In Santa Showdown, players take control of a wannabe Santa on a race to deliver to the neighborhood to become the next Santa Claus. Each successful delivery lets you raid the fridge, upgrading your Santa by making him fatter. The fattest Santa wins.
Each player has a Santa card with five stats that will be upgraded over the course of the game. These stats are number of actions, spaces moved per movement action, dice modifier, rerolls, and how many gifts can be carried. The players can deliver the "nice way" which takes more actions but is a sure thing or the "naughty way" which uses only one action per delivery, but requires you to draw from the Naughty Deck and pass the obstacles on the card through dice rolls.
Santa Showdown includes four different enemy figures that affect game play, forty single-use gadgets the Santas can employ to help them on their deliveries, and a modular board to allow for replay and experimenting with which mode of play works for you.