The Buckets by Greg Cravens for December 22, 2019

“One of the things I had a hard time getting used to when I came to California in ’78 was Santa Claus in shorts.” Dennis Franz

“Santa Claus has the right idea – visit people only once a year.” Victor Borge

“A good many things go around in the dark besides Santa Claus.” Herbert Hoover

Who would have guessed that Santa had a cleft chin. :D

Don’t think Santa has changed anything since adding Rudolf.

So is Mrs. Claus still around or is he running around with his secretary?

I remember a similar cartoon a couple decades ago; Santa lost the weight, beard, got a Spandex ski suit, had a couple hoes, and used a Saab instead of a sleigh. (not Greg’s work).

I thought it was Stan Lee in the first panel.

Why does Santa look like Stan Lee? Is this one of his cameos?

Next year… Yellow jump suit and nun-chucks…

Either Stan Lee or the most interesting man in the world…

Some things should never change.

Very imaginative strip…

I’ve often pictured Santa in a geosynchronous space station above the North Pole and a string of satellites keeping track of the kids (via ‘Elf on a Shelf’ figures) worldwide. Of course he wouldn’t need a sleigh since he could ‘beam’ a la ‘Star Trek’ into the kids’ homes to drop off the packages or just beam them directly. Those ‘Elf on a Shelf’ figures would be the perfect GPS system for depositing the packages on target. At least if he were in orbit, the melting of the Arctic ice cap wouldn’t dump him into the Arctic Ocean. That’s going to be tough to explain to kids in the future. “No, dear, Santa and his elves didn’t drown, they moved to a space station.” It’s either that or he packs up and moves to the South Pole. At least it’s a continent and won’t melt out from under him. It’s late and I’m getting silly. Time for bed.