Christmas in Crisis: Naughty Children on the Rise, Pole Workers Say

Children may be dreaming of a white Christmas, but this year more of them will be seeing black.  As in coal.  According to the North Poll audits of naughty and nice records this year the number of good children decreased by seven percent.

“It’s the third year in a row we’ve seen a decline in the nice category”, explained Sebastien Crager of the North Poll Naughty and Nice tracking division. “Its kind of sad really”.

Crager isn’t the only one dismayed by the increasing demographic of naughty children.

Montesquieu Rook head of the Elf union said, “We’ve just seen a drop off in the demand for toys. It’s not just this year. It’s been ongoing.”

Many experts point to the rise of violent video games as the source of the decline in the number of nice children, while others cite the 1997 revision of the naughty and nice requirements. “Doing something good isn’t good enough anymore,” Crager said. “The new rules look at things like attitude and intent. Under the old system a good deed was a good deed regardless.”

Whatever the cause, the falling demand for toys at Christmas has many elves concerned about the future of the North Pole toy plant. “There just isn’t enough demand for toys anymore. We’ve been hearing about the possibilities of layoffs or worse still, outsourcing the work to China.”

The outlook is not so bleak for everyone however. Charlie Concraine of the North Pole Coal Miners Union was optimistic about the prospect of more children receiving the ubiquitous black lumps in their stockings. “Its great news for us. We’re working around the clock to meet the demand for coal. Business is good. We’ve been looking into branching out into creating specialized lumps of coal customized for each individual naughty child.” he said.

Meanwhile the Clause administration has remained relatively silent on the issue, although Santa briefly alluded to the crisis in his recent speech to the Guild of Reindeer Herders saying “Our economy faces new challenges every year, yet I am confident that we will meet these challenges and overcome them.”

Carol of the Dumb

I’ve always been fascinated by the Little Drummer Boy song.  And by fascinated, I of course mean annoyed.

But more than anything I’ve always wondered where it came from.  When I was a little kid I always thought that maybe it was some non-canon addition to the Christmas story based, on…I don’t know, early church fan-fiction or something.  But I never heard anything to back that up.  It’s a question that’s bothered me for years.  And then, a few days ago, I remembered that I have access to this amazing thing with tons of information called the “internet.”  Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

So I went and looked it up, and the song was written in the fifties by some lady whose name I’m too lazy to look up a second time.  But the thing that really got to me is that the song isn’t based on anything.  It’s just something the author pulled out of thin air because it sounded good.  Which is incredibly ludicrous if you really think about it.  I mean someone actually took a look at the Christmas story and said: “Yeah, okay, so we’ve got the birth of God Himself in a stable, dignitaries from coming across a continent following a supernatural star, and an army of angels singing to shepherds in the desert.  I guess that’s all well and good, but you know what this story really needs?  An amateur drum solo.”

Seriously?  The original Christmas story wasn’t good enough for you, so you had to shoehorn in an annoying kid playing his drum while the ox and lamb do the conga?   What is wrong with you?

A Legend Passes

Tragedy struck downtown yesterday when a well loved, seasonally popular figure was involved in a fatal accident. Witnesses at the scene say Frosty T. Snowman was run down by a car after he failed to heed the warning of the policeman directing traffic at the intersection of 4th and Main.

“I saw him coming and yelled for him to stop,” Travis Compton, the policeman at the scene, said, “but he only paused for a second and then ran straight out into the street. The guy in the car, well he tried to stop, but what with all the warming recently the roads were slushy, and he just couldn’t brake in time.”

Several children are now said to be in grief counseling after having witnessed the gory aftermath of the accident.

When asked about why Mr. Snowman acted so recklessly, Compton said, “Well, I can’t say for sure, you know? But I think maybe he knew he was coming to the end of his life, what with this heat wave and all, and maybe he thought he could afford to take that risk. But, you know, that’s never the answer.”