No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.
Now I'll read anytime anywhere. I love reading in front of the space heater. Isn't that a sad confession? But it's like my substitute for the roaring fireplace of yore.
Our notion of the perfect society embraces the family as its center and ornament and this paradise is not secure until children appear to animate and complete the picture.