Merry XMas from Canada:

...What, Santa Claus real? You might as well say that there is no such thing as hunger, that poor children never sleep on the street while bankers bloat themselves on six-figure salaries. Virginia, some people even complain that not enough children are in prison. They say this though they know that to imprison a child is the surest way to turn a single mistake into a life of crime. Why do they want to lock away the children? Because they are so poor in spirit as to hate and fear the young.

What a world it would be, if only a jolly elf could come down once a year, and bring sweetness, light, and plum pudding to all the children of the world, one half of whom go without enough to eat. What a better place if one magic sled could do the job that a hundred aid organizations can never manage, because there are never enough resources.

Santa Claus won't be coming to the murdered children of Fallujah this year, nor to the little sex-slaves of Bangkok. He won't be visiting the children crippled by cluster bombs or torn open by shrapnel. There will be no Santa for the orphans of Afghanistan or Palestine. In the birthplace of the Prince of Peace, there will be no peace this Christmas.

Santa Claus does not exist, as surely as hatred and greed and violence rule the world. Alas Virginia, how dreary life is for Santa's real helpers, the Asian children who labor to manufacture the war toys under your tree. There's no childlike faith on the factory floor, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable their daily existence...