Yes, Virginia, there is a website that will allow you to order coal for your child's Christmas stocking. And this is it: www.santaclauscoal.com.

"Customize Each bag of Coal with a Personal Message!" the site trumpets….

"After you have decided to purchase your deliverer of the bad news (that someone has not been on their best behavior this year), customize the attached card with a message ie:

"It has come to my attention that someone has not been good this year, I know I visit all young boys and girls and give them the toys they ask for, but because you have been Naughty this year I almost past by your house, but because your Mom and Dad called me to explain how your improving in behavior and school work you can find your presents under your bed. Remember I will be watching myself to see if you are behaving for next year! ---Love, Santa."

(And also remember, kid, if you don't do better in your school work, you might end up publishing illiterate websites like "Holiday Coal!")

Exactly how rotten would a kid have to be to deserve the experience of waking up on a snowy Christmas morning, full of excitement and anticipation, bounding out of bed, bouncing on his sleepy parents in glee, and charging down the stairs (after Dad has turned on the Christmas tree lights and grabbed his camcorder, of course!) to see what Jolly Old St. Nick has left behind in his midnight travels, only to find lumps of coal? A young Hannibal Lector, perhaps?

  "Dear Hanny:

You were already on thin ice before you ate your third grade teaching assistant! Sorry for the coal, but you were far too naughty for me to give you that fondue set you wanted.

Merry Christmas!

Regards,

Santa"

Call me an old softy, but this seems even too cruel for a fate the murderous Dr. Lector. Maybe if Santa had given him a nice yo-yo and perhaps some dental floss at a crucial juncture on the road to Clarice Starling, Hannibal Lector might have eschewed cannibalism and become a star on the cooking channel. Oh, I know, I know; the website isn't really intended for parents to use to turn Christmas morning into a life-haunting horror and guarantee enough emotional scars to force their children into more psychoanalysis than Woody Allen. Its true target is adults who want to give coal to friends as a joke, or foes to let them know that they really, really are scumballs, or former spouses to ask why they couldn't have lost those 60 pounds before the divorce. Lighten up, you cranky old ethicist!

The joke gets an ethical pass, I suppose. As long as the puckish coal-giver takes pains to make sure that no revolvers are within easy reach and there's a diamond ring hidden in the coal that his beloved will find before she rips his face off, it's a harmless, if risky, prank. But if the coal is given with any kind of malice at all, and Holiday Coal obviously expects to facilitate such "gifts," the Ethics Scoreboard isn't laughing. If there is any holiday that is supposed to banish thoughts of revenge, retribution, nasty gifts and practical jokes, it is Christmas. Using the gift-giving tradition to mete out punishment and settle scores is simply wrong, and any website that encourages and facilitates such conduct is a blight on cyberspace. Christmas is not the time to be expressing anger, hate, pique or pettiness, and if you can't manage to do your part to make others happy and feel loved, even if it's just a kind word or a thoughtful gesture, stay home and wait for April Fools Day and Halloween.

But you already knew that. It's the unethical folks at "Holiday Coal" who don't, and the Scoreboard officially hopes that they have a lot of coal left over on December 26.