Looks like Chubby Santa won’t be helping any naughty boys or girls this year:

No matter if children are naughty or nice, they won’t get a reply from Santa this year, as the US Postal Service has blocked mail to a tiny Alaska town that answered Christmas letters for decades.

Since 1954, thousands of volunteers in the Christmas-crazy town of North Pole have run the heart-warming tradition of replying to letters addressed “Santa Claus, The North Pole” forwarded to them by the USPS. But no more.

Officials cut the tradition after an “Operation Santa” volunteer working on the program in Maryland was revealed last year to be a registered sex offender.

If kids insist on divulging personally identifying information, they can still write “Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska”. But anything less specific will be discarded, lest it end up in the lap of Enzyte Bob.

No reply this Christmas as US blocks Santa mail [Raw Story]

Only 84 whining days left!

The U.S. Forest Service has banned the name of Jesus from decorations being assembled by children in Arizona for a blue spruce from the state that will become the Capitol Christmas Tree this year, and a legal firm is challenging the censorship.

“Banning Christmas from the Capitol Christmas tree is just absurd. Christian students shouldn’t be discriminated against for expressing their religious beliefs,” said Jonathan Scruggs, litigation staff counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

“The First Amendment does not allow government officials to exclude schoolchildren’s ornaments for the capitol’s Christmas tree merely because they communicate a religious viewpoint,” he said yesterday.

We’re looking forward to the merry Wiccan and Atheist ornaments “able to be seen 75 feet away”. But if we’re so concerned about the First Amendment rights of kids, why are we so upset about them singing for the President?

Guess who’s now banned from Capitol Christmas tree! [WND]

Update: False alarm — the Nation’s Christmas Tree is safe for Jesus:

Eva Malecki of the office of the Architect of the Capitol told WND the ban on “religious speech” on the ornaments was an old rule that had been discontinued some years ago.

Whew. That was close. We were afraid the only place left in DC to properly celebrate Christmas was C Street.