void xmas(long int cash, int zzz) {
  
  bool drunk=false;
  MY_PREFS stuff;
  
  do {
    stuff=buystuff(cash);
  } while (cash>=0);
  
  for (days=0; days<2;days++) {
    while (not drunk) {
      if (stuff==ALCOHOL) { drunk=drink(stuff); }
      if (stuff==FOOD) { eat(stuff); }
      if (stuff==PRESENTS) { playwith(stuff); }
    }
    sleep(zzz);
  }
}

:-D

I love Christmas, but Christmas Christmas, not the month-long bauble-fest called Xmas we celebrate today. I blame popular media for this.

Haddon Sundblom's rendition of Father Christmas in the early 1800s. Painted for the first time in Coca-Cola's corporate colours for a series of adverts involving a jolly old man who turned up at Christmas-time. He didnt have a sleigh, or elves, and he didnt bring any presents, he was selling coke to your kids. Nothing changes much I suppose. ;-p

Somehow the image got mixed up with Thomas Nast's Santa Claus, an altogether different fellow even by the late 1800s.

Thomas Nast illustrated Santa many times, this one is a tapestry, but most of his work was black-and-white line art that has subsequently been coloured for Christmas cards using Haddons popular colours.

Before this, Santa was more commonly depicted wearing all furs, an ivy or holly crown, or the rags of Saint Nicholas. He was also more usually covered in chimney-soot from his escapades, and although a portly fellow, he was an Elf himself with a tiny sleigh and tiny reindeer - and that's how he managed to fit down the chimney, not by magic at all. The beard however, appears in all versions I've ever seen.

A Visit from Saint Nick, better known as Twas The Night Before Christmas, by Clement Clarke Moore, 1823.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”