Do we know it's Christmas?

When I was a little one, the schools closed for a week, not the federal government.  This has happened often enough to be considered a tradition, like fruitcake and bad performances of Messiah.  I can't reach the DHHS, but I can call NORAD and a holly jolly volunteer will tell me exactly where Santa is.  Unless I'm fortunate enough to get patched through to the White House, where Good King Don was making one of his doomed attempts at normal human interaction.  "Are you still a believer in Santa Claus?  'Cause at seven it's marginal, right?" he asked a boy (I'm guessing) named Coleman, according to pool reporter and drawer of the short straw Kevin Diaz.  The child's answer is not recorded, but if he's lucky, he doesn't know what "marginal" means.  I'm not sure Trump does either.

It was that kind of a week, and it's only Monday.  Pope Francis opened a clinic in the Vatican for Rome's homeless, and then asked that priests guilty of sexual crimes turn themselves in to authorities.  Francis is neither stupid nor naïve, so why would he think that will happen?  In other misconduct news, Kevin Spacey is about to be charged with felony sexual assault.  His response was to put on a holiday apron and record a strange video as Frank Underwood, his character on the American version of House of Cards.  So, insanity defense? .

Gatwick Airport closed for 36 hours because of a drone.  A married couple were arrested and 'assisted  police with their inquiries' before being released, but in the meantime the British press went full Richard Jewell on them, publicizing their names and calling them "morons,"  They're not having a happy Christmas and neither are the 140,000 people who missed their flights.  And tomorrow, millions of other idiots will be unwrapping drones under the tree.  Nothing substantive will be done until one of these things takes down an Airbus.

Enough.  I'm going to eat scrambled eggs and watch The Death of Stalin.  Be of good cheer, for the days are getting longer.