THE GIFT

OWATONNA, Minn (AP) Roy Collette and his brother-in-law have been exchanging the same pair of pants as a Christmas present for 11 years - and each time the package gets harder to open.

This year the pants came wrapped in a car mashed into a 3-foot cube. The trousers are in the glove compartment of a 1974 Gremlin. Now Collette's plotting his revenge-if he can get them out.

It all started when Collette received a pair of moleskin trousers from his brother-in-law, Larry Kunkel of Bensenville, Ill. Kunkel's mother had given her son the britches when he was a college student. He wore them a few times, but they froze stiff in cold weather and he didn't like them. So he gave them to Collette.

Collette, who called the moleskins "miserable", wore them three times, then wrapped them up and gave them back to Kunkel for Christmas the next year.

The friendly exchange continued routinely until Collette twisted the pants tightly, stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide tube and gave them back to Kunkel.

The next Christmas, Kunkel compressed the pants into a 7-inch square, wrapped them with wire and gave the "bale" to Collette.

Not to be outdone, the next year Collette put the pants into a 2-foot-square crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded it with steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel.

The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged. But they were as careful as they were clever.

Kunkel had the pants mounted inside an insulated window that had a 20-year guarantee and shipped them off to Collette. Collette broke the glass, recovered the trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can and soldered it shut. The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled with concrete and reinforcing rods and given to Kunkel the following Christmas.

Two years ago, Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel ashtray made from 8-inch steel casings and etched Collette's name on the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the treasured trousers, but succeeded without burning them with a cutting torch. Last Christmas, Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it with red and green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel, who is the plant manager for Viracon's outlet in Bensenville.

Last week, the pants were trucked to Owatonna, 55 miles south of Minneapolis, in a drab green, 3-foot cube that once was a car with 95,000 miles on it. A note attached to the 2,000-pound scrunched car advised Collette that the pants were inside the glove compartment.

"This will take some planning," Collette said. "I will definitely get them out. I'm confident." But he's waiting until January to think about how to recover the bothersome britches.

"Wait until next year," he warned. "I'm on the offensive again."

(From DanW.)

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN

Frosty the Snowman
Was a jolly happy soul,
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
And two eyes made out of coal.

Then an evil spirit
Came an possessed him one day.
And he came to life and he grabbed a knife
And started hacking little kids away.

There must have been some magic
In that Satanic curse they read,
'Cause the snowman's coal eyes burned bright red
And he bit off Tommy's head.

Frosty the Snowman
Left terror in his tracks
As he roamed down the street
Finding people to eat
And chopping up folks with an axe.

Then they took a blowtorch
And they melted him away.
But the children know that he's made of snow
And he'll be back for
revenge someday....

Choppity-chop-chop!
Choppity-chop-chop!
Look at Frosty go!
Chopping up kids
And eating their guts,
Demon of Evil Snow!

(From DanW.)

EXPLAINING SANTA CLAUS

I have figured out how you can explain Santa Claus to your children. Here are my solutions to the most common objections:

1) How does he fit all the toys in that tiny sleigh?

Actually, it's not a sleigh. It's a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space). Santa Claus is actually a Time Lord (for those of you who don't know, that's the race that Doctor Who comes from.) A TARDIS has the quality of being dimensionally transcendental, which means that it is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. TARDISes also have something called a chameleon circuit, which allows them to assume any outward appearance. Rumor has it that Santa Claus drives a new Type 80 TARDIS with the Improved Definition chameleon circuit, thus allowing it to assume a form as complex as a sleigh with reindeer.

2) How does Santa get all the way around the world in one night?

Because TARDISes can travel in Time and Space freely. Santa Claus merely sets the same temporal coordinates for every trip.

3) How can Santa get into your house even if you don't have a chimney?

Because TARDISes, by virtue of their ability to travel in the 5th dimension, can materialize inside houses without actually traversing the intervening space. Think of a square drawn on a piece of paper. A 2-dimensional being would think it to be a completely enclosed space. However, it would be easy for a 3-dimensional being to add or remove things from the square because the third dimension is open to them.

4) Why do they say Santa Claus lives at the North Pole when Robert Peary never reported him living there?

Because it's not the North Pole of EARTH. It's actually the North Pole of GALLIFREY, the Time Lords' home planet.

5) How could Santa Claus have been delivering toys for hundreds of years?

Because Time Lords have extremely long lifespans, generally several thousand years. Plus, they can regenerate 12 times during their life, allowing them to survive mortal injuries that would kill a human.

So, there you have it. If your kids ask about Santa, tell them to watch Doctor Who. (And what better gift than a copy of Shada, the never completed Doctor Who episode reconstructed for the first time and now available on video!)

Disclaimer: The author is not a Time Lord, nor does he have any official sanction from the High Council of Gallifrey. This information is purely speculative and has yet to be confirmed by official information from the Matrix.

(From DanW.)

Christmas Tree Angel - The Legend

"Santa was very cross. It was Christmas Eve and NOTHING was going right. Mrs Claus had burned all the cookies. The elves were complaining about not getting paid for the overtime they had while making the toys. The reindeer had been drinking all afternoon and were dead drunk. To make matters worse, they had taken the sleigh out for a spin earlier in the day and had crashed it into a tree.

Santa was furious. "I can't believe it! I've got to deliver millions of presents all over the world in just a few hours - all of my reindeers are drunk, the elves are on strike and I don't even have a Christmas tree!

I sent that stupid little Angel out HOURS ago to find a tree and he isn't even back yet! What am I going to do?"

Just then, the Little Angel opened the front door and stepped in from the snowy night, dragging a Christmas tree. He says, "Yo, fat man! Where do you want me to stick the tree this year?"

And thus the tradition of angels atop the Christmas trees came to pass.

(From ManonR.)

THE PERFECT JOKE

There was a perfect man who met a perfect woman. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect.

One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve this perfect couple was driving along a winding road when they noticed someone at the roadside in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help.

There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle.

Soon they were driving along delivering the toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident.

Who was the survivor? (scroll down for the answer)

The perfect woman.

Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and no such thing as a perfect man.

For a Male Response (scroll down again)

So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving. This explains why there was a car accident.

(From ManonR. & DanW.)

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

This guy goes into a restaurant for a Christmas breakfast while in his home town for the holidays. After looking over the menu he says, "I'll just have the eggs benedict." His order comes a while later and it's served on a huge fancy chrome plate. He asks the waiter, "What's with the fancy plate?" The waiter replies, "There's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise!"

(From AndrewG.)

THE X-MAS FILES

57 Elm Street, Bethlehem, Pa.

11:51 p.m., December 24th.

"We're too late! It's already been here.

"Mulder, I hope you know what you're doing."

"Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted, transformed into a shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly; stockings hung by the chimney, with care."

"You really think someone's been here?"

"Someone, or something."

"Mulder, over here...it's a fruitcake."

"Don't touch it! Those things can be lethal."

"It's O.K. There's a note attached: 'Gonna find out who's naughty and nice.'"

"It's judging them, Scully. It's making a list."

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once a year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite."

"But that's legend, Mulder...a story told by parents to frighten children. Surely you don't believe it?"

"Something was here tonight, Scully. Check out the bite marks on this gingerbread man. Whatever tore through this plate of cookies was massive...and in a hurry."

"It left crumbs everywhere. And look, Mulder, this milk glass has been completely drained."

"It gorged itself, Scully. It fed without remorse."

"But why would they leave it milk and cookies?"

"Appeasement. Tonight is the Eve, and nothing can stop its wilding."

"But if this thing does exist, how did it get in? The doors and windows were locked. There's no sign of forced entry."

"Unless I miss my guess, Scully, it came through the fireplace."

"Wait a minute, Mulder. If you're saying some huge creature landed on the roof and came down this chimney, you're crazy. The flue is barely six inches wide. Nothing could get down here."

"But what if it could alter its shape, move in all directions at once?"

"You mean, like a bowl full of jelly?"

"Exactly. Scully, I've never told anyone this, but when I was a child my home was visited. I saw the creature. It had long white shanks of fur surrounding its ruddy, misshapen head. Its bloated torso was red and white. I'll never forget the horror. I turned away, and when I looked back it had somehow taken on the facial features of my father."

"Impossible."

"I know what I saw. And that night it read my mind. It brought me a Mr. Potato Head, Scully. It knew that I wanted a Mr. Potato Head!"

"I'm sorry, Mulder, but you're asking me to disregard the laws of physics. You want me to believe in some supernatural being who soars across the skies and brings gifts to good little girls and boys. Listen to what you're saying. Do you understand the repercussions? If this gets out, they'll close the X-files."

"Scully, listen to me: It knows when you're sleeping. It knows when you're awake."

"But we have no proof."

"Last year, on this exact date, SETI radio telescopes detected bogeys in the airspace over twenty seven states. The White House ordered a Condition Red."

"But that was a meteor shower."

"Officially. Two days ago, eight prized Scandinavian reindeer vanished from the National Zoo, in Washington, D.C. Nobody, not even the zoo keeper, was told about it. The government doesn't want people to know about Project Kringle. They fear that if this thing is proved to exist the public will stop spending half its annual income in a holiday shopping frenzy. Retail markets will collapse. Scully, they cannot let the world believe this creature lives. There's too much at stake. They'll do whatever it takes to insure another silent night."

"Mulder, I...

"Shhh. Do you hear what I hear?"

"Up on the rooftop. It sounds like ... a clatter."

"The truth is up there. Let's see what's the matter."

(From ChrisD.)

SCIENTIFIC SANTA STUDY

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau).

At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second...3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them...Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

A mass of nearly 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim considering all the high calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas

(From MichaelW-S.)

CHRISTMAS CAROLS FOR THE MENTALLY CHALLENGED

Schizophrenia: Do You Hear What I Hear?

Multiple Personality: We Three Queens Disoriented Are.

Dementia: I Think I'll Be Home For Christmas.

Narcissistic: Hark The Herald Angels Sing (About Me)

Mania: Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town or Deck the Halls and Spare No Expense!

Paranoia: Santa Claus is Coming To Get Me.

Personality Disorder: You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, then MAYBE I'll tell you why.

Obsessive Compulsive: Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell...

Borderline Personality: Thoughts of Roasting in an Open Fire.

Passive Aggressive: On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me (and then took it all away).

(From JosephM.)

TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

December 14, 1972.

My dearest darling John:

Who ever in the whole world would dream of getting a real Partridge in a Pear Tree? How can I ever express my pleasure. Thank you a hundred times for thinking of me this way.

My love always,

Agnes

December 15, 1972.

Dearest John:

Today the postman brought your very sweet gift. Just imagine two turtle doves. I'm just delighted at your very thoughtful gift. They are just adorable.

All my love,

Agnes

December 16, 1972.

Dear John:

Oh! Aren't you the extravagant one. Now I must protest. I don't deserve such generosity, three French hens. They are just darling but I must insist, you've been too kind.

All my love,

Agnes

December 17, 1972.

Dear John:

Today the postman delivered four calling birds. Now really, they are beautiful, but don't you think enough is enough. You are being too romantic.

Affectionately,

Agnes

December 18, 1972.

Dearest John:

What a surprise. Today the postman delivered five golden rings, one for every finger. You're just impossible, but I love it. Frankly, all those birds squawking were beginning to get on my nerves.

All my love,

Agnes

December 19, 1972.

Dear John:

When I opened the door today there were actually six geese playing on my front steps. So you're back to the birds again huh? These geese are huge. Where will I ever keep them? The neighbours are complaining and I can't sleep through the racket. Please stop.

Cordially,

Agnes

December 20, 1972.

John:

What's with you and those freaking birds?? Seven swans a swimming. What kind of damn joke is this? There's bird poop all over the house and they never stop the racket. I can't sleep at night and I'm a nervous wreck. It's not funny. So stop those freaking birds.

Sincerely,

Agnes

December 21, 1972.

O.K. Buster:

I think I prefer the birds. What the hell am I going to do with 8 maids a milking? It's not enough with all those birds and 8 maids a milking, but they had to bring their damn cows. There is manure all over the lawn and I can't move in my own house. Just lay off me, smart ass.

Agnes

December 22, 1972.

Hey Shithead:

What are you? Some kind of sadist? Now there's nine pipers playing. And Christ do they play. They've never stopped chasing those maids since they got here yesterday morning. The cows are getting upset and they're stepping all over those screeching birds. What am I going to do? The neighbours have started a petition to evict me.

You'll get yours !

Agnes

December 23, 1972.

You rotten prick:

Now there's ten ladies dancing. I don't know why I call those sluts ladies. They've been balling those pipers all night long. Now the cows can't sleep and they've got diarrhea. My living room is a river of shit. The Commissioner of Buildings has subpoenaed me to give cause why the building shouldn't be condemned.

I'm calling the police on you!

Agnes

December 24, 1972.

Listen Fuckhead:

What's with those eleven lords a leaping on those maid and ladies? Some of those broads will never walk again. Those pipers ran through the maids and have been committing sodomy with the cows. All twenty-three of the birds are dead. They've been trampled to death in the orgy. I hope you're satisfied, you rotten vicious swine.

Your sworn enemy,

Agnes

December 25, 1972.

Dear Sir:

This is to acknowledge your latest gift of twelve fiddlers fiddling which you have seen fit to inflict on our client, Miss Agnes McHolstein.

The destruction, of course, was total. All correspondence should come to our attention. If you should attempt to reach Miss McHolstein at Happy Dale Sanitarium, the attendants have been instructed to shoot you on sight.

With this letter please find attached a warrant for your arrest.

Cordially,

Law Offices of

Badger, Bender and Chole

(From AndrewG.)