Solution to 1: Gridlocked

What is presented is a type of Polybius Square, with some conspicuous lights wrapped around it. The text ("existence isn't so meaningless") hints towards nihilism, since this is a nihilist cipher. The fake phone number contains the ciphertext. The lights around the border contain the key in Morse Code. Red corresponds to a dot, and green to a dash (as hinted at in the text), black (“burned out”) is the letter delimiter. Reading the string clockwise from the plug (going backwards gives nonsense), the key is PASTEL (.--. | .- | … | - . | .-..). This is coded to 33 25 23 24 12 44. Using it to decode the phone number 86 70 35 65 24 59 to get 53 45 12 41 12 15, and thus the answer.

Note that 867 is conveniently the area code for the Canadian far north, where Santa obviously lives. The phone number itself is invalid by design, so it would never be used by any real-world entity, eliminating the risk of Questers going down rabbit holes. 

QUEBEC