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SANTA CLAUS OFFERS TO GOVERN UNITED STATES
For the second year in a row Santa has offer to govern the United
States it was learned today.
"Considering it is the basic purpose of the US government
to give things away, I think I do a better job at that than
the President or the Congress," Santa explained at a press
conference at the North Pole.
One immediate effect of Santa running the United States would be
that Christmas would become a year-round event. "Christmas is the
engine that drives the US economy," Santa noted, "and I would drop
all pretense of the Christmas season starting around Halloween."
The Christmas season would start January 2nd under Santa's
government.
"Just think of all the economic benefits and new jobs that would
be created by that," Santa said.
Congress would be replaced by Santa's Elves. "None of them would
be interested in taking campaign contributions," Santa added.
US Senator Hillary Clinton scoffed at the idea of Santa taking
over the country. "We've already got a guy in the White House who
think's he's Santa," she said.
SANTA TO SELL SHARES IN NORTH POLE TOY SHOP
NORTH POLE: Santa announced today that
he would sell shares in his North Pole Toy Corporation on December 24th.
"This may be the most unusual IPO in Wall Street history,"
said Abner Fillbreck, chief analyst for the toy industry at Morgan
Stanley investment bankers.
"I'm sure that Toys R Us will file some sort of objection on
the grounds of antitrust violations."
"We don't care if Santa wants to sell shares in his toy factory as
long as he buys all his toys from us," said a spokesman for Toys R Us.
Santa countered with an explanation that all his toys are hand-made
by elves.
"Sounds like a labor law violation to us," said the Toys R Us
spokesman.
The unusual aspect of Santa's IPO is that he will take cookies and milk in lieu of cash for stock in his corporation.
SANTA'S WORKSHOP FOUND AT BOTTOM OF ARCTIC OCEAN
NEAR THE NORTH POLE: BACKGROUND: Santa's Workshop turned up missing.
Due to the effects of global warming, the ice at the North pole melted,
and the Workshop vanished. The Canadian Coast Guard immediately
dispatched a search vessel to the North Pole to look for Santa.
After the Canadian rescue submarine reported hearing the sound of
tapping from the wreckage of Santa's Workshop, which is lying at the
bottom of the Arctic Ocean beneath the North Pole, a special recovery
submarine was dispatched to the wreckage.
Russian authorities also offered to assist in the attempt to save
Santa and his elves. "We are hopeful we can rescue Santa before December 25th," said a spokesman for the international recovery team.
US President George W. Bush took a break from his attempts at convincing himself things are going
well in Iraq, and offered his prayers for Santa.
THE CHRISTMAS TREE CONSPIRACY When I
was a kid, the advent of the Christmas tree lots sparked
the annual fight over whether or not we'd even have a
tree in our house. The problem was my father was
Catholic, and my mom was Jewish.
They obviously got married
without any serious discussion about religious matters,
and it wasn't until the first year that their child
wanted a Christmas tree that full scale religious warfare
broke out in the house.
Dad, of course, expected a
tree. After all, he celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ.
Mom, however, viewed a Christmas tree as some sort of
pagan ritual and anyway, her parents wouldn't set foot in
her home if there was a Christmas tree inside it. Since
her parents lived in Detroit and we lived in Texas, my
dad wasn't too worried about the absence of in-laws
between early December and January 1st. If he'd had his
way, there'd have been a Christmas tree up all year if it
kept the in-laws away.
By the time I was 5, my parents
had reached a semi-compromise, being every other year
there'd be a Christmas tree. The compromise also included
my going to parochial school, and attending shul at a
Jewish temple on the weekends.
This quickly led to a rather
confused understanding of matters religious from my
perspective. Five days a week Jesus Christ and the Virgin
Mary (along with the Father, Son and Holy Ghost)
dominated my religious up-bringing. And on Saturdays all
of that was countered by lessons from the Talmud.
Jesus...just another Jew. Messiah? No way. The Messiah
hadn't come yet.
Then my parents got the bright
idea of moving to Arizona, to live near my mom's parents,
who had previously retired to the Southwest. The
every-other-year Christmas tree compromise ended with a
tree every year, and my grandfather didn't seem to
mind. However, I distinctly remember my grandmother
standing next to one of the trees and screwing up her
face in serious disgust at her daughter's lack of resolve
in adhering to the mandates of Jewish mothers to bring
their children up in the Jewish faith, and thoroughly
inculcate them with a sense of overwhelming guilt.
And I got to go to
"normal" school, meaning a public institution
without people dressed in black who carried rulers around
to swat one on the palm if you screwed up.
But the Christian
indoctrination didn't cease. American public schools in
those days were as thoroughly religious as parochial
schools. Not only was prayer common, the month of
December was spent learning Christmas carols, making
paper Santa Clauses, and praying for Santa to leave a
brand new bike under the tree.
While I entered public school
with a thoroughly schizophrenic attitude about religion,
I discovered many Jewish kids just encountering the
reality that they were minorities in a Christian society.
And they had to learn to sing"Joy to the World"
and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" whether they
liked it or not. I had the one and only advantage I can
remember from elementary school days...I already knew the
words.
Many years later raising my own
kids in Judaism, the tree controversy flared up again.
The pressure to conform and to celebrate the majority
holiday is so great, it is hard not to have a tree. A
living room looks quite bare in December without a
twinkling tree in the corner.
But, rationalizing the tree a
bit, it is really a pagan symbol of religions before
Christianity, and has nothing to do with Christ. It is
simply a symbol of the end of one year and the beginning
of another. Of course, my mother-in-law managed to screw
up her face with the same disgust upon seeing our
family's first tree as my grandmother had 30 years prior.
Reform Judaism has been
evolving rapidly since I was a child. I don't remember
much singing. Now everyone sings. Cantors even play guitars. I guess sooner or
later, the rabbis will figure out how to adopt the
decorated pine tree into the religion, so the religious
strife that breaks out in mixed marriages every year, and
in the homes of families with kids who can't help but
have a tree, will end.
You've got to hand it to those
Christians. Maybe they can't sell Jesus Christ to the
Jews. But they have sure made inroads into many homes
with their trees.
Every
year about this time Christmas tree lots spring up on
every vacant lot. And families happily buy their trees
and haul them home in their station wagons or on top of
their cars, to be decorated in the finest holiday
regalia.