Poorville
“It’s what’s best for the children.”
Tough luck for Hansel and Gretel. Their parents are too poor. Social services comes to pick them up . . .

“Here’s some for you.”
“EEEEEK!”
“Welcome, dear little ones!”
The foster mother has a real gingerbread house and everything . . .
“Tomorrow we’ll try an exciting new recipe.”
Life in the gingerbread house settles into a routine. Nine meals a day. But there’s something suspicious about it . . .

“Abracadabra!”
Most household accidents occur in the kitchen . . .
“Plop!”
Just as Hansel and Gretel are destroying the evidence, down through the chimney plops Ernst Stavro Blofeld . . .

“I’m going to see that you kids have a happy Christmas!”
The criminal mastermind is moved by the children’s plight. And that witch was no teddy bear. She was a SMERSH agent . . .
“Cook over high heat until atoms split.”
Blofeld teaches Hansel and Gretel how to make gingerbread into weapons-grade uranium . . .

“Synchronize advent calendars.”
In an international operation of this scale, timing is of the essence . . .
“Season's greetings!”
“Gott im Himmel!”
At precisely the right moment, they ambush Santa Claus in the sky above Monaco . . .

“I love the smell of baked ham in the morning.”
“Let's go bowling.”
On the return trip they bomb Santa's workshop into the Stone Age, so the elves won't get any ideas . . .
Ernst Stavro Blofeld turns on the Christmas lights on Main Street, and the children find their way back home.

Roast reindeer, a delicious holiday entree
The one that got away
Implausible nuclear deterrent to safeguard Christmas peace
Golden Christmas tree
Sooty snowman
Santa passing out gifts and crying
Happy nuclear family
Hard packages
Soft packages
Poor children of Poorville
Merry, crackling fire
Model train

And that is how Poorville finally had a real Christmas . . .
“Happy consuming, kids!”
“We don't feel poor at all anymore!”
Store at room temperature
Thus ends “How Ernst Stavro Blofeld Saved Christmas”
But Blofeld will return!
In our next issue:
“Times are tough, huh, bud?”
“Would you like a vodka martini?”
Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the Talking Dog