Naughty & Nice: We're Making a List

(Dec. 14) -- The big guy at the North Pole is very busy this month. He even needs volunteer "elves" in Alaska to answer his mail. So the Sphere crew is pitching in to help Santa by making a list of who's naughty and who's nice. We'll update it during December and we hope you'll check it twice -- or more -- and pass it along to your friends. Everyone is invited to post comments nominating naughty or nice boys and girls for Santa's list.


NAUGHTY: Mark Sanford -- The other shoe has dropped for South Carolina's "Love Gov." A panel of lawmakers decided this week that Sanford didn't deserve to be impeached on ethics charges raised after he admitted to cheating on his wife. The governor was visiting his lover in Argentina for five days in June when he'd told his staff he was out hiking the Appalachian Trail. Now Jenny Sanford has told her husband to take a hike. She's filed for divorce. Let's just say Santa won't be bringing Gov. Sanford any new trail boots this year.

NICE: Secret Santa -- Ol' Kris Kringle doesn't mind his identity being borrowed, as long as it's to keep a philanthropic tradition alive. A retired police officer in Kansas City, Kan., is carrying on for the original Secret Santa, Larry Stewart -- who spent years anonymously handing out $100 bills to strangers before he died in 2007. The unnamed ex-cop was on duty Wednesday, passing out about $14,000 in cash across the city. He's recruited about 20 more Secret Santas who'll be doing the same thing in other cities this month. All they ask of people who get the money -- sometimes as much as $2,000 -- is that they do something nice for someone else.

NAUGHTY: Tiger Woods -- The world's greatest golfer has been in the rough before, but never like this. After his mysterious, middle-of-the-night SUV crash and allegations of playing around with women who are not his wife, Woods said he was "profoundly sorry" and announced he's taking an "indefinite break" from golf. "I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people," he said in a statement posted on his Web site Friday. This blow to his wholesome image has cost him at least one of his lucrative endorsement deals, but Santa figures Woods can afford to get himself another Cadillac Escalade and doesn't really need a new golf club to replace the one his wife reportedly wielded on the night of the crash.

NAUGHTY: Michaele and Tareq Salahi -- It's not nice to crash the president's first state dinner and embarrass the Secret Service. The uninvited White House visitors who hoped to land a spot on a reality TV show have achieved a different kind of notoriety -- the kind that comes with congressional investigations and talk of federal charges. Whatever Santa has in his bag for the Salahis this year, it's definitely not an invitation from the Obamas to drop in at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. again.

NICE: Chris Miller -- When the harvest was finished at Miller's farm near Longmont, Colo., she used to let the neighbors' cows eat the vegetables left in the fields. But for the past two years, she's opened the farm to recession-stricken people. Thousands showed up on the weekend before Thanksgiving to dig up carrots and potatoes for free. Miller says she was brought up to believe "what goes around comes around." That's the spirit that makes St. Nick go "ho, ho, ho."

NAUGHTY: William Caldwell -- You'd think that if anyone would know better than to mess with Santa Claus, it would be an elf. Apparently, this guy missed the memo from the North Pole. Caldwell, dressed in an elf costume, was arrested at a suburban Atlanta mall Dec. 2. After waiting in line to have his picture taken, he told the mall Santa he was carrying dynamite, police said. Cops evacuated the place and found no explosives. Instead of a present, Caldwell got this nice mug shot to put in his book of holiday memories.

NICE: Carolyn Blashek -- Not all of Santa's helpers work at the North Pole. In sunny Southern California, Blashek leads an army of volunteers who pack boxes full of cheer and send them to U.S. troops around the world. Operation Gratitude got its start in her living room and has grown so large that its package drives now take place in an armory outside Los Angeles. In six years, Blashek's nonprofit organization has sent nearly half a million boxes filled with donated items to Americans overseas -- which takes a big load off Santa's reindeer.

NAUGHTY: Drunkest Guy Ever -- We don't know who he is, where he came from or where he went. And judging from this video, neither did he.


The unidentified man went to a convenience store in October on what can't really be called a beer run. Beer stagger-and-collapse is more like it. But "DGE" stumbled into Internet infamy with this performance caught by surveillance cameras, which inspired dozens of YouTube remixes and even video games. He lurched out of the store without the beer and Santa won't be leaving any 12-packs under his tree. So Drunkest Guy Ever will just have to settle for the gift of viral video stardom this year.

NAUGHTY, THEN NICE: Reformed Robber -- Another store surveillance video that was all over the Web earlier this year has a happy ending. The story began in May when a man armed with a baseball bat tried to rob Mohammed Sohail's Long Island, N.Y., deli.


Sohail pulled a gun and the would-be robber dropped to his knees, begging for his life and saying he was desperate to feed his family. After praying with the man, Sohail gave him $40 and a loaf of bread -- and let him go. Six months later, Sohail received a letter with $50 enclosed. He's sure it came from the man who tried to rob him. It read, in part: "Now I have a new child and good job make good money staying out of trouble and taking care of my family. You gave me forty dollars thank you for sparing my life. Because of that you change my life."

Even if you used to be naughty, it's never too late to be nice. Santa notices. And he's always updating his list.