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McSweeney’s
27 Dec 20:21 • Lia Woodward and Leah Folta

This Five-Hundred-Word Bumper Sticker on My Tesla Explains Why I’m Not a Bad Person

Our 17th most-read article of 2025. - - - Originally published April 25, 2025. - - - Right now, you’re behind me, within reading distance on the freeway, at the stoplight, in the parking lot, maybe in the drive-thru line, or perhaps in my very own driveway (anywhere but a g...

McSweeney’s
26 Dec 14:27 • Various McSweeney's Contributors

Our 25 Most-Read Pieces of 2025

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We’re counting down our most-read pieces of 2025. This list will be updated daily until we reach #1 on December 31. Thanks to all our contributors, readers, and supporters this year!

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25. I’m a German Citizen in 1933, and Is It Just Me or Is It Really Hard to Get Any Work Done Right Now?
by Lia Woodward and Leah Folta

24. Escape Room Challenge: Your European Airbnb
by Juliana Gray

23. The Problem with My City Is That It’s a City
by Devin Wallace

22. New York Times’ Style Guide Substitutions for ‘The President Violated the Constitution’
by Carlos Greaves

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McSweeney’s
24 Dec 19:06 • Andrea Cavedo

I’m the High Note in “O Holy Night,” and I’m Ready to Hijack Your Christmas Eve Service

It’s that magical time of year again. Candles and poinsettias decorate every surface, small children are dressed as sheep, angels are telling people to “Fear not.” So, really, with Christmas just hours away, what do any of us have to fear? Me, bitch. I’m the high A flat at t...

McSweeney’s
24 Dec 13:15 • Talia Argondezzi

Rudolph the Red Won’t Guide Santa’s Bourgeois Sleigh Tonight

First, let’s get one thing clear, Santa: I ain’t a scab. The collective bargaining agreement clearly mandates the sleigh be led by a union-approved eight-reindeer team. Your little “won’t you guide my sleigh tonight” routine is a bald attempt to dilute the team’s negotiating...

McSweeney’s
23 Dec 19:06 • Alyson D’Lando

A Day in the Life of Mary Hatch in the Alternate Bedford Falls

7:00-8:30 A.M. Wake up whenever I want—no kids! 9 A.M. Open library, feeling refreshed and ready for the day. 10:30 A.M. Send another overdue notice to the impish man who checked out Tom Sawyer months ago and listed last known address as “Heaven.” Men like this are why I’m a...

McSweeney’s
23 Dec 14:12 • Tom Smyth

Santa Claus Responds to Christmas Wishes Made in Holiday Songs

“I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” Forget the naughty-and-nice list; we need a third list for morons. What the hell are you going to do with a hippopotamus? You do not have the resources or space to effectively care for a wild animal in your residential home, especially o...

McSweeney’s
22 Dec 23:03 • Stephen Ruddy

Three Kings White Elephant Gift Exchange

A great star shines over a stable in Bethlehem. The Three Kings arrive and kneel before the Holy Family. BALTHAZAR: We come bearing gifts for the newborn king, O Holy Ones. MARY: Just put them on the table. We’re doing a white elephant thing this year. MELCHIOR: White elepha...

McSweeney’s
22 Dec 19:06 • Laura Foody

The North Pole Has Suffered a Data Breach

Dear Valued Child, This letter was slipped into your stocking to inform you that we recently identified a breach of our North Pole Magic Systems (NPMS) that may have compromised your personal data—namely, the thousands of hours of footage we have of when you are sleeping, as...

McSweeney’s
22 Dec 14:42 • Madeleine Trebenski and Anne Marie Wonder

Santa’s Workshop Joins the Gig Economy

For one magical night a year, Santa and his friends bring holiday cheer to millions of people around the world. For the rest of the 364 nights? They’re just like us: hustling to get by in an ever-shrinking global economy. Rudolph hasn’t had time for any reindeer games latel...

McSweeney’s
19 Dec 22:06 • Leslie Ylinen

Is He the Grinch or Just a Gen-X Man at Christmas?

“Why, for fifty-three years, I’ve put up with it now! I MUST stop this Christmas from coming! But HOW?” — Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas - - - 1. He’s roughly fifty-three years old, give or take. 2. Unlike the music from his day, he thinks everything the youth are...

McSweeney’s
19 Dec 17:03 • Michael Snyder

Excerpts from The Believer: Place: The Nukus Museum of Art

FEATURES: - Ossuary jars - Anti-revolutionary painting - Toxic dust - Solastalgia - - - It was a cold, dry night in April, and a crowd had gathered in the center of Nukus, the capital of the Central Asian Republic of Karakalpakstan, to squint through a skein of toxic dust ...

McSweeney’s
19 Dec 13:39 • Kevin Maher

Network Notes on The Yule Log

Overall, you’ve got a strong concept: a log burning in a fireplace, on a loop for five hours. But we have a few notes.

Can the log be more aspirational?
Focus-group it to see if kids aged six to eleven think fire is too urban.
The log seems passive. Provide more backstory.
Can the fireplace have a cool sidekick? (e.g., A smart-mouthed pinecone)
Does the music have to be Christmas music?
Will viewers know what a fireplace is?
Make the fire more appealing to single men.
Where’s the merchandising tie-in?
Could the fire sing a duet with Michael Bublé?
Instead of a holiday one-off, could it be a weekly series? (e.g., Jake Log is an ex-cop turned P.I. who plays by his own rules.)
Why fire?

Otherwise, it’s perfect.

Happy Holidays!

McSweeney’s
19 Dec 02:06 • Cezary Jan Strusiewicz

Whatever Happened to the Art of Brainwashing America Before Plunging It into an Unnecessary War?

“President Donald Trump on Wednesday assailed his White House predecessors for not pushing back against Venezuela earlier and stated that his intention is ‘getting land, oil rights, whatever we had’ returned by the government in Caracas.” — PBS - - - I’m absolutely disgusted...

McSweeney’s
18 Dec 20:06 • Spencer Hyde

Home Alone, Updated for the Age of Surveillance

Kate McCallister realizes that her son Kevin didn’t make it with them to the airport on their way to Paris for the holidays. She frantically pulls out her phone and calls him up. KEVIN: Hello? MOM: Kevin! KEVIN: Mom? MOM: I’m so sorry you’re home alone! Your sister accidenta...

McSweeney’s
18 Dec 14:15 • Dan McCoy

It’s a Wonderful Life, Guy from It’s a Wonderful Life, Who Convinces Another Guy to Open the Gym Floor So Everyone Falls in the Pool

EXT. — THE VASTNESS OF SPACE A star, representing the angel ALBERT, shoots across the sky. It stops at a distant GALAXY. As the heavenly bodies talk, their lights blink. ALBERT You sent for me, sir? GALAXY Yes, Albert. Tonight’s going to be the crucial night for "Young Punk ...

McSweeney’s
17 Dec 20:06 • Tyler Gooch

Jubilee: One Child vs. Twenty Santa Deniers

Mateo, a child, sits at a debate table opposite an empty chair. He’s surrounded by twenty Santa Claus Deniers, each holding a red flag. MATEO: My name is Mateo, I’m six years old, and Santa Claus is real. The sound of a countdown can be heard, “3…2…1… ding.” Several Santa De...

McSweeney’s
17 Dec 15:15 • Katy Maiolatesi

Reviews of New Food: Williams Sonoma’s The Grinch™ Hot Chocolate Bomb

I am somewhat of a hot chocolate maven. I normally consume this winter-wonderful drink through powdered packages and hot water, and I know my way around the myriad packages in my local grocery aisle. You could say I am a bona fide Swiss Mistress. As I was scrolling through t...

McSweeney’s
17 Dec 14:12 • Emily Greenberg and Cliff Mayotte

Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes: November 2025: Atrocities 530-580

Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to e...

McSweeney’s
16 Dec 20:06 • Madeline Goetz and Will Lampe

Red and Green Flags, According to Protagonists of Hallmark Christmas Movies

RED FLAG: He sometimes has to work late and Q4 is his busy season. GREEN FLAG: His full-time job is directing the local middle school Christmas pageant, which takes up only two hours every Tuesday, November to mid-December. - - - RED FLAG: He wears bespoke suits and flashy P...

McSweeney’s
16 Dec 15:15 • Heidi Lux

The Deleted Sex Scene from Pride and Prejudice

Dancing was the first step to falling in love, and falling in love was the first step to lying down in tandem. Not soon after Elizabeth had persuaded Mr. Darcy to join her in a Scotch reel, were they flushed from exertion; their bodies vexed with desire. Elizabeth had wanted...

McSweeney’s
16 Dec 14:12 • Heidi Lux

The Deleted Sex Scene from Pride & Prejudice

Dancing was the first step to falling in love, and falling in love was the first step to lying down in tandem. Not soon after Elizabeth had persuaded Mr. Darcy to join her in a Scotch reel, were they flushed from exertion; their bodies vexed with desire. Elizabeth had wanted...

McSweeney’s
15 Dec 19:06 • Ross Bullen

My Name Is Gregor Samsa, and This Time I Woke Up as a Grad Student at Cal State San Bernardino

You’ve probably heard about the first time this happened to me. You know: guy goes to sleep, wakes up as a giant bug, freaks out his family, worries about losing his job, and his dad throws an apple at him. It’s a tale as old as time. And, I’m not going to lie, it was a huge...

McSweeney’s
15 Dec 14:42 • Sonia Weiser

Rules for Our Ethically Non-Monogamous Game of Dreidel

Nun
Player and their primary partner date solo, but tell each other everything.

Gimmel
Player and their primary partner date together, but only one is happy about the arrangement.

Hey
Player and their primary partner date solo. No one’s thrilled about it, but it’s the only way they can maintain the appearance of a happy marriage that hasn’t been sexually satisfying in years. Still, it’s the suburbs, and people talk.

Shin
Player and their primary partner say they’re taking a break from it all while their kid applies to colleges, but are both secretly sleeping with the bi neighbor who sees the same couple’s counselor with her own wife, who is unaware that she has been having an affair with the non-binary spouse of her synagogue’s queer Deadhead cantor for sixteen years.

How to win
No one wins.

McSweeney’s
12 Dec 19:03 • Jennie Egerdie

Bari Weiss’s A Charlie Brown Christmas

Sixty years ago, A Charlie Brown Christmas made its debut on CBS. Today, as part of CBS’s new initiative to modernize content, CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss updates this Christmas classic. - - - Charlie Brown and Linus lean on a brick wall. Snowflakes fall around them. CHA...

McSweeney’s
12 Dec 15:15 • Heather Christle

Excerpts from The Believer: Vanessa Bell Is Not at Home

Still Life with Plaster Head, 1947 by Vanessa Bell. Oil on board. 53.5 44.5 cm. Estate of Vanessa Bell. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. - - - The artist, long dismissed for her domestic interpretation of modernism, is finally getting her due. But can her queer arcadia be ...

McSweeney’s
12 Dec 14:12 • John Moe

I’m the Ponytail Guy from Good Will Hunting, and I Can’t Enjoy Fries Anymore

Honestly, I don’t know to whom this letter is directed. God? Harvard? (I’m taking a deep, strengthening breath here) Will Hunting himself? My employer-provided therapist told me to do this, and the university committee says to do whatever she says. For many years now, I have...

McSweeney’s
11 Dec 19:06 • Mike Lacher

Times New Roman Turns Right

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to [Calibri] ‘wasteful,’ casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts.” — New York Times - - - I used to be the default. The king. Then things changed. So now it’s time to do ...

McSweeney’s
11 Dec 14:12 • Catherine M. Young

Bruce Springsteen’s Exes Grab Brunch

Several women share bottomless mimosas somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. MARY 1: I slammed the screen door, and the first thing he said was he hated being alone, and we weren’t that young anymore. I said, “Get off my porch.” Then he said, “You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’r...

McSweeney’s
10 Dec 19:03 • Dan Carroll

Why I, Santa, Am Demolishing My Workshop and Replacing It with an Enormous Ballroom

As your Santa, it is my right to run the North Pole exactly how I want to, and I have to say, it’s about time we made some changes to this dump. And believe me, there is no bigger problem than a lack of space to throw holiday ragers. Therefore, I am exercising my full author...

McSweeney’s
10 Dec 14:12 • Sarah Walt Weaver

“I Don’t Know, CAN you?” A Teacher’s Grammar Lesson Goes Too Far

A sad but true story. - - - Ms. Johnson’s fiancé left her at the altar. According to legend, that’s why she was so mean. I never got it. As a shy child, nobody realized I needed glasses until 5th grade. Most teachers, including Ms. Johnson, thought I was an idiot. I once g...