Recently, there was an “extension” to the Christmas. This made the end date a week later than was originally planned, ending on January 14th instead of the 7th.

However, the files pointed to an end date that was “tentative”, in other words undefined. This might have been a little suspicious, however, when the end date in the game said January 7th, no one gave it a second thought until the extension.

Additionally, a curious statement in the Too much Of A Good Thing questline hinted at another end date.

Dad, I found a loophole. Claus Co gift cards are only good for approximately 5 weeks.

All this credit will be useless before the end of January. Then Springfield will go back to normal.

Gee, it hardly seems worth it murdering anybody over five lousy weeks. Six or seven, sure. But not five.

As you know, the event started on the tenth. Twenty-Eight days later, or four weeks, is January 7th, when the event was supposed to end. However, the dialogue clearly says five weeks, which happens to be, surprise surprise, January 14th, the current end date.

This shows that the extension was going to happen regardless of the DDoS attack, or any other mishaps during the event.