Readers Digest NZ Dec/Jan 2025

trend: the coarsening of society at the North Pole, a drift from decorum that we’ve allowed for too long. It’s time we sensible elves say “Enough. This is not who we are.” As I mentioned, none of this is new. Some marshmallowy months ago, I was among the vanishingly few elves who publicly pushed back against the now-infamous events that transpired at the Holly Jolly Holiday Hut, wherein Peter Plumpudding pranked Poppy Peppermint, placing a piece of pickled pepper on Poppy’s pizza pie, knowing prior of Poppy’s profound prejudice against pickled produce. The harassment I received for speaking out against this horseplay saddened and dismayed me. To my horror, Molly Hollywhisk publicly called me the G-slur (“goody two- shoes”), which resulted in all the elves in the room chanting in unison, “Na-na-na-na-boo-boo, you’re a goody two-shoes.” The foul expletive was later repeated when I again vis- ited the Holly Jolly Holiday Hut for lunch: “What’ll it be today, goody two-shoes?” Needless to say, I’ll not be forgetting my treatment at the Holly Jolly Holiday Hut any time soon, and I am currently pursuing legal recourse. Once you start detecting this list- ing of our culture toward acerbity, you notice it everywhere. Look, for example, at Old Granny Maplebot- toms’s Christmas display this year. Nestled among the familiar sights of the Christmasy Carnival Wheel and the Very-Merry-Merry-Go-Round is a chilling new addition: a wood cut- out inappropriately depicting Blitzen tugging Santa’s pants down, revealing candy cane underpants. Santa is por- trayed as chuckling at the indignity. Really? Old Granny Maplebottoms is glorifying being pantsed? Don’t even get me started on how we shouldn’t be encouraging the reindeer’s toxic be- havior. Kris Kringle only knows what those cloven-hoofed bullies get up to in that frat house of a stable of theirs when they’re not busy biting elves on the rumps or shaking down local busi- nesses for free goodies. The point is, we must stop this madness before it gets totally out of control. Among the arguments against my position (nearly all of them vitu- perative and worded for maximum snideness) is the case that it’s all in good fun, that Christmas is a feeling that lives in our hearts and is stoked by laughter and joy, and that the rules don’t matter so long as there’s a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye. This is flatly untrue. Christmas is not about sentiments. Christmas is about adherence to norms. Consider this fact for more than six sugar-sprinkled seconds, and you’ll find it to be inarguable. What is Christmas without rules and customs? Why, merely another day of the week, I suppose. Think! Why do we wrap presents in wrapping paper when we could reader ’ s digest 38   December 2025/January 2026 simply toss them naked down the chimney? Why do we insist on celebrating Christmas in December? And why, for that matter, do we not acquiesce to the mob and abolish the binary of “naughty” and “nice” alto- gether? Why not say everyone is nice and should get everything they want on their Christmas list? Why don’t we have the elves min- ing bitcoin for little Jimmy who steals money from his daddy’s wallet to spend on virtual outfits for the char- acters in his video games? Ho, ho, ho, children! I do beg your pardon, but you see where all this leads. The Christmas project is held together by a meticu- lously tied bow, and to loosen it even a little bit is to risk its very existence. It begins with a failure to observe Snow- ball Fight Sunday, but soon snowballs into much, much more. Next comes the abolishment of beddy-bye time, then comes Santa making a list and checking it but once, and then, in two twitches of your pointy ears, Christmas has vanished like a snowflake in Miami during Pride Month. You may hem, and you may haw, but that is precisely what awaits North Polesters at the bottom of the slippery-dippery ski slope of naugh- tiness, a slope we’re presently slid- ing down faster than Hungry Henry Sweet Tooth’s toboggan toward the fudge factory first thing in the morn- ing. The uncomfortable truth is that, if we are unable to curb our basest instincts, there’s naught but lawless- ness in our future, and no amount of mocking anyone as a “goody-goody” will change that. Merry Christmas to all, while we still have it. FROM JOHNPAULBRAMMER.SUBSTACK.COM (DEC. 14, 2024) © 2024 JOHN PAUL BRAMMER. readersdigest.co.nz 39 Department of Wit