Santa Holds Court in Parliament
St. Nicholas has made his annual visit to Parliament at the end of the last sitting of the year, bearing gifts.
Santa, whose voice reminded some under-18 observers of radio personality Rohke Debelak, also sounded off on political matters from the podium.
Although it won't be a white Christmas this year, he said, he still came in his company sleigh.
"I don't know how it'll work next year with the company sleigh VAT deduction being scrapped, though. It's complicated," he told MPs.
But he praised Parliament, saying that it was good the child benefit stayed at 19 euros a month - a comforting sign that some things stay the same in a changing world.
As for who was naughty and nice, he credited the entire legislature for being so friendly with each other. "MPs go from one party to another, from a second one to a third. See? Friendly."
"Now if only the Reform Party could come to power in Tallinn and the Center Party could be the prime minster's party and change places too," Santa Claus said in proposing a rotation where all MPs could over time be members of all parties.
The Center Party got a radio in its stocking. "I was just thinking that the party would have sorely needed radios in the fall," he said, alluding to the October event where government hill was "besieged" by protesters.
The Social Democrats got a family trivia board game that would help them come up with additional questions for filibustering the budget.
IRL received an abacus so that they could "do something worthwhile" on the Finance Committee.
The Reform Party received a cash register and a fresh issue of Sirp.