Santa Claus and the Summer Shuffle.

Santa Claus had always known New Zealand would be different.

For one thing, when he landed the sleigh just outside Auckland, Rudolph immediately asked if something had gone terribly wrong with the weather machine. The sun was shining. People were wearing jandals. Someone nearby was cooking sausages. Sausages. On Christmas Eve.

Santa checked his list.
“Nope,” he muttered. “Still Christmas. Just… upside down.”

He swapped his heavy red coat for a suspiciously festive short-sleeve shirt (red, obviously), parked the sleigh under a pōhutukawa tree, and followed the sound of music drifting across a nearby hall.

Inside, he found it.

The New Zealand Line Dance Community.

Boots tapped. Hats tipped. Rows of dancers moved in perfect unison, smiling, laughing, and calling out counts that sounded more like encouragement than instructions. Santa stood frozen in the doorway, beard gently swaying to the beat.

“Well,” he whispered, “this is new.”

A woman at the front spotted him first. She blinked. Twice.
“…Is that Santa?”

The music stopped. Every dancer turned.

Santa waved.
“Ho ho—uh—hello! Just popping in. Cultural exchange.”

There was a pause.

Then someone said, “He’s got the boots for it.”

And just like that, Santa was pulled onto the dance floor.

At first, it was chaos. Santa clapped on the wrong beat, turned left when everyone else turned right, and nearly took out an entire row with an over-enthusiastic spin. But the line dancers were patient. They counted loudly. They laughed kindly.

By the third song, Santa found the rhythm.

By the fifth, he was shuffling.

By the seventh, he added a little ho-ho-hop at the end of the routine, which earned thunderous applause and one elf somewhere quietly taking notes.

Word spread quickly.

By Santa’s final dance, the hall was packed. Someone handed him a cold drink. Someone adjusted his hat. A kid asked if the reindeer could learn line dancing too.

Santa beamed.

“You know,” he said, catching his breath, “I’ve visited a lot of places. Chimneys. Palaces. Shopping malls with questionable Santas. But this—this is something special.”

As the sun dipped low and the music faded, Santa stepped back outside. The sleigh waited. The reindeer snorted happily in the warm evening air.

Santa took one last look at the dancers waving from the doorway.

“Same time next year?” someone called.

Santa winked.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

And with that, the sleigh lifted into the golden New Zealand sky—leaving behind boot prints, laughter, and a line dance community that would forever swear that one summer Christmas, Santa really could dance.