CHANGE:

Almost like we DEPORTED the murderers… 🤔

— Kyle Rittenhouse 🇺🇸 (@rittenhouse2a) December 25, 2025

MERRY CHRISTMAS:

HEH, INDEED: Trump tells children ‘coal is beautiful and clean’ while on Santa watch.

Donald Trump told children that coal is “beautiful and clean” as he asked young callers about what presents they wanted from Father Christmas this year.

The US president marked Christmas Eve by quizzing children on their wishlists, while promising to not let a “bad Santa” infiltrate the country and even suggesting that a stocking full of coal may not be so bad.

Mr Trump and Melania, the first lady, spoke to children from Mar-a-Lago in the tradition of talking to youngsters who have called the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), which tracks Santa’s progress around the globe.

Asked by an eight-year-old girl in Kansas what she would like Santa to bring, the answer came back: “Uh, not coal.”

“You mean clean, beautiful coal?,” Mr Trump replied, echoing a favoured campaign slogan he has long used when promising to revive domestic coal production.

“I had to do that, I’m sorry,” the president added, laughing.

It certainly beats the programming that blue state parents and teachers have been doing to kids for years: How to talk to children about their anxiety over climate change. But beyond the lack of environmental doomsday talk, will anyone in the DNC-MSM mention that after four years of Biden needing cue cards and cheat sheets just to simulate conversations with his party’s operatives with bylines, we once again have a president who can talk without a script?

He stopped doing anything unscripted after this great troll on Christmas Eve, 2021. 😂https://t.co/gLoy58KiJ3

— bird cheat (@birdcheat) December 25, 2025

UPDATE: Watch: Trump’s Humorous Moments Talking to Kids on Santa Hotline.

#1 AT AMAZON: How To Draw Everything: 300 Drawings of Cute Stuff, Animals, Food, Gifts, and other Amazing Things | Book For Kids.

ONE OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’S FUNNIER 21st CENTURY SEGMENTS: 2005’s Christmastime For The Jews.  “Just watch it. And you don’t have to be Jewish. My WASP husband gets almost every joke.”

Related:

More: Differences Between Christmas And Hanukkah: The 2024 Snarky Edition. From the late and sorely missed Jeff Dunetz.

MERRY CHRISTMAS:

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is Christmas really a pagan festival?

The celebration of Christmas is suffused with probable pre-Christian elements, from the Yule Log to the Lord of Misrule (an official appointed to oversee the festivities) but this should hardly surprise us. After all, the priority of early missionaries was to ensure that people came to believe in the Christian God. Customs with no direct bearing on the basics of belief were often left alone; for example, it was several centuries before Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany began to interfere in pre-Christian funeral rites or betrothal customs. The medieval church did not, as some think, demand control of every aspect of people’s lives. However, whether surviving pre-Christian customs should be called pagan is debateable, since ‘paganism’ seems to imply something to do with the cult of pagan deities. It is pretty clear that such cults disappeared fairly quickly, within a few decades of the Christianisation of most European nations, even if many other traces of pre-Christian culture remained.

So, is Christmas pagan? In the sense that Christmas is a festival that retains, in most cultures, elements of pre-Christian midwinter festivities, the answer can be yes – provided we’re prepared to use the word ‘pagan’ in quite a loose way.

I blame Saturnalia:

READER FAVORITE: Apple AirPods Pro 2 Wireless Earbuds, Active Noise Cancellation. #CommissionEarned

MERRY CHRISTMAS:

FROM ME, A CHRISTMAS THANK YOU TO, WELL, YOU.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Merry Christmas! “I will continue to do a “Best Of” rerun of a classic Morning Briefing post on holidays and the day after holidays, but with a twist. I’ll be recording video greetings for each one. These won’t be behind the paywall. Still, I would encourage everyone to join us over there. This doesn’t apply to those Monday Post Office holidays that I barely know are happening.”

HOME ALONE, EXPLAINED: “One fan theory posits that Peter McCallister is involved with organized crime. Under this theory, the McCallister home was specifically targeted as some sort of vendetta, and Kevin’s brutal violence against the burglars is the product of an upbringing exposed to criminal activity. The Times could not rule out this theory.”

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM 328 CHAUNCEY STREET, APARTMENT 3B:

At the end of THE HONEYMOONERS Christmas episode, the cast surprised the audience by breaking character and wishing the viewers at home a Merry Christmas. (1955) 🎄 A first in television history. pic.twitter.com/GtlVyz5Vza

— Todd Spence (@Todd_Spence) December 23, 2025

MERRY CHRISTMAS:

JOHN LUCAS: “Did you know that I saved Bob Hope’s life 54 years ago in Vietnam, on Christmas Day 1970? And, I might add, Ann Margret’s, too. This is the story. And like all good war stories, it starts out with ‘This is no s**t. . . .'”

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS MORNING OPEN THREAD: What was under your tree?

MONROE CROSSED THE DELAWARE WITH WASHNGTON: Don Surber provides a wealth of fascinating detail about Gen. George Washington’s daring surprise attack on Christmas against the Hessians at Trenton.

Among those with Washington in that hugely significant operation was another future president, James Monroe, who was severely wounded and very nearly died but for the effective treatment of one Dr. Riker.

MERRY CHRISTMAS:

BUY YOURSELF A GIFT:Rechargeable Hand Warmers 2 Pack. #CommissionEarned

MERRY CHRISTMAS:

AS LONG AS YOU HAVE THEIR EMAIL ADDRESS, THERE’S STILL TIME FOR LAST MINUTE GIFTS: On sale, 99c each:  So Little and So Light.

Bowl of Red.

Lights Out and Cry

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE REYNOLDS/SMITH HOUSEHOLD!

AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, AREN’T WE ALL?  The night I was Mr Scrooge.

PROFITABLY:  How Activists and Dark Money Are Pushing to Criminalize Climate Change.

SHE’S ALSO REPORTEDLY IN NEGOTIATIONS FOR ENDORSEMENT A BRAND OF KNEE PADS:  Harris Suggests Mocking Her Laugh Is Sexist, As She Gives Young Women Dating Advice.