Santa Hears Depressing Christmas Wishes In Saturday Night Live Cold Open

The news is making for a depressing Christmas in the latest Saturday Night Live cold open. The first sketch of Saturday night's James Franco-hosted episode featured Kenan Thompson as a mall Santa and Kate McKinnon as one of his elves, dealing with some rather morbid wishes from a group of children.

The sketch starts out with Santa, back from his lunch break at Panda Express and ready to hear some Christmas wishes. The first child, Tyler, says that he wants a Mega Blocks dinosaur and laser tag, both of which Santa can handle. However, he then throws him for a loop when he says that he also wants to know "what Al Franken did." 

Santa tries to get things back on track with the next child, but she wants to follow-up on Tyler's question and asks if President Trump is on the naughty list. "Santa tries to stay out of political matters, but our president may have said or done a few naughty things," Santa replies. "19 accusers, Google it," says McKinnon's elf. 

One child, Billy, wants a football, but he also wants to know why players kneel during the National Anthem. "They're just kneeling because they're tired," replies Santa. "From all the brain injuries?" Billy asks. Santa is relieved when another child comes up who doesn't want to talk about politics, but he then reveals that he wants to talk about the opioid crisis. Another child asks for a toy "like the one Matt Lauer gave to his coworker." 

The sketch ends on a sweet note, with McKinnon telling a young girl who just wants everything to be okay that "as bad as things might be... it will be okay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for another three years, 42 days, and 24 minutes, Jenny, but most people in America are good people and eventually good people will fix our country." 

Franco, who recently directed and starred in The Disaster Artist, hosted Saturday night's episode alongside musical guest SZA. Saturday Night Live returns on Dec. 16 at 11:30 p.m. on NBC with host Kevin Hart and musical guest The Foo Fighters.