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"The Night of the Meek" is the December 23, 1960 episode, and 47th overall, of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.
Introductory scene:
As snow begins to fall, a drunk and dejected Henry Corwin, wearing his Santa Claus suit, stumbles and half-falls at a curbside lamppost. He is approached by two tenement children pleading for toys, a Christmas dinner and "a job for my daddy". As Corwin begins to sob helplessly, the camera slowly pans to the right, revealing Rod Serling standing on the sidewalk, wearing a winter coat and scarf, with snowflakes settling on his hair and shoulders:
"This is Mr. Henry Corwin, normally unemployed, who once a year takes the lead role in the uniquely popular American institution, that of the department-store Santa Claus in a road-company version of 'The Night Before Christmas'. But in just a moment Mr. Henry Corwin, ersatz Santa Claus, will enter a strange kind of North Pole which is one part the wondrous spirit of Christmas and one part the magic that can only be found... in the Twilight Zone."
Plot:
It is Christmas Eve. Henry Corwin, a down-and-out ne'er-do-well, dressed in a baggy, worn-out Santa Claus suit, has just spent his last few dollars on a sandwich and six drinks at Jack's Place, the neighborhood bar. Bruce, the brusque bartender, throws him out after spotting Corwin, whose pockets now contain only a few meager coins, reaching for the bottle.
Arriving an hour late for his seasonal job as a department store Santa, the visibly drunk Corwin is soon fired by Mr. Dundee, the mean-spirited manager, acting on a complaint from the overbearing customer who had, moments earlier, pushed her reluctant son, "Percival", to sit on Santa's lap. As Dundee orders him to leave the premises, Corwin pours out his heartache over living in a "dirty rooming house on a street filled with hungry kids and shabby people" for whom he is incapable of fulfilling his desired role as Santa. He declares that if he had just "one wish" granted him on Christmas Eve, he'd "like to see the meek inherit the earth".
Still in his outfit, he returns to Jack's Place but is refused re-entry by Bruce, who explains to the inebriated patrons that "Santa's a lush".
Stumbling aimlessly into an alley, he hears sleigh bells and trips over a large burlap bag, overfilled with packages, which seems to have the ability to produce any item that's asked of it.
Overjoyed at his sudden, inexplicable ability to fulfill a lifelong dream, Corwin proceeds to hand out gift-wrapped presents to passersby and then, upon entering Sister Florence's "Delancey Street Mission House", to derelict men attending Christmas Eve service.
Irritated by the disruption and outraged by Corwin's offer to gift her with a new dress, Sister Florence hurries outside to fetch Officer Flaherty, who proceeds to arrest Corwin for apparently stealing merchandise from his former place of employment.
Flaherty then contacts Mr. Dundee, who arrives at the police station exclaiming, "Ah-ha, here he is, and here we are, and there that is!".
Calling Corwin a "moth-eaten Robin Hood", Dundee reaches into the garbage bag to display some of the purported "wholesale theft of thousands of dollars worth of goods" but, as he pulls out a couple of empty cans, and a cat emitting a meow emerges from the bag onto the precinct counter, Corwin interjects, "this bag doesn't know whether to give out gifts or garbage".
Observing what just happened, Flaherty tells Corwin to "clean up this mess and get out of here", as Dundee, angry at having his time wasted, throws accusations of incompetence at Flaherty, who responds that "like Corwin says, we're dealing with the supernatural here".
With sarcastic disbelief, Dundee then challenges Corwin to produce a bottle of cherry brandy, vintage 1903 and, as he turns to Flaherty and continues to berate him ("...how dare you drag me here at the busiest time of the year..."), Corwin comments "oh, that's a good year" and reaches into the bag to hand Dundee his exact request.
Leaving the precinct, he continues to distribute gifts for the remainder of the evening until the bag is empty.
As he exits from one of the tenement building, elderly Burt, whose desired pipe and smoking jacket had come from Corwin's bag at Sister Florence's service, points out that there is "nothing for you this Christmas, nothing for yourself, not a thing" and Corwin replies, "you know, I can't think of anything I want", but if he had his choice of any gift at all, "I think I'd wish I could do this every year".
Returning to the alley where the gift-laden garbage bag had presented itself, he encounters an elf (in the persona of an adolescent girl), sitting in a large sleigh hitched to four reindeer waiting to take him to his destiny as the eternal Santa Claus.
Emerging from the precinct, Flaherty and Dundee, now slightly tipsy from sampling Corwin's brandy, look upward upon hearing the tinkle of bells and confirm to each other that they have, indeed, in Flaherty's words, just seen Henry Corwin, "big as life, in a sleigh with reindeer, sittin' next to an elf", ascending into the night sky on Christmas Eve. Dundee invites Flaherty to accompany him home and share some hot coffee, with brandy poured in it, adding, "...and we’ll thank God for miracles, Flaherty..."
Closing narration (Rod Serling):
"A word to the wise to all the children of the twentieth century, whether their concern be pediatrics or geriatrics, whether they crawl on hands and knees and wear diapers or walk with a cane and comb their beards. There's a wondrous magic to Christmas and there's a special power reserved for little people. In short, there’s nothing mightier than the meek."
The original narration, on December 23, 1960, ended with the words, "and a Merry Christmas, to each and all", but that phrase was deleted in the 1980s and is now excluded from reruns..."