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In This Issue

• Church Purchases Kwanzaa
• What Goes on in Santa's Head While You Sit on His Lap
• The Netherlands Corner
• Iranipedia: Hannukah
• Celebrity Gravestones!
• Insanity, Actually
• Querido Santa
• These Are A Few of Our Favorite Things
• The Fed Presents: "Aporkalypse"
• Are You Having a Bad Christmas?
• A Very WASP-y Christmas
• Dear Santa
• got meth?
• Letter From the Feditrix
• They Watch
• The Staff of the Federalist

Rowan Buchanan

Oh, look. Here he comes. Belting down the escalator, stains of lollipop red on his chubby cheeks. Little Danny Johnson. Every year, he asks for the same thing. Every year he asks for new parents. What's the Claus to do?

Wait in line, Danny. Wait in line. There's enough of me to go around. And right now I've got Suzy May to deal with. She's been in juvie for the last three Christmases. She's running down her wish list, three years in the making. The little creeper wants a contraceptive sponge that can double as a shiv. She's eight.

I ask if she's been a good little girl. She asks me if I like good little girls. I chuckle good-naturedly: ho ho ho. She smirks, "that's right." Where have you gone, Norman Rockwell?

I remember Christmases past, when the good boys and girls of the world flocked to my chair with visions of model trains and baby dolls dancing in their heads. They innocently sat upon my lap and kissed me on the cheek. Now they dance on my lap for the length of a Christmas carol, and warn me not to touch.

Mary Lou coughs, and bright neon green evacuates her mouth, splattering my silver-sabled beard. She is not insured. She asks for flu vaccine. Even the North Pole wants for health care. I give her a peppermint and smile reassuringly. She coughs again. And again. And again. How will Kringle save the children?

Jeremy Jacobs asks for a new iPhone. He has the first iPhone. He whines that it loads at a glacial pace, and that the simplest app will crash it. I lend him mine so he can update his Twitter: "sitting on Santa's lap he has a boner." I extract the candy cane from my bag to clear away the confusion. No erection, I say, only a candy cane. Jeremy snatches the candy cane and runs. That was Santa's lunch. My phone is missing also. Santa granted one wish, at least.

Becky wants to get into a good middle school. John wants accident insurance for his scooter. Angie wants to find a man who listens; the fourth-grade boys are jerks. Jimmy only wants a ceiling for his abandoned boxcar. Santa wants to build miniature tea sets and five-foot-tall mansions fit for elegant dolls. Santa longs to see twinkling lights dressing the pine trees in firelit sitting rooms. Santa wants to brush their pain away with sugar plums and roasted chestnuts. Santa wants things to go back. Santa will not cry. Santa is strong. Santa is so very, very strong....