The Way We Live Now: Ho-ho-ho-ping for a holiday miracle. Cause Santa is totally unreachable and all our Christmas money's going towards tuition and the luxury gourmet superdeluxe business we invested in is "in the red," like Rudolph. Fuck him.

Here, tell this to your kids: Santa is no longer reading their letters. The Postal Service is canceling its "Letters to Santa" program, because of its popularity with sex offenders. Also because, how can you expect Santa to answer these kids' requests honestly? They want a video game? They're getting a can of corned beef hash. And they better enjoy it, because at today's prices, the temptation to sell your own kids to corned beef hash factories is tempting for many parents.

Kids! The last thing you need during a recession Christmas. Before you know it they'll be all grown up and clamoring to go to college, and if the University of California is raising its tuition by a third just this year, by the time your kids get there you will literally have to sell yourself in sexual slavery to pay for it, and that is not a joke in any way, please see the Dean of Sexual Slavery to pick up the forms.

We'd swear that America is on the verge of getting the Christmas Blues. Stocks are plummeting. There are more delinquent mortgages than ever. And the US Chamber of Commerce headquarters is trying to recover from a vicious Photoshop lighting storm. We thought we could fall back on our foolproof Luxury Fake Upscale Trendy Foodie Knick-Knack Seller of Unnecessary Crap idea, but our countrymen have somehow lost their taste for luxury, and all those cities that tried to take some old bum warehouse and put in a "gourmet marketplace" thing are hearing the American people say, loud and clear, "Fuck that."

Santa won't answer your pleas. Shoppers won't save your business. And the banks will take your home. Merry Christmas, America. The recovery is the prettiest present of all.
[Pic via]