Missing Link

As the Christmas holiday nears, and as news of economic crisis continues to pour forth from our esteemed news media, I find myself predicting what the headlines will be over the next two weeks:

“Forclosures up in the North Pole!” will read the front page of the New York Times, while a lesser paper (say, the Indianapolis Star) will probably have something like “Santa’s Reindeer repossessed!”  Lord knows what will happen to his sleigh!

Still more papers, perhaps the Wall Street Journal will note that layoffs in the North Pole are on the rise, with 300,000 elves finding themselves freshly on the job market (and finding it tough, after all the North Pole is the leading employer of elves).   Nearly all of them will exclaim that this will mean sure economic doom for Christmas if the government doesn’t bail them out.  Think of the children, man! Think of the Children!

This Christmas it might be a good idea to leave extra milk and cookies for Santa.  After all, he may be homeless now and really in need of some food.   In fact, you might want to leave him cash, leftovers and a few pair of clothes too.  And don’t mind that smell too much – it’s not easy to find a place to bathe when you’re living on the mean streets of “The Pole”.  

Presents will probably be delivered late (warn the kids), since it’s difficult to make it to every house in the world in one night without some snazzy, pimped out reindeer that can fly and are generally accepted to be “magical”.  Let’s face it, Santa was living outside his means on that one.  He should have opted for the AM/FM cassette player, instead of the 4,000 disk CD changer (for all of his favorite Christmas albums), built in LCD with DVD player (to watch Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer and laugh at the ridiculousness of the story – after all, he knows the real reason Rudolph’s nose is so red – cocaine) and spinners. 

So this Christmas, while things may not be the best for you and yours (but hopefully it is), be thankful for what you’ve got, and watch out for winos who look a lot like Jolly (drunk) St. Nick.