Okay, so maybe I’m speaking out of turn here because I winter in Tortuga, but I’ve spent my share of manhours shovelling snow in northern regions, so I have an opinion on the subject. Here it is: stop it. Let the snow be. It is natural. It is beautiful to behold. It is nutricious. Instead of ruining God’s Winter Gift to Man, try leaving the cars at home. Strap on some snow shoes or hitch old Dobbin to the sleigh. Our forebears weren’t fools except about fearing Night Air. Break that futile snowshovel!

When it rains, do you run outside to dry the streets with your hair dryer?

I don’t feel so good when I’m in one of those homes where people light all those smelly candles. You know the kinds I mean: Autumn Fog, Evening Sagebrush, Ocean Flotsam. That kind of thing. I always wonder what they’re hiding. Besides, think about it. Back in the Dark Ages everybody used nothing but candles. You want your home to smell like the Dark Ages?

I say, blow the stupid candles out, turn on a couple of electric lamps, and look around to see what it is that’s making your home smell so rotten in the first place.

No one listens. A bunch of my cronies put their money together and invested in a DVR theater. They figured that people like to see movies on the big screen and get popcorn and all that, but people didn’t like to be held to a rigid time schedule. So my cronies combined the personalized features of TiVo with the auditorium-sized features of a movie show — plus concessions! — and built a Tivo Movie Show. Of course it failed. Every time new people came in they would start the whole movie over again. It led to fights.

I had warned them. I told them about the flop of my 100 foot book idea — you know, so readers could enjoy the collective pleasure of a theater audience — but they didn’t listen. I know how Cassandra felt.

Today I decided to shave my head.

But only the part in front around my mouth and chin and under my nose. On the side of my face under the sideburns, too. The rest I’ll keep.

Instead of my usual Christmas message in which I wish everyone peace and cheer and so on, I thought I would take things one step further. No more wishful thinking. Here is a practical plan for world peace. Think about it: what makes people fight all the time? Politics, religion, funny accents, race and inequitable wealth distribution. So why don’t we just all have one party, one religion, one language, one race and the same amount of money? There you have it: peace. Except for the psychos.

I suggest we go with Tory, Falun Gong, Swedish, Mongoloid with an annual salarly of €1,000,000 per capita.

A lot of people are jeering at Bernie Madoff, the guy who ran a big Ponzi scheme the other day. They make jokes out of his name, like “Look how much Bernie ‘made off’ with.” Okay, maybe the guy has it coming, but imagine a lifetime of that kind of needling. Think about what it must have like for Bernie to grow up with his school chums teasing him about how his name made him sound like a thief. Kid stuff, sure, but look what happened: His character got twisted. Next thing you know Bernie Madoff lived up to his name — or down to it — and “made off” with billions. It’s like his parents had named him “Bernie Grabyourdough.” What did they expect?

And how about Charles Ponzi? What were his parents thinking?

You know what I like about iPod the most? No, not the polished chrome mirror on the back which you can use when shaving on the tram, though that maybe comes in second. What I like best is how after you’ve used an iPod for eleven months or so you don’t need to use it anymore. You can just “think” of the tune — so long as you bought it through Apple, and so long as you have it on the iPod in a playlist named “mindmember” — and the tune plays in your head.

It works for movies, too, so you can change the background behind people when they’re boring you.

The kids, Boadicea and Bradley, get the same gifts from us this year as they do every Christmas: train track. And none of that curved track, either. I ask you: Is there anything more pointless and defeating than a miniature train set that runs in a circle or loops back on itself in a figure eight? What kind of lesson is that to give impressionable children? I say teach them to go beyond themselves; to seek new horizons. Over the years they’ve accumulated some 2,300 miles in straight track.

Désirée, the mother of my children, gets a new power generator and telegraph set so she can keep a tight hand on operations.

Listen, I love and respect Santa Claus. No one is ahead of me in admiration for His great generosity and industriousness. Whenever I see Him on the street I offer Him a Christmas Pez. But, you see, that’s just the thing that bothers me. How come you see Him in the street all over the place, just as public as can be, but when it comes to His main job, suddenly everything is hush-hush? Why the stealth? We all know Santa is coming. We all know He’s bringing presents. Why does He all of a sudden get this attack of shyness? It is suspicious.

For that matter, why are gifts wrapped? Why hide them? Or if they must be hidden, can’t they be hidden better? Hidden in a way that they will never ever be found?

Isn’t it about time that we stiltwalkers stood up for our rights? How many halls of commerce have you visited whose doors accommodate our proud, enhanced height? Few, very few. Indeed, how many businesses refuse us entrance altogether? Sure I understand that exposed stilts with hand grips may be objectionable in public places — no one wants to see what appears to be a cross-country skier in a confined area. But what about the vast majority of responsible stiltwalkers who wear their leg-only stilts concealed beneath long, long pants? In what way do these elevation devices offend? In no way! None! It’s time we put our foot — however far removed — down.

And how is that bicyclists get their own lanes in the street? Why not a lane for stiltrunners?