Sleigh Interdiction: How the President Tried to Deport Christmas

On Christmas Eve, an embattled U.S. president weaponizes the machinery of government against the last myth that unites a polarized nation: Santa Claus. Convinced that the jolly bringer of toys favors “enemy households,” the president orders NORAD to track and bar the sleigh from American airspace. In sterile briefing rooms and draft memos, his staffers search frantically for contraband, labor violations and reasons to classify a centuries‑old ritual as a credible threat. Meanwhile, Mara Vance, a career lawyer assigned to the White House counsel’s office, finds herself pushed into crisis mode. Trapped between oath and ambition, she must decide whether to translate paranoia into legal doctrine or quietly resist. A NORAD commander receives escalating directives. A communications hitman invents smears. A boy named Nico in a targeted neighborhood listens for sleigh bells and refuses to give up on wonder. Around them, generals, press secretaries, soldiers, lawyers and children wrestle with the gap between lawful authority and raw command.

As the narrative unfolds, institutions that were designed to check power begin to strain. Congressional hearings, press briefings and international protest render the absurd plausible. Rivals and allies unite to condemn an attempted invasion of the North Pole. Threat designations are drafted, rules of engagement rehearsed and then—at the last moment—refused. The sleigh crosses over the Capitol dome in plain sight while no one fires. Through interludes in the North and a bureaucrat stamping CLOSED and ARCHIVED on the incident, the novel explores themes of weaponized paranoia, narrative warfare, moral injury and the resilience of belief. Sharp, funny and ultimately hopeful, Sleigh Interdiction: How the President Tried to Deport Christmas asks what happens when power tries to control joy and discovers that the law, conscience and childhood remain out of its reach. Written in a documentary tone that slips into myth, the book uses memos and press conferences alongside intimate scenes to invite laughter and dread. It shows that the quiet act of refusing can safeguard the world.