Clash of Clans – What Does This Mean?

It turns out that after some investigation, this is just the developer's cute/canon way of explaining behavior changes in the release notes. There are no "Alchemist's" or "sleep potions" to interact with in the game. The Heroes rest time has been reduced across the board from 4 hours to 1 hour, with no other interaction/potions/etc required.

I just triggered it in one of my attacks! It is [holiday] trap, hidden until triggered by one of your troops. It will proceed to pop open, pop red smoke, then Santa will carpet bomb the area with presents - which are bombs.

I was able to capture some screen shots below of my reply

Troops triggering the trap:

Trap popping open (didn't seem like any damage was done here):

Red smoke, followed by Santa flying above it:

Present Carpet Bomb!

[AoE] Explosions!

Not much left (but unsure of total damage in AoE): There is no damage to attacking troops. The "trap" just drops presents with 5k elixir each. I was attacked recently and the archer that triggered it didn't die. Santa just flew by and drop 5 presents with 5k elixir a piece.

If you are on the receiving end of the attack and your Santa Strike is triggered, I found that it will leave presents for you to open near that attack. I gained 5,000 elixor per present.