When we received an e-mail from reader Ryan entitled, “The most brilliantly evil Christmas commercial ever made,” well, our interest was piqued. Surely that bar is very high. There have been some great (terrible) moments in holiday commercial history.

“Basically Hallmark threatens Santa to die in a blizzard unless children beg their parents to buy the life saving ornament for $22.95,” Ryan writes. Is that what’s going on here? You be the judge.

In the commercial, Santa’s on someone’s roof, so his life isn’t in danger. The real danger apparently is that he won’t find your house without the ornament to use as a magical beacon. Surely a few people have asked for GPS units and smartphones for Christmas, though. Santa has my permission to tear the boxes of any of my gifts open if it will help him to find my house. I’m cool with that.

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