Since Christmas is coming up, I thought I might drop a little holiday cheer into my game. Anybody have suggestions? lvl 3-5, party is currently in a "safe" place.

an intersteller space wagon that lets people bring gifts to different worlds in dnd ?

Santa's elves are deep gnomes, presents contain magic items, Santa's sack is a portable hole, santa is a spelljamming hobo, the reindeer can cast fly at will on Christmas Eve.

Quote from LeviRocks >>

Santa's elves are deep gnomes, presents contain magic items, Santa's sack is a portable hole, santa is a spelljamming hobo, the reindeer can cast fly at will on Christmas Eve.

 OK but how do I turn that into an adventure?

Ok, so you’re looking for plot ideas.  Just throwing some seeds out. If you like any, I’m happy to help grow them.

The town’s Midwinter tree has awakened and wandered away.

A town’s traditional [Christmas] beverage is brought into town in barrels on wagons every year. This year the shipment has gone missing.

You could skill check the party’s attempt to cook the town feast

A generous patron has hired you to escort his sleigh full of gifts through the mountains to a town he visits this time every year.

A yeti has been terrorizing anyone wandering into the forest to cut down a tree

A troupe of entertainers have been putting on Holiday plays every evening for weeks. It’s the same plot every night, but with different characters. The women of the town are mindlessly drawn in anyway—as if by magic.

A bard famous for his holiday tunes is on tour in the town where you’re at. He has a fangirl stalker that is willing to kill anyone she thinks is likely to steal his affections.

Penny Arcade did a D&D Christmas strip called "The Vault of Winter" that I took and used as an adventure for my seasonal one-shot.

 In my version, I had a friendly NPC that the party liked get a threatening letter from "the Lords Wynter" informing them that they were to be collected on Christmas eve because they reached some metaphysical tipping point in the "Encscriptor Malifica" and their soul was forfeit. The party had to go to a winter realm of the Feywild and destroy the naughty list to save their friend. The reindeer guards were just re-flavored Minotaur, Santa's elves were just Deep Gnome (Svirfneblin), and I used an Ettin for my big boss "the Lords Wynter." I also tossed in a Gelatinous Cube as a fruitcake proxy, and had a room where a Dryad (I actually used some modified Conclave Dryad stats) was chained to a Christmas tree with mystical garland and being tortured with hooked ornaments and guarded by wreathes of Twig Blights.

Basically, the party could sneak in and try to steal/destroy the naughty list or free the dryad and use her to help destroy the Lords Wynter and put an end to their reign of terror, installing the friendlier dryad as the new lord of the winter realm.

Not sure if you're familiar with the Kingdom of Loathing, but if you want something with a humorous bent, you might find some good inspiration in their Crimbo adventures

Here's my idea. Encounter Name: Christmas is Captured!

The players are staying in a house or tavern in the night. It starts snowing. Their room has a chimney in the center which they use to be warm. The character's fireplace goes out. All the lights in the room go out. Give the characters time to freak out. The room will be dark, so they'll need darkvision or a torch to see.

They hear a knock on the door. They'll likely draw weapons, ready them, so on. Behind the door is SANTA (I know him). 

Santa says, "Excuse me young ones, could I use some help?" He shivers from the cold. "May I come in?"

If they let him in, he closes the door and says, "My sleigh has crashed, and some nasty octopi and south pole elves have stolen all of my presents and the magic that makes it fly!"

He describes, but doesn't name, mind flayers, and deep gnomes. He tells them where his sleigh was when he crashed. After he explains this, an Assassin comes down the chimney and starts attacking Santa, who uses the Thug statistics, he pulls a mace out and his suit has the stats of leather armor. 

If they kill the Assassin, an intellect devourer climbs out of their skull, and tries to eat Santa's brain and take his place.

If the Assassin kills Santa, they can later revive him with a Potion of Reincarnate found in Santa's bag (taken by the mind flayers).

The characters can follow Santa (or his directions) to the site of the crash. When they get there, they see a large sleigh, with 9 dead reindeer, one with a glowing red nose (Rudolph's Nose), which the characters can take.

Behind the dead reindeer is a large sleigh, 20 ft. across and 60 ft. long, with two levels and is 40 ft. tall. The sleigh is crashed in a large pile of snow that covers most of the overturned sleigh. Inside the sleigh they can find the corpse of a dead elf (rock gnome) that has had its brain extracted by a mind flayer. Nothing on the sleigh is worth noticing, except for in the top layer of the sleigh there is a light square, about 10 ft. squared on the sideways floor, with 4 small holes at each corner.

If the characters search outside, with a DC 10 Survival check they can track footprints back to the base. If they succeed by 5 or more, they notice 2 sets of tracks, gnome and mind flayer tracks, and the trail of a sled. 

If they follow the trail, it leads into the mountains into a dungeon. You decide what is in the dungeon, but it should have a mind flayer colony, intellect devourers, south pole elves (deep gnomes), and the stolen presents and a spelljamming helm from santa's sleigh. They've also captured 3 of Santa's elves, and are planning of implanting intellect devourers in their skulls.

What were the mind flayers planning? The mind flayers were going to capture Santa, implant an intellect devourer in his skull and all of his elves' skulls. They were then going to use Santa to fly across the worlds and capturing children on Christmas Eve to bring back to their colony to raise as living "meat" for the colony in the coming years. The characters can thwart this plan in many ways:

• Destroying Santa's Sleigh. This would delay the colony until next year, and they would build a new sleigh for this next time.
• Destroying Santa's Body. Don't let them do this.
• Killing the Mind Flayers. Likely the best tactic.

If your characters can figure out another way to thwart the mind flayers, let them. 

I hope you like this! Let me know your thoughts below, I'd really appreciate it.

- The local town has a tradition of erecting a giant tree in the town square for solstice; however, the tree they picked for this year was the home of a dryad, and now she's pissed; as an expression of her rage and grief, the forest surrounding the town has turned hostile and dangerous. The party must figure out a way to either defeat the dryad or assuage her anger.

- The party is taking part in a local solstice festival; however, the noise of the revelry has disturbed a curmudgeonly white dragon that lives on a nearby mountain peak; the dragon attacks the town during the festival, and in the aftermath the party is tasked with hunting the dragon down.

Thanks Guys!