Yep, BBC 3 pm The King. He’ll say something worth listening to. He is well liked ( by most) both here and abroad. (The first such TV address was by Queen Elizabeth 11 in 1957). Mind you, this is followed this year by Jimmy Kimmel on Channel 4, 3.45 pm, giving us no doubt a very witty 5 minutes. I’m sure he’ll enjoy a friendly nod to Charles, and a bit of well aimed satire to that increasingly preposterous wannabe King over your side. (Give him a cuppa tea and show him the door!)
Happy Christmas to all and best wishes to HCR for another stalwart year.
Norman, I am up to hear the carols and lessons from King's at 7 am here in the PNW brought to us by Portland's allclassical radio 89.9 and streaming world wide.
Gary, yes, truly distressing. I honestly can't understand what draws them to him; he despises them, despises this nation, yet wants to be king of it, and surrounds himself with the most wanton fools around and gives them posts they have no talent for in departments they would destroy if they could, and Repubs in Congress go along with it all. There is definitely something wrong with that 35% and they don't even know it.
He's NOT a king, doesn't want to be king, and the GOP doesn't want to turn the US into a monarchy.
The want to keep the US as a republic (with a president instead of king as head of STATE), but they want to get rid of democracy (independence of the three branches of GOVERNMENT) and instead install FASCISM.
It's absolutely crucial to understand the difference, because there is no way to save a democracy if you don't even know what you're trying to save... !
For centuries already, there are DEMOCRATIC monarchies, on the one hand, and no one in today's neofascist GOP wants to install a monarchy/king in the US.
So "no kings" day is absurd and merely shows ignorance of world and US history.
When the US became independent, the UK was already a constitutional DEMOCRATIC monarchy. The problem wasn't that the UK and therefore US had a king, the problem was that US citizens weren't democratically represented in the UK PARLIAMENT.
At the time, the reason for "taxation without representation" was basically the fact that British citizens moved to the colonies and voting in parliament when your thousands of miles and an ocean apart wasn't exactly convenient.
Today, the situation is much worse: the GOP, so American citizens, actively WANT "taxation without representation" for the 99%. They WANT a government without three co-equal and independent branches (democracy) and instead one where the executive branch dictates Congress and the courts what to do (fascism).
So NO FASCISM is the ONLY accurate way to name what you want.
And today more than ever before, the truth matters. It's our most important weapon to fight back.
Yes, Happy holidays Professor. And Mary Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, May your Kwanzaa be filled with unity, joy, and community, and finally, may the rest of us have a festive Festivus. Festivus is celebrated on December 23rd which it still is here in the City of Angels; L.A., CA.
Naughty or Nice: Santa’s Ledger of Consequence: An Emersonian Audit of the List in the Age of Trump
“The Naughty and Nice List was never about behavior. It was about consequence.”
The North Pole is not festive this year.
Santa sits at a long pine table under fluorescent light, sleeves rolled up, glasses sliding down his nose. The elves are quiet. No carols. No cocoa. Just spreadsheets, red pens, and a whiteboard that reads MORAL INVENTORY Q4.
Something has gone wrong in the global supply chain of accountability.
For centuries, the Naughty and Nice List was a charming fiction. Eat your vegetables. Share your toys. Do not bite your sister. A moral kindergarten for the species.
But Ralph Waldo Emerson ruined that innocence in 1841 when he wrote Compensation, the essay that insists the universe does not operate on reward and punishment, but on balance. Every act creates its own counterweight. Every excess produces a deficit. Every lie must be carried, fed, defended, and eventually paid for.
Santa, it turns out, has been an Emersonian all along.
He does not judge. He tallies.
The Philosophy Behind the List
Emerson’s core claim is brutal in its simplicity. You do not escape consequences by winning. You do not outsmart the universe by getting away with something. The payment is baked into the act itself.
Power extracts a toll. Dishonesty corrodes its host. Cruelty narrows the soul until even comfort feels like a threat. Compensation does not arrive as divine thunder. It arrives as an imbalance.
Santa’s list has been updated accordingly. It is no longer about who deserves a toy. It is about who has been quietly billing the future and who is now shocked by the invoice.
Donald Trump and the Fantasy of Deferred Payment
Donald Trump sits at the center of the ledger, not because Santa hates him, but because he is the most ambitious attempt in modern history to outsource consequence.
Trump’s life philosophy has always been simple. Take the gain. Avoid the cost. If the cost shows up, deny it, sue it, insult it, or rebrand it as persecution.
For a time, it looked like it worked.
He accumulated money without expertise, attention without substance, power without preparation. He discovered that in America, confidence is often mistaken for competence, and volume for truth. He rode that discovery all the way to the Oval Office.
Santa’s ledger records those gains carefully.
Then, in a separate column, the compensations.
A permanent state of grievance. An identity that requires enemies to exist. A life so saturated with combat that peace feels like extinction. Legal exposure stacked like firewood. Public unraveling conducted in real time on social media. A legacy that must constantly be defended because it was never grounded.
Emerson would nod. You can cheat the bank. You cannot cheat the balance sheet.
Trump remains fascinated with Santa for one reason. Santa is the only authority figure he never tried to fire, because Santa lives in a place Trump cannot litigate.
The Cabinet of Complicity
Surrounding Trump are the familiar faces of the administration, each of them a case study in Emersonian math.
There is the Loyalist who believed proximity to power would shield him from consequence. He traded credibility for access and discovered access expires quickly while shame compounds.
There is the Ideologue who mistook cruelty for strength. He learned that cruelty requires endless justification, and justification is exhausting work for a conscience that still occasionally wakes up screaming.
There is the Grifter who treated governance like a pop-up shop. He monetized his moment, then spent the rest of his life explaining why nobody trusts him anymore.
Santa’s elves note a recurring pattern. No one on this list lacked intelligence. What they lacked was the humility to understand that power amplifies character rather than replacing it.
The Elves Who Stayed Quiet
Then comes the most uncomfortable section of the ledger.
Career officials. Party elders. Donors. Media figures. People who knew better and said nothing. People who mistook silence for strategy.
Emerson does not let them off the hook. Omission generates consequence just as reliably as commission.
Their compensation is not dramatic. No indictments. No rallies chanting their names. Just reputations thinned to tissue paper. Institutions weakened by quiet rot. A future spent explaining to younger generations why silence felt safer than truth.
Santa lingers over this column longer than any other. The math here is slow, but it is merciless.
America Signs the Invoice
At the bottom of the page is a collective entry.
Nation: United States
Charge: Spectacle over substance
Interest rate: High
Emerson insists that societies pay for what they reward. America rewarded dominance, certainty without curiosity, confidence without competence. It rewarded entertainment masquerading as leadership.
The compensation arrived on schedule.
Trust eroded. Reality blurred. Democratic habits weakened through neglect rather than force. The nation did not collapse. It simply forgot how to hold itself upright.
Santa’s workshop begins to resemble Washington. Overworked. Performative. Obsessed with optics. Allergic to responsibility.
The Redemption Ledger
Emerson never ends in despair, and neither does Santa.
Compensation is not vengeance. It is correction. Balance exists so that restoration remains possible.
The list is not fixed. Names move. Accounts can be settled forward. Growth begins the moment denial ends.
Santa closes the ledger, rubs his temples, and stands up. Christmas is not cancelled. It is recalibrated.
This year, fewer fantasies. More receipts.
The universe, like Santa, is patient. But it always keeps the books.
I found your full comment very interesting, especially. learning about Emerson's essay, Compensation, that " insists the universe does not operate on reward and punishment, but on balance. Every act creates its own counterweight. Every excess produces a deficit. Every lie must be carried, fed, defended, and eventually paid for."
I’m glad it resonated. Emerson’s idea of Compensation shifts the focus from reward and punishment to consequence. Imbalance always carries a cost, whether personal or political. That is why it feels so timely. Systems built on distortion can last for a while, but every justification adds weight. Eventually the effort to sustain the imbalance outweighs the benefit. Emerson gives us a lens that helps explain why nothing built on bad faith is ever free.
HCR's final endearing words in her interview with Tara McGowan.of the Courier: "Sometimes when it's 2 o'clock in the morning and my head is asleep on the desk I think, why am I doing this? And then I think how lucky I am to be able to do this - so I would just urge people to remember that there is joy in rebuilding this country." May your head rest on a pillow tonight.... And may all your Christmas wishes come true. Words cannot express the gratitude for what your wise counsel means. Merry Christmas...
My favorite, Carol of the Bells, is based on an old Ukrainian folk song. It was written in Pokrovsk in 1916.
As of two days ago, Russian forces have been halted in key areas of Pokrovsk and are now bogged down in brutal urban fighting, suffering heavy losses as they try to push forward, according to Yevhen Laseychuk, commander of Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces.
Pokrovsk remains one of the most intense flashpoints along the entire front line, with Russian troops struggling to gain ground despite concentrating massive manpower in the area.
Laseychuk, who coordinates the defense of the Pokrovsk agglomeration, said Russian units have become stuck in street-by-street combat, where Ukrainian forces are systematically disrupting their advance.
Carol of the Bells - Incredibly moving....I hope others go into the link...... Is that recording available in other formats??? Thank you - very special listening experience!!!
It is called Shchedrik in Ukrainian — the Generous One, a paean to the spirit of abundance and wishes for good for others.
A backdrop of the Carol over tens of thousands protesting the Russian stooge Yanukovych trying to subvert Ukraine’s presidential election, Maidan Square in Kyiv, December 2013.
Thank you... That vast sea of tiny lights in the darkness is a mesmerizing portrait of a protest of great magnitude and power.. But given the parallels to our situation - this particular ghost of Christmas future makes for a "strange and unwelcome bedfellow" on the night before Christmas... Thanks for all your great posts... Hope you can have a warm and comforting Christmas!!!
Joy in the rebuilding. Joy cometh in the morning. Take a needed rest from it all to savor peace, delight, whimsy.
Recall, perhaps, the night of December 24. 1914, up and down the western (and some also say the eastern) front of what was then the most frightening war in human history. Remember the simple message soldiers from three sides, surrounded by death, suddenly greeted one another with:
The book, "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque (1928) depicted so clearly that as of that war, men came close enough to see their enemy face to face. And now we are seeing another new kind of warfare - that of drones and what that may portend... We must hold those we love close to our hearts this Christmas...
Reminds me of reading that a few words can change everything. Replace “I have to” with “I get to”. Even chores become something that we are blessed to have the energy to do. When I think of all the losses I’ve suffered (happens when you are old), I try to think how blessed I have been to be the recipient of so much during my time on the stage. I hope “I get to” participate in every rally, event, or action that helps to bring down the vipers trying to rewrite our script.
Your comment is meaningful to me. I am old and feel the same, fortunate to be here and able to do what little I can - and hope I will live to see the complete downfall of this administration and the return of our democratic republic.
Jeri, over the last few years, your comments have been very meaningful to me, and I look for them. I've appreciated them so much!
I am guilty of sending Christmas letters every year (some people love them, some hate them, I fall into the former.) I used to hand write a letter in every card, but it became so time consuming and financially expensive, so I instead create an email letter and drop the postage money in the red kettles. I couldn't do the letter this year. I lost two very good friends this year, and nearly every person I'd send the letter to has had significant troubles. Deaths of loved ones, serious illnesses of themselves or loved ones, closing of businesses or job loss, financial difficulties. I've had health issues and family issues and been so depressed over the political situation. It's just not in me this year to be cheerful. Your point of "happens when you are old" is so true.
Inside of me there has always a spark of optimism. Sometimes it takes a huge effort to fan that flame and then it's extinguished by a MAGA firehose. Yet, I remain ever so hopeful.
I'm wising the best of the holidays to you and to the many kind people I've "met" on here: Ally, TC, Alexandra, D4N, Sharon, Bryan, Phil, Georgia, ICTT, horhai, Apache, Linda, Lynell, Keith, Doc Ryan, etc, etc, etc! (Apologies , I know there are those I'm forgetting, I seem to have caught my grandkids cold and my head isn't right.)
You are so right. I have gotten so much from the community here. I “borrow” stuff since I sometimes don’t remember where I saw it. It’s what keeps me going because those who used to support me are gone, or like “ripples” that fade away. Fortunately, the love I have been given seems to surround me even if in a very ephemeral way. Shows up when I need it most. I can feel sorry for myself, but I have been the luckiest of critters…
Jeri, once again you have written a line so exquisite, I need to ask permission to steal it. May I use your line of loss? It would fit well into either my first or third manuscript. Loss is a big theme in my first one.
I'm still trying to get at least one of my three manuscripts published. On advice from others, I am working on creating a website, and will most likely publish as ebooks. Trying to break into the traditional publishing world is incredibly difficult.
On Christmas Eve each year our children set out hay, carrots water and apples in our huge Maine apple barn so Santa could shelter, rest and feed his reindeer for the rest of their Christmas journey. There was also milk and homemade cookies for Santa.
We listened intently to the NORAD broadcast and followed the Santa sightings on a large world globe.
Sometimes Santa overshot the barn and prematurely landed on the roof of our farmhouse. You could hear the hoofs beat clearly. The Christmas elves assigned to our house to monitor the kids’ behavior in the weeks leading to Christmas would be overcome with excitement and start ringing bells from upstairs bedrooms and hallways. The kids would tear toward the sound of the bells and often caught glimpsys of the elves before they were able to hide.
Always a few minutes later Santa appeared just barely visible, with a kerosene lantern and a water bucket 70 yards away and at back of the barn. The kids would throw on their boots and jackets (or not) and tear again but toward the barn to see Santa.
But there in the cold and dark they would only see tracks in the snow and in the barn a few pieces of carrot, an empty glass and water bucket, cookie crumbs, a little hay scattered about and note of thanks and Santa’s advice. “To bed now, I will be back when you are all asleep!” He was always true to his word although a bit messy as we would find that his boots had dragged ashes from the fireplace onto the living room rugs.
Thank you NORAD. Thank you Heather. Merry Christmas.
❤️❤️❤️. What a fun holiday tradition!!! Much better than at my house. My mischievous dad always said he was craving reindeer stew. He wasn’t a hunter and I felt sure he was joking, but I still kept a cautious eye on him all evening.
Merry Christmas 🎄 Heather! I worked in NORAD Comm Ctr when I was stationed in CO in 1969-70. Christmas was a very fun time in Cheyenne Mtn! 🎅🏼 Thank you for sharing this historical moment. You made one of my fun holiday memories bring a smile to this ole face. 😃🤗
A beautiful essay. Also a much needed reminder and deserved recognition of our dedicated government workers. They deeply care about their duty and work hard without regard to partisanship. It's so easy to forget these workers not only exist but are integral to so many aspects of our lives that we take for granted. They represent the true Christmas spirit.
“Yes, Heather, there is a Santa Claus…in all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding….Thank God he lives and lives forever….A thousand years from now, Heather, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”
My husband and I were both in the Air Force in the 1970's and worked at Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD Command Center at the time. On Christmas Eve the command director would make Santa updates throughout the night for all of us who were working either a swing or night shift.
This year, the Island of Misfit Boys tried to take over Christmastown. Rudolf and his gay, transgender and dentist friends are being held incommunicado by ICE somewhere in the Arctic until they confess they’ve been building secret fentanyl labs for Maduro…
If the only thing to fear is fear itself, then I would add that doomsdaying and predicting anything other than victory is self fulfilling.
The new "carnage" brought on by the new "deep state" is repelling Americans of all stripes. They were promised a drained "swamp". And they got the stench of a cesspool. Lawlessness, hate and covered up pedophelia are not a recipe for success.
We are better than this. We shall overcome the cruelty and madness. And then we will install new guard rails to prevent another coup.
In one set of these, he points to Putin and Xi. The former sees his way now much more clear to dominate in Ukraine – and then more of eastern Europe – while the latter sees the straits now big-time opening to Taiwan.
In another set of warnings he notes U.S. chaos, paralysis, collapse, and catastrophe – all these – mostly all sewn by corrupt and lying Donald, but also attributable to many of our other corroded institutions.
It’s this note of complexity that intrigues me most, as those who’ve most learned to take for granted linear thinking (hello, one of testing’s key pillars) are adrift when it comes to multiple vector causality.
Anyone wanting to cure oneself (if well-educated to testing’s convenience) can start with Joan Didion’s last novel, “The Last Thing He Wanted.” Maybe the best thing in American lit for causalities’ sheer improbabilities: the richest, most personal choices in food, landscapes, and hidden identities from Malibu beaches to Washington, D.C. offices, from Florida billionaire hideaways to Central American jungle airstrips.
Trump and his administration are leaving multiple doors open. I don’t know if there’s a time in recent history that America was leaving itself and we citizens so vulnerable to the bad actors in the world, while the administration becomes a bad actor as well. Dangerous times, Phil. I think we have brought it on ourselves by not watching, not educating ourselves. I am among those who started watching too late.
But, again, we inhabit many competing, contradictory, complex causalities -- some most prominent, such as Putin's insistent killing and destruction, or other such killing and destruction as in Gaza and the West Bank. And other causalities tug at us while yet being more hidden, covered up, such as what Donald's billionaire rapist buddies were doing.
And, too, at the very same time today so many decent souls celebrate the birth of a child in a manger, in a land traversed by many poor, hardworking immigrants, outsiders to the privileged then.
We can nod at, accept the poignance, latency of so many threads enveloping us. And we can affirm those we love, those we dread.
And for those who love and have received the love of Christ....even Christ's family had to flee from King Herod who wanted to kill Christ because he did not understand that Christ came to change our hearts if we were willing to receive Him as our Savior.....NOT TO RULE AS AN EARTHLY KING.
Not only is he mad and bullying to Canada, but Donold is enamored with Putin, literally rolling out the red carpet for him. Donold has said he believes what Putin says over our own intelligence services, rarely reads the presidential daily briefings and if not an actual Russian asset then a very useful idiot for Vlad. Very concerning indeed...
No doubt he is, and so pleased with Donold's destruction and sabotage of our Nation and its foreign relations & alliances, especially in regards to support for Ukraine.
I do not now what it says but, the ongoing, obstruction of justice for Epstein victims & survivors is not any kind of magical eve as we all collectively experience an on-going massive cover-up.
The more they cover it up, the worse it gets for the Orange One. Even if there is no more evidence of Trump and the Epstein adventures into depravity, the coverup has been going on so long that Epstein's slime is now coating 47. And MAGA is now forever tainted as the party of pedophilia. GOP = old white men who abuse little girls.
Ultimately, I think history will include one big question about Donald J. Trump:
If they were buddies for so many years, why didn't Trump turn Epstein into the authorities when he realized Jeffrey was doing such horrible things?
The Trump legacy of destruction will be multifaceted. But the ugliest paragraph in his Wikipedia bio will be his friendly, party hearty association with a child rapist.
Happy holidays, Heather. We are so grateful for you!
Happy holidays! Heather is a national treasure. Let’s keep singing the no kings anthem together as we go caroling to fight fascism: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/no-kings-anthem
we love our king here and the nation will come to standstill as we all sit by our televisions or radios and listen to his speech on Christmas Day.
Yep, BBC 3 pm The King. He’ll say something worth listening to. He is well liked ( by most) both here and abroad. (The first such TV address was by Queen Elizabeth 11 in 1957). Mind you, this is followed this year by Jimmy Kimmel on Channel 4, 3.45 pm, giving us no doubt a very witty 5 minutes. I’m sure he’ll enjoy a friendly nod to Charles, and a bit of well aimed satire to that increasingly preposterous wannabe King over your side. (Give him a cuppa tea and show him the door!)
Happy Christmas to all and best wishes to HCR for another stalwart year.
Right. Charles is a decent human being.
He garners the kind of respect trump will never know. Charles took one on the chin for his country by hosting The Imposter a second time.
(?) So happy he has been rehabilitated.
Also Carols from Kings as a precursor on Christmas Eve for me.
Every good wish to all and HCR who keeps us grounded,”if your going through hell,keep going “ !
Yeah...I love Carole King...Tapestry...what an album!!!!
The soundtrack of my teenaged years. What a talented woman.
Norman, I am up to hear the carols and lessons from King's at 7 am here in the PNW brought to us by Portland's allclassical radio 89.9 and streaming world wide.
Great story about Santa Heather!
Yeah well, almost a whole 35% of us here love our king. /s
Gary, yes, truly distressing. I honestly can't understand what draws them to him; he despises them, despises this nation, yet wants to be king of it, and surrounds himself with the most wanton fools around and gives them posts they have no talent for in departments they would destroy if they could, and Repubs in Congress go along with it all. There is definitely something wrong with that 35% and they don't even know it.
He's NOT a king, doesn't want to be king, and the GOP doesn't want to turn the US into a monarchy.
The want to keep the US as a republic (with a president instead of king as head of STATE), but they want to get rid of democracy (independence of the three branches of GOVERNMENT) and instead install FASCISM.
It's absolutely crucial to understand the difference, because there is no way to save a democracy if you don't even know what you're trying to save... !
Please update your info.
For centuries already, there are DEMOCRATIC monarchies, on the one hand, and no one in today's neofascist GOP wants to install a monarchy/king in the US.
So "no kings" day is absurd and merely shows ignorance of world and US history.
When the US became independent, the UK was already a constitutional DEMOCRATIC monarchy. The problem wasn't that the UK and therefore US had a king, the problem was that US citizens weren't democratically represented in the UK PARLIAMENT.
At the time, the reason for "taxation without representation" was basically the fact that British citizens moved to the colonies and voting in parliament when your thousands of miles and an ocean apart wasn't exactly convenient.
Today, the situation is much worse: the GOP, so American citizens, actively WANT "taxation without representation" for the 99%. They WANT a government without three co-equal and independent branches (democracy) and instead one where the executive branch dictates Congress and the courts what to do (fascism).
So NO FASCISM is the ONLY accurate way to name what you want.
And today more than ever before, the truth matters. It's our most important weapon to fight back.
Yes, Happy holidays Professor. And Mary Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, May your Kwanzaa be filled with unity, joy, and community, and finally, may the rest of us have a festive Festivus. Festivus is celebrated on December 23rd which it still is here in the City of Angels; L.A., CA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRETV2oDvkM
The late Greg Trooper presents Muhammad Aii and the meaning of Christmas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FVRIWBSQXg
Daniel Solomon thank you. I’ve never heard this beautiful song before. Brought tears to my eyes. Merry Christmas!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxLbmnvMWM0&list=RDudUgNVPQfZY&index=2
Ode to Joy
Flash Mob
Albert, I second your post with good wishes to Heather and everyone who posts here.
Merry Christmas HCR! Thank you so much for all you do for us, our nation, and the world.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Naughty or Nice: Santa’s Ledger of Consequence: An Emersonian Audit of the List in the Age of Trump
“The Naughty and Nice List was never about behavior. It was about consequence.”
The North Pole is not festive this year.
Santa sits at a long pine table under fluorescent light, sleeves rolled up, glasses sliding down his nose. The elves are quiet. No carols. No cocoa. Just spreadsheets, red pens, and a whiteboard that reads MORAL INVENTORY Q4.
Something has gone wrong in the global supply chain of accountability.
For centuries, the Naughty and Nice List was a charming fiction. Eat your vegetables. Share your toys. Do not bite your sister. A moral kindergarten for the species.
But Ralph Waldo Emerson ruined that innocence in 1841 when he wrote Compensation, the essay that insists the universe does not operate on reward and punishment, but on balance. Every act creates its own counterweight. Every excess produces a deficit. Every lie must be carried, fed, defended, and eventually paid for.
Santa, it turns out, has been an Emersonian all along.
He does not judge. He tallies.
The Philosophy Behind the List
Emerson’s core claim is brutal in its simplicity. You do not escape consequences by winning. You do not outsmart the universe by getting away with something. The payment is baked into the act itself.
Power extracts a toll. Dishonesty corrodes its host. Cruelty narrows the soul until even comfort feels like a threat. Compensation does not arrive as divine thunder. It arrives as an imbalance.
Santa’s list has been updated accordingly. It is no longer about who deserves a toy. It is about who has been quietly billing the future and who is now shocked by the invoice.
Donald Trump and the Fantasy of Deferred Payment
Donald Trump sits at the center of the ledger, not because Santa hates him, but because he is the most ambitious attempt in modern history to outsource consequence.
Trump’s life philosophy has always been simple. Take the gain. Avoid the cost. If the cost shows up, deny it, sue it, insult it, or rebrand it as persecution.
For a time, it looked like it worked.
He accumulated money without expertise, attention without substance, power without preparation. He discovered that in America, confidence is often mistaken for competence, and volume for truth. He rode that discovery all the way to the Oval Office.
Santa’s ledger records those gains carefully.
Then, in a separate column, the compensations.
A permanent state of grievance. An identity that requires enemies to exist. A life so saturated with combat that peace feels like extinction. Legal exposure stacked like firewood. Public unraveling conducted in real time on social media. A legacy that must constantly be defended because it was never grounded.
Emerson would nod. You can cheat the bank. You cannot cheat the balance sheet.
Trump remains fascinated with Santa for one reason. Santa is the only authority figure he never tried to fire, because Santa lives in a place Trump cannot litigate.
The Cabinet of Complicity
Surrounding Trump are the familiar faces of the administration, each of them a case study in Emersonian math.
There is the Loyalist who believed proximity to power would shield him from consequence. He traded credibility for access and discovered access expires quickly while shame compounds.
There is the Ideologue who mistook cruelty for strength. He learned that cruelty requires endless justification, and justification is exhausting work for a conscience that still occasionally wakes up screaming.
There is the Grifter who treated governance like a pop-up shop. He monetized his moment, then spent the rest of his life explaining why nobody trusts him anymore.
Santa’s elves note a recurring pattern. No one on this list lacked intelligence. What they lacked was the humility to understand that power amplifies character rather than replacing it.
The Elves Who Stayed Quiet
Then comes the most uncomfortable section of the ledger.
Career officials. Party elders. Donors. Media figures. People who knew better and said nothing. People who mistook silence for strategy.
Emerson does not let them off the hook. Omission generates consequence just as reliably as commission.
Their compensation is not dramatic. No indictments. No rallies chanting their names. Just reputations thinned to tissue paper. Institutions weakened by quiet rot. A future spent explaining to younger generations why silence felt safer than truth.
Santa lingers over this column longer than any other. The math here is slow, but it is merciless.
America Signs the Invoice
At the bottom of the page is a collective entry.
Nation: United States
Charge: Spectacle over substance
Interest rate: High
Emerson insists that societies pay for what they reward. America rewarded dominance, certainty without curiosity, confidence without competence. It rewarded entertainment masquerading as leadership.
The compensation arrived on schedule.
Trust eroded. Reality blurred. Democratic habits weakened through neglect rather than force. The nation did not collapse. It simply forgot how to hold itself upright.
Santa’s workshop begins to resemble Washington. Overworked. Performative. Obsessed with optics. Allergic to responsibility.
The Redemption Ledger
Emerson never ends in despair, and neither does Santa.
Compensation is not vengeance. It is correction. Balance exists so that restoration remains possible.
The list is not fixed. Names move. Accounts can be settled forward. Growth begins the moment denial ends.
Santa closes the ledger, rubs his temples, and stands up. Christmas is not cancelled. It is recalibrated.
This year, fewer fantasies. More receipts.
The universe, like Santa, is patient. But it always keeps the books.
https://essayx.substack.com/p/naughty-or-nice-santas-ledger-of
I found your full comment very interesting, especially. learning about Emerson's essay, Compensation, that " insists the universe does not operate on reward and punishment, but on balance. Every act creates its own counterweight. Every excess produces a deficit. Every lie must be carried, fed, defended, and eventually paid for."
I’m glad it resonated. Emerson’s idea of Compensation shifts the focus from reward and punishment to consequence. Imbalance always carries a cost, whether personal or political. That is why it feels so timely. Systems built on distortion can last for a while, but every justification adds weight. Eventually the effort to sustain the imbalance outweighs the benefit. Emerson gives us a lens that helps explain why nothing built on bad faith is ever free.
BTW, Pasadena is my hometown. Huntington Memorial 1952!
HCR's final endearing words in her interview with Tara McGowan.of the Courier: "Sometimes when it's 2 o'clock in the morning and my head is asleep on the desk I think, why am I doing this? And then I think how lucky I am to be able to do this - so I would just urge people to remember that there is joy in rebuilding this country." May your head rest on a pillow tonight.... And may all your Christmas wishes come true. Words cannot express the gratitude for what your wise counsel means. Merry Christmas...
https://youtu.be/SQadcm_dwEM
My favorite, Carol of the Bells, is based on an old Ukrainian folk song. It was written in Pokrovsk in 1916.
As of two days ago, Russian forces have been halted in key areas of Pokrovsk and are now bogged down in brutal urban fighting, suffering heavy losses as they try to push forward, according to Yevhen Laseychuk, commander of Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces.
Pokrovsk remains one of the most intense flashpoints along the entire front line, with Russian troops struggling to gain ground despite concentrating massive manpower in the area.
Laseychuk, who coordinates the defense of the Pokrovsk agglomeration, said Russian units have become stuck in street-by-street combat, where Ukrainian forces are systematically disrupting their advance.
Pray for the people of Pokrovsk.
Pray for Ukraine.
Pray and support.
Carol of the Bells - Incredibly moving....I hope others go into the link...... Is that recording available in other formats??? Thank you - very special listening experience!!!
It is called Shchedrik in Ukrainian — the Generous One, a paean to the spirit of abundance and wishes for good for others.
A backdrop of the Carol over tens of thousands protesting the Russian stooge Yanukovych trying to subvert Ukraine’s presidential election, Maidan Square in Kyiv, December 2013.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=udUgNVPQfZY&list=RDudUgNVPQfZY&start_radio=1&pp=ygUOU2hjaGVkcmlrIDIwMTOgBwE%3D
Thank you... That vast sea of tiny lights in the darkness is a mesmerizing portrait of a protest of great magnitude and power.. But given the parallels to our situation - this particular ghost of Christmas future makes for a "strange and unwelcome bedfellow" on the night before Christmas... Thanks for all your great posts... Hope you can have a warm and comforting Christmas!!!
Shchastlivoho Rizdva i Veselykh Svyat'!
(Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!)
Beautiful, thanks much, hard to watch without losing it. Merry Christmas, ICTT.
I am praying for Ukraine 🙏🙏🙏
Always...
beautiful song! THX.
This is somewhat relevant ( it seems to apply to Africa) but I think of the song "Do They Know It's Christmas. applies to those in war torn Ukraine.
Peace and Justice for Ukraine
Joy in the rebuilding. Joy cometh in the morning. Take a needed rest from it all to savor peace, delight, whimsy.
Recall, perhaps, the night of December 24. 1914, up and down the western (and some also say the eastern) front of what was then the most frightening war in human history. Remember the simple message soldiers from three sides, surrounded by death, suddenly greeted one another with:
Frohe Weinachten!
Joyeaux Noel!
Merry Christmas!
The book, "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque (1928) depicted so clearly that as of that war, men came close enough to see their enemy face to face. And now we are seeing another new kind of warfare - that of drones and what that may portend... We must hold those we love close to our hearts this Christmas...
John McCutcheon has a song he wrote and performed about the first Christmas in the trenches of World War I.
And I am moved to tears when ever I hear it.
It is quite a moving song.
Amazing moment in the midst of carnage.
Reminds me of reading that a few words can change everything. Replace “I have to” with “I get to”. Even chores become something that we are blessed to have the energy to do. When I think of all the losses I’ve suffered (happens when you are old), I try to think how blessed I have been to be the recipient of so much during my time on the stage. I hope “I get to” participate in every rally, event, or action that helps to bring down the vipers trying to rewrite our script.
Your comment is meaningful to me. I am old and feel the same, fortunate to be here and able to do what little I can - and hope I will live to see the complete downfall of this administration and the return of our democratic republic.
It's great to not be alone in this sentiment. In Texas, it's hard to remember.
Eleanor, likewise.
Jeri, over the last few years, your comments have been very meaningful to me, and I look for them. I've appreciated them so much!
I am guilty of sending Christmas letters every year (some people love them, some hate them, I fall into the former.) I used to hand write a letter in every card, but it became so time consuming and financially expensive, so I instead create an email letter and drop the postage money in the red kettles. I couldn't do the letter this year. I lost two very good friends this year, and nearly every person I'd send the letter to has had significant troubles. Deaths of loved ones, serious illnesses of themselves or loved ones, closing of businesses or job loss, financial difficulties. I've had health issues and family issues and been so depressed over the political situation. It's just not in me this year to be cheerful. Your point of "happens when you are old" is so true.
Inside of me there has always a spark of optimism. Sometimes it takes a huge effort to fan that flame and then it's extinguished by a MAGA firehose. Yet, I remain ever so hopeful.
I'm wising the best of the holidays to you and to the many kind people I've "met" on here: Ally, TC, Alexandra, D4N, Sharon, Bryan, Phil, Georgia, ICTT, horhai, Apache, Linda, Lynell, Keith, Doc Ryan, etc, etc, etc! (Apologies , I know there are those I'm forgetting, I seem to have caught my grandkids cold and my head isn't right.)
Here's to 2026.
You are so right. I have gotten so much from the community here. I “borrow” stuff since I sometimes don’t remember where I saw it. It’s what keeps me going because those who used to support me are gone, or like “ripples” that fade away. Fortunately, the love I have been given seems to surround me even if in a very ephemeral way. Shows up when I need it most. I can feel sorry for myself, but I have been the luckiest of critters…
Wise lady!
I got to do that yesterday - Instead of expletive followed by 'I have to go to' I realised how fortunate I am to have this resource. It worked.
Happy Holidays Jerry.
Has made me stop and think so many times. Loss can dig holes that need to be levelled somewhat.
Jeri, once again you have written a line so exquisite, I need to ask permission to steal it. May I use your line of loss? It would fit well into either my first or third manuscript. Loss is a big theme in my first one.
I'm still trying to get at least one of my three manuscripts published. On advice from others, I am working on creating a website, and will most likely publish as ebooks. Trying to break into the traditional publishing world is incredibly difficult.
The goal is the website is up before spring.
Would love to know when your writing is available. Your humanity shines and that is the highest compliment.
Thank you for sharing knowledge and understanding!
Thank you so much for this more “light-hearted” post tonight. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a more peaceful and restful New Year, Heather.
On Christmas Eve each year our children set out hay, carrots water and apples in our huge Maine apple barn so Santa could shelter, rest and feed his reindeer for the rest of their Christmas journey. There was also milk and homemade cookies for Santa.
We listened intently to the NORAD broadcast and followed the Santa sightings on a large world globe.
Sometimes Santa overshot the barn and prematurely landed on the roof of our farmhouse. You could hear the hoofs beat clearly. The Christmas elves assigned to our house to monitor the kids’ behavior in the weeks leading to Christmas would be overcome with excitement and start ringing bells from upstairs bedrooms and hallways. The kids would tear toward the sound of the bells and often caught glimpsys of the elves before they were able to hide.
Always a few minutes later Santa appeared just barely visible, with a kerosene lantern and a water bucket 70 yards away and at back of the barn. The kids would throw on their boots and jackets (or not) and tear again but toward the barn to see Santa.
But there in the cold and dark they would only see tracks in the snow and in the barn a few pieces of carrot, an empty glass and water bucket, cookie crumbs, a little hay scattered about and note of thanks and Santa’s advice. “To bed now, I will be back when you are all asleep!” He was always true to his word although a bit messy as we would find that his boots had dragged ashes from the fireplace onto the living room rugs.
Thank you NORAD. Thank you Heather. Merry Christmas.
How magical!! Thank you for sharing this wonderful story ❤️
❤️❤️❤️. What a fun holiday tradition!!! Much better than at my house. My mischievous dad always said he was craving reindeer stew. He wasn’t a hunter and I felt sure he was joking, but I still kept a cautious eye on him all evening.
Wonderful. 🎄
Merry Christmas 🎄 Heather! I worked in NORAD Comm Ctr when I was stationed in CO in 1969-70. Christmas was a very fun time in Cheyenne Mtn! 🎅🏼 Thank you for sharing this historical moment. You made one of my fun holiday memories bring a smile to this ole face. 😃🤗
A beautiful essay. Also a much needed reminder and deserved recognition of our dedicated government workers. They deeply care about their duty and work hard without regard to partisanship. It's so easy to forget these workers not only exist but are integral to so many aspects of our lives that we take for granted. They represent the true Christmas spirit.
“Yes, Heather, there is a Santa Claus…in all this world, there is nothing else real and abiding….Thank God he lives and lives forever….A thousand years from now, Heather, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”
My husband and I were both in the Air Force in the 1970's and worked at Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD Command Center at the time. On Christmas Eve the command director would make Santa updates throughout the night for all of us who were working either a swing or night shift.
I love the history of this story so much. Happy Holidays, Heather
Ho! Ho! Ho! My 73 year young wife still follows this every year. Merry Christmas, professor, and to all a good night!
p.s. I’m shocked that Elon Scrooge and his DOGE elves didn’t banish this to the Island of Misfit Toys!
This year, the Island of Misfit Boys tried to take over Christmastown. Rudolf and his gay, transgender and dentist friends are being held incommunicado by ICE somewhere in the Arctic until they confess they’ve been building secret fentanyl labs for Maduro…
; ()
2026 is the 250 year anniversary of America!
And WE THE PEOPLE are going to TAKE IT BACK from those who hope to destroy it....
and PROVE that America is STILL beautiful!!
I am ABSOLUTELY sure of this!!
Merry Christmas to ALL...
And to ALL a Good Night!
Me too! Yes!
If the only thing to fear is fear itself, then I would add that doomsdaying and predicting anything other than victory is self fulfilling.
The new "carnage" brought on by the new "deep state" is repelling Americans of all stripes. They were promised a drained "swamp". And they got the stench of a cesspool. Lawlessness, hate and covered up pedophelia are not a recipe for success.
We are better than this. We shall overcome the cruelty and madness. And then we will install new guard rails to prevent another coup.
You are an inspiration... You have a very warm and loving Christmas.
You are our North Star!
When our children were young, we followed Santa via NORAD. It was so thirlling ... for all of us.
We still do - and our daughter is 26! 😁
Already Christmas Eve in Japan -- and we've many kids over for "The Polar Express" movie, and popcorn.
But other world news intrudes yet, too: another set of warnings today from John Mearsheimer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjfgPjsknz4
In one set of these, he points to Putin and Xi. The former sees his way now much more clear to dominate in Ukraine – and then more of eastern Europe – while the latter sees the straits now big-time opening to Taiwan.
In another set of warnings he notes U.S. chaos, paralysis, collapse, and catastrophe – all these – mostly all sewn by corrupt and lying Donald, but also attributable to many of our other corroded institutions.
It’s this note of complexity that intrigues me most, as those who’ve most learned to take for granted linear thinking (hello, one of testing’s key pillars) are adrift when it comes to multiple vector causality.
Anyone wanting to cure oneself (if well-educated to testing’s convenience) can start with Joan Didion’s last novel, “The Last Thing He Wanted.” Maybe the best thing in American lit for causalities’ sheer improbabilities: the richest, most personal choices in food, landscapes, and hidden identities from Malibu beaches to Washington, D.C. offices, from Florida billionaire hideaways to Central American jungle airstrips.
Trump and his administration are leaving multiple doors open. I don’t know if there’s a time in recent history that America was leaving itself and we citizens so vulnerable to the bad actors in the world, while the administration becomes a bad actor as well. Dangerous times, Phil. I think we have brought it on ourselves by not watching, not educating ourselves. I am among those who started watching too late.
Yes, Rudyard. Very serious. Most serious.
But, again, we inhabit many competing, contradictory, complex causalities -- some most prominent, such as Putin's insistent killing and destruction, or other such killing and destruction as in Gaza and the West Bank. And other causalities tug at us while yet being more hidden, covered up, such as what Donald's billionaire rapist buddies were doing.
And, too, at the very same time today so many decent souls celebrate the birth of a child in a manger, in a land traversed by many poor, hardworking immigrants, outsiders to the privileged then.
We can nod at, accept the poignance, latency of so many threads enveloping us. And we can affirm those we love, those we dread.
Phil Balla,
And for those who love and have received the love of Christ....even Christ's family had to flee from King Herod who wanted to kill Christ because he did not understand that Christ came to change our hearts if we were willing to receive Him as our Savior.....NOT TO RULE AS AN EARTHLY KING.
Phil Balla,
Thanks for sharing! Sounds like the best kind of Christmas for you and yours!
Happy new year!
Merry Christmas, Heather. We don’t know what we would do without you.
I was mortified you were going to say Trump had stopped this!! What does that say about what “he” is doing to us???
I had the same thought and am still concerned that NORAD could be eliminated because he's mad at Canada
Not only is he mad and bullying to Canada, but Donold is enamored with Putin, literally rolling out the red carpet for him. Donold has said he believes what Putin says over our own intelligence services, rarely reads the presidential daily briefings and if not an actual Russian asset then a very useful idiot for Vlad. Very concerning indeed...
horhai,
Putin is laughing at Trump's "worship".
No doubt he is, and so pleased with Donold's destruction and sabotage of our Nation and its foreign relations & alliances, especially in regards to support for Ukraine.
Slava Ukraini!
Vlad is always in the background, yanking chump’s chain.
One of Canada's better replies... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x41dUEvn60g
I do not now what it says but, the ongoing, obstruction of justice for Epstein victims & survivors is not any kind of magical eve as we all collectively experience an on-going massive cover-up.
Linda?
Tom?
I'm pretty sure Maria Farmer has some to say.
The more they cover it up, the worse it gets for the Orange One. Even if there is no more evidence of Trump and the Epstein adventures into depravity, the coverup has been going on so long that Epstein's slime is now coating 47. And MAGA is now forever tainted as the party of pedophilia. GOP = old white men who abuse little girls.
Ultimately, I think history will include one big question about Donald J. Trump:
If they were buddies for so many years, why didn't Trump turn Epstein into the authorities when he realized Jeffrey was doing such horrible things?
The Trump legacy of destruction will be multifaceted. But the ugliest paragraph in his Wikipedia bio will be his friendly, party hearty association with a child rapist.