Ornamental Outsourcing

"I think we should give Santa a present. And not just cookies. Liiiiike, saaaaay, an ornament. Can we buy him one? I mean, Christmas is s'posed to be about giving, right? So I'm just saying we should give Santa something."

I had just taken the last batch of snickerdoodles (Santa's favorite) out of the oven. We had to leave in five minutes for Christmas Eve dinner. Shopping for Santa wasn't on my list of must-dos for Christmas Eve.

"Bud, I think just giving him cookies will be fine. Besides, imagine how many ornaments Santa must already have. I mean, he lives in the North Pole, which must be the ornament-making capital of the world."

My seven year old shook his head, shot me one of those "you're ridiculous" looks, the kind I didn't expect to get from him for at least six more years.  

"C'mon, Mom. They don't make ornaments in the North Pole. They're all made in China!"

So apparently you can believe both in the magic of Christmas and the economic inevitability of job exportation. I'm just glad I wasn't the HR rep who had to "down-size" the elves. Aaaaawkward.