‘I am all alone’: An isolated Trump unleashes a storm of Yuletide gloom  —  The Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter's insights  —  The Christmas Eve grievances billowing from the White House on Monday formed a heavy cloud of Yuletide gloom.

Time for G.O.P. to Threaten to Fire Trump  —  Republican leaders need to mount an intervention.  —  Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office.  I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box.

Trump tells boy that believing in Santa at 7 is ‘marginal’  —  President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump took calls from children anxious to find out where Santa is on his gift-giving journey.  —  In one conversation, Trump asked a 7-year-old named Coleman, “Are you still a believer in Santa?”

Kevin Spacey Releases Bizarre Video Monologue Amid Sexual Assault Charge  —  “You never actually saw me die, did you?  Conclusions can be so deceiving.  Miss me?”  —  Kevin Spacey, fresh off the news that he faces a felony charge over an alleged sexual assault at a bar in 2016 …

Dutch church clocks up 1,400 hours to prevent family being deported  —  Non-stop service held to prevent deportation  —  (CNN)A non-stop church service in the Netherlands — aimed at stopping an Armenian family from being deported — has become so popular it has issued tickets for the Christmas period to control numbers.

McCaskill warns Dems about ‘cheap’ rhetoric; says GOP senators privately believe Trump is ‘nuts’  —  (CNN)Sen. Claire McCaskill has some advice for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the incoming freshman who has rapidly risen from obscurity to one of the most well-known figures in the Democratic Party: Talk is cheap.

TSA moving toward floppy-ear airport dog force because pointy-ear dogs ‘scare children’  —  The Transportation Security Administration is in the process of swapping out pointy-ear dogs for floppy-ear ones in an effort to put more of the public at ease when interacting with its canines.

‘Hunker down like a jackass’: Shutdown could drag on for weeks  —  A large swath of the federal government is shut down — and so are negotiations to reopen it.  —  President Donald Trump's standoff with Democratic leaders over the border wall dragged into a third day on Monday …

The vice president should be preparing for the worst  —  One good thing about holding a senior position in government is you get a lot of free advice — which brings me to the choice Vice President Mike Pence is about to make when he chooses a new chief of staff.

Scarborough: ‘Terminal’ Trump Presidency Threatens a Global ‘Pandemic’  —  The End is Nigh, take umpteen. . .  As we've noted before, the challenge for Morning Joe is to outdo itself in doom-laden declarations about President Trump.  By that standard, the show did well this morning.