A Perfect Christmas Is Suboptimal

My kids come racing down the stairs on Christmas morning like it’s a jailbreak—feet pounding, voices high, eyes wide, charging toward the tree as if Santa personally negotiated a trade deal with their deepest desires overnight.

- By Roland Fryer

I’m happy for them.But every year, as wrapping paper detonates across the living room and a small mountain of objects emerges—some beloved, some baffling—I have the same unseasonal thought: This is wildly inefficient.