Breaking news

Grinch almost steals Christmas, but Internet foils him

Try as we might to make sure all the letters from Marion County schoolchildren made it to the North Pole in timely manner as part of our special Dear Santa section — one of the main reasons Santa subscribes to our paper each year — printed copies of our section accidentally omitted a collection of very fine letters from Lana Stevenson's kindergarten class at Marion Elementary School.

We suspect none other than the Grinch, who's always trying to steal Christmas. How he got into our office, we aren't sure. But on Christmas Eve we were able to assemble a small band of elves — no pun intended — to bring the power of the Internet to bear on fixing the problem.

With plenty of time to spare before Santa packed his sleigh, our elves managed to get the letters posted online and even corrected the PDF version of the printed paper, a special version of which is available free to everyone so parents and others can check out children's notes. Informed sources assure us that Santa, one of our most regular readers, was able to check the letters in time and pack his sleigh accordingly.

Our apologies to Santa, the young letter writers, and their parents and teachers. Rest assured we're working on figuring out exactly how the Grinch got into our office so similar problems can't happen in the future.