THE GRINCH'S BETA COUSIN.

Yes, it's time to put the seasonal displays away, but those are put away until the next Festive Season.  Not, though, if you are MSNBC's Hayes Brown.  He wants to cancel the Santa Tracker for once and for all.

This Christmas Eve, the United States military will be busy “tracking” Santa Claus’ sleigh as it makes its reindeer-powered journey across American airspace. What’s today known as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, has been doing so each holiday season for over 60 years. If I had my way, this year would be the last.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Scrooge or some kind of anti-Santa advocate prone to humbuggery, and I acknowledge that the story behind how NORAD’s predecessor started the tradition is cute: a typo in a newspaper for Sears’ Santa hotline was the number for a secret line of communication, originally designed to give the orders to launch a nuclear onslaught against and/or in response to the Soviet Union. Heartwarming stuff, folks.

"Don't get me wrong" is right up there with "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

No, I’d prefer we end the tradition because it’s about time that we decoupled St. Nick from the world’s most powerful military. American culture is saturated with a desire to associate the military with the saccharine. We get videos of soldiers returning home to their pets or children but never questions about why they were deployed for so long or what threat they were fighting; military jets flying over NFL games give us an injection of jingoist testosterone before more regionally focused battles of testosterone are played on the field; and we get the Netflix movie “Operation Christmas Drop,” a seasonally themed rom-com that cheerfully seeks to boost approval for America’s military base in Guam.

"Jingoist testosterone." Gotta like that; and if Guam could be depended on for three electoral votes for Democrats, there'd probably be somebody at MSNBC wanting to make it a state.  The column gets sillier from there, speculating on Santa Claus becoming collateral damage because a tracking computer malfunctioned.  I don't know whether Hayes Brown was naughty or nice, but Jazz Shaw has thoughts.  "You can debate any of the known issues with war and other broader policies without punishing the children who still have the opportunity to enjoy the Christmas season. So for Hayes Brown, I shall award him five out of five lumps of coal in his stocking. Merry Christmas, sir, whether you manage to find a way to enjoy it or not."