A timely reminder for patriots everywhere

Texas Issues Annual Reminder Not To Shoot Santa

U.S.·Dec 21, 2025 · BabylonBee.com

…. "We are once again asking all Texans to please put down your shotguns for just twelve hours," said Governor Greg Abbott. "Do not attempt to shoot any low-flying sleighs guided by reindeer, no matter how badly you want to bag a caribou. Most importantly, do not shoot Santa. Let the big elf put down the presents and get out of there alive. There are lots of kids counting on you to holster your pistols for this one night."

According to sources at the North Pole, Santa has begun taking extra precautions while delivering toys in Texas. "Santa never crosses the border now without putting body armor on under the coat," said an elf on condition of anonymity. "In advance of the sleigh, we also launch fake ducks in the air to smoke out any Texans hiding with a twelve-gauge. Dasher still refuses to go there, though. Santa always has to drop him at the Oklahoma border and pick him back up on the way out. It's a real pain."

At publishing time, the State of Texas had also asked residents to please refrain from hog-tying reindeer.

I myself had a annual tradition of shooting down my former scoutmaster Art Brown’s inflatable Santa each Christmas Eve — not that I had anything against Mr. Brown, mind you — he was a great guy — but I did like a challenge. The first year, my Sheridan pellet rifle did the job, but the next year when I shot it nothing happened, and I realized that the clever fellow had stuffed Santa with crumpled-up paper. Not to be denied, I returned home to Gilliam Lane, retrieved my bow and arrows from the closet, and went back and placed three arrows in Santa’s chest. They showed wonderfully.

I kept this up for a number of years and then gave it a rest, but one Christmas Eve, home from college and sitting around the fireplace with my mother, she asked, “isn’t it time for you to shoot Mr. Brown’s Santa?” (I was “Mother”, I complained, I”’m twenty-one-years old; if I did that now, I’d be arrested, not just sent home for being a bad boy.” “But it’s a tradition,” she protested, you have to do it.” So I sighed, got up from the sofa, picked up my weapon and went up the street and completed my task.

I quit after that year, but two decades later I was sitting on the Riverside Yacht Club deck when a stranger approached: “excuse me,” he asked, “but aren’t you Chris Fountain?” I know better than to admit to that kind of question, but I answered truthfully anyway, and he proceeded to introduce himself: “I’m Bill (…), and when I bought Art Brown’s house last year, he told me that if I tied his Santa to the chimney at Christmas, Chris Fountain would come by and decorate it with arrows — but you haven’t done it.”

Until then, I’d had no idea Mr. Brown had known who the neighborhood nimrod was; the fact that he tolerated it and even found it amusing only increased my respect for the man.