【1985 Archives】

'Twas the night before Christmas985 Archivesas the fire roared and the Christmas tree lights sparkled, Trump started talking to children about Santa.

It didn't go over well.

As the president took a phone call from a 7-year-old named Collman, he insinuated that Santa wasn't real.

With a chuckle, the president said: "Are you still a believer in Santa Claus? 'Cuz at 7 it's marginal, right?"

Collman was patched through to a White House line after calling a Santa tracker, presumably because she believed in Santa and wanted to know his location. The tracker, organized by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), is run by volunteers who field calls from curious children wanting to know where Santa is as Christmas approaches. The president and first lady traditionally take NORAD calls on Christmas Eve.

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Trump's Santa blunder got boomeranged around social media as Twitter universally facepalmed.

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The NORAD calls came after Trump spent the day "all alone" in the White House, tweeting amid a falling stock market and a government shutdown of his own doing.

What a way to cap off the day. Sorry, Collman.

Correction: Dec. 26, 2018, 9:25 a.m. PST A previous version of this post incorrectly spelled Collman's name. It's Collman, not Coleman.