Once I read a ways into this and picked up its rhythm (while figuring out the characters), this was a great, biting, surprisingly relevant read. Speaking of the corporate overlords: "The common citizen could never imagine how selfish they were. So selfish that they would destroy the world if it got in the way of their profits, then write the world off as a tax deduction." Operation Two Birds plans to bomb America, blame it on a foreign power, necessitating an endless war that will enrich the defense industry while ridding the world of "surplus people." Doesn't sound like a fun book, does it. Still, along the way, the reader learns something about the uneasy relationship between the Church and St. Nicholas and the legend of Black Peter, and takes a trip that combines Dante's circles of hell with Dickens' ghosts of Christmas past (including some past Presidents.) America is compared to a self-absorbed, whining, two-year-old (thus the title). I hear it falls a bit in quality, but still, I'm looking forward to The Terrible Threes and some more of Reed's rhythms. ( )

I did read something about Black Peter and I guess it was here. ( )

Zany, allusive, cynical predictions of a future Santa Claus coopting and mixing, politics, Christmas, and reggae ( )