December is just beginning, so maybe it hasn’t set in yet. But at some point this month, chances are you are going to hear one too many mall Christmas carols, max out on holiday reruns on TV, and feel like you’re seeing spots from all the blinking light displays.

Enter Crumpet, the razor-tongued department-store elf—the sarcastic character in the candy-striped tights who’s at the centre of SantaLand Diaries.

“I’m calling this emotional insulin for the Christmas saccharine,” quips Bill Allman, who’s codirecting the show with Alan Marriott. Marriott also takes on the role of the wickedly funny elf—and about a dozen other characters the script calls for.

The comedy has its roots in an essay by writer David Sedaris, based on his true experiences working as an elf at Macy’s one Christmas to make ends meet. Joe Montello adapted his acerbic observations into a one-act play. As for the idea to mount the show here, at North Van’s Presentation House Theatre, it had its origins when Allman and wife Kathleen Gibbs attended Sedaris’s packed appearance at the Vogue Theatre in May.

The Famous Artists Limited cofounder saw the author’s big following and was familiar with the seasonal play. He and his company were also looking to change up from the tradition of staging Mrs. Claus’ Kitchen at this time of year.

And then there were Allman’s own fond associations with mall Santa displays. He and Gibbs both grew up a few minutes away from Oakridge Mall and fondly remember visiting the old Santa and his reindeer there each Christmas. This was a way to summon all those memories again—while seeing them from a different perspective, of course.

“The fact is we all need a little Christmas spirit,” Allman says. “It’s that the holiday is not just for kids. And there’s an angle to SantaLand Diaries that often gets missed: the reflective ‘I may seem like a bad persona but I’m actually not.’

“Between the sarcasm, he’s a frustrated optimist; David Sedaris is the quintessential good human being, with a nasty tongue! I don’t want to spoil it, but there are a few parts in the show that are reflective on the way we relate to the holidays in general.

“So it’s not Bad Santa, but it’s not Charlie Brown,” he summarizes with a laugh.

The other key to putting the show together was finding an actor who could carry multiple roles. Enter Grand Theft Impro’s Marriott, who’s played an elf in Famous Artists’ Mrs. Claus’ Kitchen for a few years, even leading a rollicking, ABBA–inspired “Dancing Queen of the Sugar Plum Fairies” at one point in that show.

“He has 25 years in London. He’s the real deal—and this is his third year as an elf,” Allman says, adding Marriott is well-suited to pulling off the various characters, from naughty kids to the Man in Red himself: “He does a thousand voices, with a lot of animation and commercial voice-overs.”

In a fresh twist, the production has also added another player: vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Sandra-Mae Luykx, who brings a new dimension to the normally single-handed holiday show. “There are a number of places that lend themselves to carols or a little Manhattan jazz,” Allman explains. “I’d seen it before as a pure one-man show, but I said, ‘There’s a whole other level we can explore here as well.’ ”

Expect the multitasking Luykx to appear as a hysterical mother, a little girl, and a few other characters, as well as pull out two types of sax, keyboards, guitar, and percussion.

In all, staging SantaLand seems to have filled its creative team with warmth and joy—without the saccharine aftertaste, of course.

SantaLand Diaries is at Presentation House Theatre from December 8 to 17.