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Santa delivered a puzzling disparity of gifts in the Wood River Valley this Christmas, leaving children in Bellevue and Hailey feeling naughty and those in Ketchum and Sun Valley particularly nice.
In Bellevue, Santa delivered 7-year-old Sarah Jennings a My Little Pony starter set with two pony figurines.
In Ketchum, Kaylee Bratominous awoke Christmas morning to find two actual ponies frolicking across the 10-acre lawn outside her family’s 8,000-square-foot home.
The ponies, which cost well over $100,000 including a full-time trainer and riding instructor, were purchased from a champion breeder in Kentucky and delivered on Christmas Eve.
“Santa loves me so much,” Bratominous said with high-pitched glee. “It’s because I’m such an amazingly good little girl. I’m not going to apologize for being fabulous.
“People are jealous ’cause they wanna be us.”
Bratominous is expected to be “obsessed” with the ponies for about a month before losing interest.
Boys were subject to the same trend.
Six-year-old Sammy Nelson, a first-grader at Woodside Elementary in Hailey, unwrapped a Nerf football from Santa and spent the entire day playing with it in his front yard with friends.
Nelson’s father, Bud, said he bought his son the football “because Santa only leaves socks anymore, and I wanted him to have something more exciting and fun. He’s such a great kid.”
In Sun Valley, 6-year-old Braxton Goldennuts IV awoke to find Santa had gifted him an NFL football signed by last season’s Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. Additionally, Goldennuts received VIP tickets to this season’s Super Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif., which he will attend with his father via the family’s private jet.
The tickets were delivered on a ACSL SOTEN drone — also a Christmas gift from ”Santa” — which retails for over $16,000.
“What in the actual [expletive]?” said Bud Nelson, a contractor. “What is wrong with those people?”
Nelson said he was referring to parents in the north valley, as he does not believe those gifts came from Santa.
“That’s impossible,” Nelson said. “Ponies cannot fly like reindeer, and there’s no way they’re fitting in Santa’s sleigh. So how did they get here, exactly?”
Parents in the north valley do not deny the extravagant gifts came from them, not Santa, but they contend they have done nothing wrong.
“We are simply teaching our children how the world works,” said Vance Bratominous, Kaylee’s father. “Your entire self-worth is tied to money. They need to learn that principle at a young age.”
While Santa was vacationing in an undisclosed location in the South Pacific and unavailable for comment Monday, a spokesman from his workshop said the white-bearded, jolly shaman is not responsible for the gift disparity.
“All kids just get socks now,” said Snappy, an elf at Santa’s workshop. “That’s all we make anymore.“
The sock policy was adopted in 2011 to prevent hierarchical nonsense surrounding absurd gift-giving.
“Like with most everything, the blame falls on the rich,” Snappy said.
The elf doubled down, adding that the policy is clearly not working as wealthy parents continue gifting Ferraris and helicopters to their children and claiming they’re from Santa.
“Someone isn’t upholding their end of the bargain,” Snappy said. “To call some of these parents ‘selfish children’ would be an insult to children.”
As of press time, Braxton Goldennuts had crashed his new drone into some trees, where he left it and where it still remains.
Additionally, his signed Super Bowl-winning Eagles football had already rolled under a couch in the family’s sprawling mansion and been mindlessly forgotten. It is expected to be rediscovered by the cleaning lady next summer, when it‘ll be stuffed into a box of old toys and stored in the attic.
It was not known whether Snappy will be disciplined or possibly even censured for his remarks. But he probably will.
