even today as an adult. I've included a
picture of him in my parents' current home, so you
know this isn't some oddity I just made up. Calling
him an animatronic is generous, but I guess that's roughly
(02:43):
what it was. He had a single, way too short
power cord that you plugged into a wall. There was
no switch when you plugged it in. Chris Kringle began
his jolly little movements immediately. He had a super limited
range of motion too. His legs were motionless, and instead
he swiveled back and forth at the hips. His right
(03:05):
arm would raise up as if waving and greeting as
he turned, and then it would lower back down as
he returned to his starting position. His left arm stayed
as motionless as his legs and wasn't even adjustable. There
were no lights or sounds other than the sound of
the moving parts. Having him plugged in didn't make sense
(03:27):
more often than not, considering we had all seen what
he could do and the sounds of him moving were
more annoying than anything else. He was mostly plugged in
for about thirty seconds for the sake of guests who
thought this little wave was cute, before we unplugged him
once more, and he returned to a motionless, festive space taker.
(03:48):
Over the years, even his minimal use began to wear
on him. His waist would still rotate, but his waving
arm would stutter as it struggled to raise. I remember
it sounded like a creaking door that just couldn't finish opening.
Eventually it stopped working all together, and we stopped plugging
(04:09):
him in entirely. Well that's not completely true. My brother
and I did a few times just to get a
laugh out of watching Santa doing the twist. Over the years,
my father moved him closer to a window near the
Christmas tree. It looked better that way. Having Santa peeking
out into the yard near our brightly decorated tree was
(04:29):
an upgrade from him standing in a corner staring at us. Inevitably,
his side to side rotation quit working as well, probably
the result of being moved up and down the stairs
for over twenty years, the basement being his home during
the other eleven months of the year. Our incident took
place well before his rotating days were over. My brother
(04:53):
Chase was about ten years old at the time I
was twelve. I don't remember exactly when my parents started
putting out Santa, but as far back as I could
recall celebrating Christmas, he was always there. Personally at that point,
the Santa animatronic barely caught the corner of my eye
during December. He stood out at the beginning of the month, sure,
(05:16):
but like all the other decorations, my brain just became
used to him being there. It didn't come so easy
for my brother. In later years, we'd both come to
laugh at his meager side to side twist, but the
years where his arm started to fail were much less
entertaining to my brother. Kids are afraid of a lot
of things, so who could blame him from being spooked
(05:39):
by a stuffed animatronic twice his size. His fear wasn't
limited to Santa's jagged movement either. If you walked down
the hall and forgot that Santa had been put out
on display, his presence would catch you off guard and
cause quite a scare. It happened to all of us,
save our father, but it seemed to catch my brother
(05:59):
on aware more often than the rest of us. That year,
Chase decided he had had quite enough of the already
dated Saint Nick and let my parents know about it.
It was still November, but now that Thanksgiving was over,
there wasn't even a week before it was time for
Christmas decorations. Can we just keep him in the basement
this year? He doesn't even work anymore, protested my brother,
(06:22):
as I walked into the kitchen for breakfast. Chase, we
bring him out every year. He's almost as much a
tradition in this house as the real Santa. My mother replied,
she was busy packing our lunches while she argued with
my clearly cranky little brother. My father was in the
other room, ironing his shirt for work, never really getting
involved in morning chatter. But he's old. Why can't we
(06:46):
just get normal decorations? None of my friends of a giant,
creepy Santa staring out the window, He whined, with all
the energy only a ten year old could have at
seven thirty in the morning. Doesn't that make us unique? Then,
my mom mused. You could hear her beginning to relent.
Packing lunch and getting her kids ready for school before
heading to her own full time job. Was tough on
(07:09):
only half a cup of coffee. No, it makes us weird,
and that was the end of that. It was easier
for my mom to give in than to stand there
and argue about Christmas decorations with her ten year old son.
Plus it meant one less decoration they had to lug
up from the basement. I had to admit I was impressed,
(07:29):
as Chase had come up with a handful of reasons
to keep the fat Man stored away without ever admitting
he was actually scared of our aging Santa. I think
I was just so used to having that Santa around
that I didn't notice. But I guess I could see
how someone might find him creepy. Thus, the old animatronic
stayed downstairs. When it came time to fill the house
(07:52):
to the brim with decorations. It was weird to see
the living room without Santa peeking out the window, but
much like when he'd been there, I stopped noticing after
a few days. A week later, our cousins Ben and
Tye came over to stay the night. While most of
our time was spent huddled around an N sixty four
(08:13):
playing Mario Kart or GoldenEye, we liked to mix it
up by playing hide and seek in the basement with
the lights off. It's not as freaky as it sounds.
We had a large basement, and thanks to a few windows,
along with the light of the moon, you could see
pretty well once your eyes adjusted to the darkness. Once
you walked down the stairs, on your right was an
(08:33):
unfinished room filled with a freezer, fridge and a mountain
of boxes and plastic crates filled to the brim with
decorations and knickknacks for other seasons. It led to another
smaller room that was filled with nothing more than our
father's outdated workout equipment, surrounded by foundation concrete and drywall.
(08:54):
On the left side of the staircase was a large
furnished room that served as me and my brother's hand outroom.
It led to my father's workshop and our basement garage.
Connecting the weight room to the workshop was a long,
thin corridor that my parents kept cluttered with all sorts
of rarely needed miscellaneous items. All in all, the basement
(09:16):
was pretty well set up as a hide and seek arena.
I was the oldest of all the cousins, which of
course naturally meant that I never was it to begin
the game. I wish I could say that I didn't
swing my weight and age around a lot as a kid,
but i'd be lying. Ty being the youngest inevitably inherited
that unfortunate title of it, and the rest of us
(09:38):
scattered throughout the basement. I quickly made my way into
the corridor, hoping to slip back into my dad's workshop,
into a spot I'd scouted out earlier. The corridor itself
was actually a miserable hiding spot. There was so much
junk that whoever was it would naturally bump into anyone
dumb enough to try and hide there. Still, it made
(09:59):
for a good sho shortcut and I figured it'd keep
Ben or Chase from seeing where my perfect hiding spot
was located. About halfway down the corridor, I came to
an awful realization something was blocking the rest of the path.
My eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness yet, so I
reached out to see if it was something I could
(10:20):
just push past. My hands found a large surface of
fake hair, and I realized exactly what was blocking my way.
My parents had left Santa Claus stuffed into the corridor
thanks to my brother's persistent complaining. He wasn't heavy per se,
but I didn't have the room to move him out
of my way. In the narrow hall. Before I could
(10:42):
head back the way I came, I heard a voice
call out from the top of the stairs. Ready or
not here I come, yelled Ty, his feet stomping on
the wooden stairs as he made his descent into the basement.
Out of time, I tried to stand up as straight
as possible and flatten myself against the wall next time
storage clause. It wasn't a great plan, but it was
(11:03):
the best I had at the moment. As I waited
for Tie to hopefully find Ben or my brother. First,
my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. Slowly looking over
to Santa, I could see that he was facing me.
His lifeless eyes were narrowed from the molded smile placed
on his face. It probably just swiveled after I ran
(11:24):
into him, but it felt as if he had turned
to stare at me. I stood motionless, hoping that he
would stay as still as he did when standing in
our living room. I held my breath, feeling the pounding
of my heart beating harder and faster. Got you, screamed Tie,
as he grabbed my arm. I screamed too. It was
(11:46):
not my proudest moment. It didn't help that it took
a solid five minutes for Tie to stop his laughing fit,
set off by my reaction. Afterwards, I sat on the
couch in the main room while he hunted down Chase
and Ben. When they were finally found, all three laughed
themselves to tears as Tie did his best impression of
my scream. Not only was it embarrassing, but the rules
(12:10):
we played by dictated that the first person who was
found was it for the next round. Being the oldest,
I felt my wounded pride take the place of my
fear as I counted aloud at the top of the staircase.
I resolved that I would find them all so rapidly
that my hide and seek dominance would erase the squeak
(12:30):
of puberty's scream that I had shrieked out. Counting to fifty,
I bounded down the stairs and immediately headed back into
Santa's corridor. It was common for people to hide precisely
where the first person had been caught in the round prior,
so I was betting on some double reverse psychology. I
grinned as I spotted Santa, my eyes still adjusted to
(12:54):
the darkness. His body was turned away from me, this time,
meaning that one of them had previous squeezed by in
hopes that I couldn't follow, turning Santa's hips in the process.
As I approached him, I grabbed him in an attempt
to maneuver him out of the way so I could
slip by. His body immediately swayed back to face me,
and what I saw horrified me so much that nothing
(13:18):
but panic air escaped my throat. Pinned between his wide
body and his left immovable arm was my brother, his
eyes bulging in a panic as they found my own,
and I could see the cord wrapped tightly around his neck.
Santa nearly leaned against walls when plugged in since the
(13:38):
power cord was so short, but it was long enough
now to wrap around the neck of a ten year
old boy. I was frozen in shock as my mind
tried to process the scene in front of me, and
I only broke from my spell when Chase's one free
arm reached out towards me for help. I instantly lunged
to save him, but an arm shot up and caught
(13:58):
me square in the jaw and set me flying backwards. Dazed,
I looked up to see the raised arm of Santa,
the same arm that could no longer even move properly
when he was plugged in. The rest of his frame
slowly creaked away from me again, this swiveling frame carrying
my brother out of sight. I had no idea what
(14:20):
was happening. My legs were shaking, and the rest of
my body soon joined them in a tremble. What the
hell was this thing? I was so so frightened. But
then I thought about Chase being strangled on the other
side of whatever this terror was. I thought about his
bulging eyes, his face turning a deep purple that I
(14:42):
could even see in the darkness. No, I bellowed and
vaulted up and into the animatronic with all my weight.
All three of us came crashing down onto the concrete floor,
bringing down a cavalcade of other loosely stored items and
a resounding crash. I immediately pushed up off the now
motionless claws and grabbed for my brother. Finding his legs,
(15:04):
I pulled with all my might, and to my relief,
I yanked him free of the arm that had pinned him.
The power cord was no longer wrapped around his neck,
but as he coughed and wailed, I could see the
strangulation marks very clearly. Pulling him to his feet, we
ran toward the staircase, where we were met by our parents,
who had heard the loud crash and hurried to see
(15:26):
what had happened. Our cousins quickly emerged from their hiding
spots as our mother freaked out over my brother's injuries
and our father shouted about our reckless behavior. My parents
listened to neither my brother's nor my own frightened rendition
of the events that had transpired. They assumed my brother
(15:47):
had simply gotten tangled in the cords while trying to
hide getting stuck when his small frame was wedged between
Saint Nick's arm. The resulting fear, panic and pain was
responsible for his story that he had been grabbed by
the machine. My attempts to validate his story, even though
I didn't see everything, were dismissed as attempts to avoid punishment.
(16:09):
Two weeks of grounding put a pin in that, and
the truth was stuck with Chase and I forever. My
father eventually brought Santa upstairs to see if he had
taken on any significant damage. Surprisingly, the archaic contraption was
not broken or bent, despite the force of my tackle
and the unforgiving concrete floor. His only blemish was from
(16:32):
some dust he had picked up from his fall. My
father cleaned him up and he was going to take
him back down into the basement, when surprisingly, my brother protested,
can we put him in the living room, not the basement, please?
He pleaded. He had wailed for hours after the incident,
and fresh tears threatened the corner of his eyes. With
(16:52):
his bandaged neck, he made quite the sad sight. Our
father relented, probably out of pity, and returned Santa to
his spote looking out the window near our brightly lit tree.
He was brought out every year after that without so
much as a peep from my brother. I'm nearing thirty
now and my parents still have him up every Christmas.
(17:15):
That was the only incident we ever suffered at the
hands of our odd animatronic. It only took my brother
a few years to seemingly get over it. Most of
our Christmases during high school involved laughing at the side
to side rotation while the Beatles rendition of The Twist
played in the background. It did, however, take nine years
(17:35):
before we spoke to each other about what happened with
Santa in the corridor that night. My brother was a
senior in high school at that point and I was
visiting from college. I smuggled home some booze that I
had bought with my fake ID, and we were hanging
out in the same basement that we had spent most
of our childhood. We joked about the old TV we
(17:57):
used to watch, and laughed at how busted the joysticks
on our N sixty four controllers were from skin peeling
Mario party games. We were pretty drunk when the topic
finally switched to hide and Seek and the Santa incident.
Mom and Dad never believed us. Chase stated, Hell, some days,
(18:17):
I'm not even sure what all I remember, he finished
with a laugh. I don't think any adult would believe
what we saw. I still remember how your face looked
when it turned purple, I replied, wincing as the image
replayed in my mind. You know I never told you.
Thank you for saving me, he admitted, shaking his head
(18:37):
as if ashamed for never doing so. Now you're welcome
for me saving you from Santa Claus, I quipped, and
our drunken laughter filled the echoing basement. After a few moments,
Chase's face was serious again. There's something else I never
told you, he said, in a more solemn tone. What
is it, I inquired, not having realized my brother had
(18:59):
held on to something else after all this time. When
it's when he grabbed me, he whispered something in my
ear before he started strangling me, Chase confessed, his shoulders
sinking as if he had just unloaded the heaviest of burdens.
What what the hell did he say? I managed to
sputter out my surprise. Out pacing my words, Chase looked
(19:22):
at me and shook his head. It was a jumbled sentence,
but I remember every single word. His voice was hollow,
and each word came out like they were made by
grinding metal. My brother seemed to lose focus as he
said this, as if remembering for the first time in years.
I snapped my fingers a few times until his thousand
(19:43):
yards stare refocused. Jesus Christ, what did that thing say?
I insisted, having no idea how my brother held on
to this for so long. He blinked at me a
few times and finally spoke. He said, to me, Santa
decoration upstairs. Santa still works. Plug Santa in. With that,
(20:09):
Chase covered his eyes with his hand, trying to hold
the tears that came with the memories. We didn't talk
about it anymore that night, and to this day we'll
only mention it briefly to assure each other we didn't
imagine it at all. I also use those moments to
make sure Chase is doing okay, because he probably never
(20:30):
sought out the therapy he should have. You might be
wondering why the hell we don't take this thing out
into the woods and just burn it to ashes. Well,
there's a few reasons for that. First of all, I
don't want to have to explain to my parents that
their twenty nine year old son burned their Christmas decoration
to a crisp because it scared him once when he
(20:51):
was twelve. Second of all, it's been seventeen years and
not a single other incident has occurred with the now
motionless animatronic. Finally, I don't know what my brother actually
heard that night, but if what Chase said is the truth,
then all this Santa wanted was to be included alongside
(21:13):
our other Christmas decorations during the holidays. I'll probably never
know what the hell this thing really is, but I
do know that one day my parents will pass it
down to me. When that day comes, you can bet
they'll be standing by the window in my living room
for all the passing cars to see. If that spot
(21:34):
in my home for one month a year is all
I need to make sure I never see another purple
gasping face like my brother's, then I will gladly give
that gift every year as long as I live. Tis
the season. Thanks for listening. If you like the show,
(22:05):
please share it with someone you know who loves the
paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries
like you do the Christmas Creepy PASTA Better Watch Out,
Better not Cry was written by Jameson Kernick. Weird Darkness
is a production and trademark of Marler House Productions. Copyright
Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark,
(22:27):
I'll leave you with a little light verse John two,
Verse seventeen. The world and its desires pass away, but
the man who does the will of God lives forever.
And a final thought from Greg Giamalva, Gratitude is currency,
and it should be spent liberally. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks
(22:49):
for joining me in the Weird Darkness.
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