BRUSSELS -- Yesterday the Bush administration's demand that Santa Claus deliver the Christmas holiday seven months early in an attempt to revive the choking economy received strong international criticism. The schedule change many elven insiders say is logistically impossible.
    Among the strongest critics are members of the European Union. "Pressuring Santa by threatening to melt the Arctic polar ice cap on which he lives is a deplorable act of terrorism," said Swedish Environmental Minister Kjell Larsson, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
    The Bush administration seems unaffected by the protest. Earlier in the year Bush had backed out of the Kyoto protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, citing "US economic interests."