We once played the old "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" international parlor game. Ah, but those were simpler times!
This year we are confronted by a tangled web stuffed into a Chinese puzzle box disguised as a decorative snow globe that's hidden behind an iPad streaming twenty-four-hour fake news reports.
There is a red star atop the Christmas tree and a maniacal Santa Claus rides his sleigh bare-chested. An orange-haired Krampus wipes his feet on the vanquished Ice Queen then strides uninvited through your house with his sack of plastic coal.
Meanwhile, in the middle east, Herod is busy with his slaughter of the innocents. Such murder gets easier and easier each year thanks to new weapons technology. Rockets and missiles made in the USA, the only things that are these days. All he wants for Christmas is his two front war.
There might not be a war on Christmas but there are definitely small skirmishes from town to town. Who put that Darth Vader action figure next to the manger in your nativity scene? The Magi's gift of gold turns out to be only gold-plated, the frankincense and myrrh are both well past their sell-by dates, and if you stay up late enough on Christmas Eve you might see Joseph's donkey being led away to the glue factory by an Archangel singing his last Noel.
Season's greetings everyone (batteries not included)
