All is well. Santa Claus will be free to travel to deliver presents to good boys and girls this year. CNN hosted a town hall with Sesame Street and experts like Dr. Fauci to ease the fears of children and deliver practical information to parents as we head into Christmas week. The town hall hosts were CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Anchor Erica Hill, and Big Bird.

I’ll begin by saying that I watched the last half, I think, of the town hall out of curiosity. One of my biggest pet peeves in politics is adults who drag children into the political world. Children don’t belong in politics and using them to make political statements is wrong. It’s bad enough that most young people are completely in the hands of liberal teachers by the time they finish their school careers, whether they go on to college or not. So, a liberal cable news network developing a town hall in conjunction with Sesame Street raised some red flags for me.

Dr. Fauci was one of the expert guests who was asked questions submitted, allegedly, by children. Fauci reassured young viewers that yes, Santa is clear to roll on Christmas Eve and he will not spread the coronavirus. Yes, Virginia, Dr. Fauci vaccinated Santa himself.

Introduced by Sesame Street’s Elmo, children asked Fauci hard-hitting questions, including how did Kris Kringle get the vaccine and how can he safely deliver presents to kids who have been good all year long. “Will Santa still be able to visit me in coronavirus this season? What if he can’t go to anyone’s house or near his reindeer?” one child said.

With a smile, Fauci said he himself had vaccinated Saint Nick, who would still be able to make his annual visit down the chimney.

“Well, I have to say I took care of that for you, because I was worried that you’d all be upset. What I did a little while ago, I took a trip up there to the North Pole. I went there, and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself. I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to go,” he said.

“He can come down the chimney. He can leave the presents…you have nothing to worry about. Santa Claus is good to go,” he continued.

Santa Claus will be coming to town this year, Dr. Anthony Fauci says.

“I took care of that for you,” he says. “…I took a trip up there to the North Pole; I went there and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself. I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to go.” #CNNSesameStreet pic.twitter.com/CNJ520XTew

— CNN (@CNN) December 19, 2020

Fauci was in full-on kindly grandpa mode, which was appropriate given the setting. He even reassured one four year old that it will be ok to hug Gramps and Nana if they don’t travel to see their grandchildren. I’m not sure that four-year-old Freddie was old enough to receive Fauci’s full answer but remember, this was all about feel-good exchanges with children.

Kids also asked Fauci when they can hug their family members again, especially their grandparents. A 4-year-old named Freddie says he wants to give his grandma one hundred hugs but wasn’t sure if that was safe.

“I think if you’re in the immediate household… and it’s not someone who’s maybe coming in and traveling … yeah you can give them hugs,” Fauci told him. But he also cautioned that if that person has traveled through airports and train stations and is coming into your house, perhaps hugs aren’t the best way to show affection.

One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the pandemic has been the isolation of older people from their families. Listening to a question about a grandchild’s longing to hug his grandparents was all too real. Also, when a child asked if the coronavirus vaccine shot hurts, Fauci said it’s a “pinch” that only lasts a few seconds. That’s a completely normal question from a kid. Why do doctors always say it’s a pinch? Shots never feel like a pinch to me, they feel like a jab. I hate needles.

I think some of this touchy-feely attitude comes from Fauci’s need to clean up some of his earlier doom and gloom warnings about holiday gatherings. Last week Fauci was busy denying that he ever suggested that Christmas be canceled for family gatherings. But he essentially did just that when he declared his daughters would not be coming home to spend the holiday with him and his wife – they’d only be spending the holiday with each other. He has warned about anticipated spikes in new cases of the coronavirus during the holiday season since before Thanksgiving.

“I’m not saying that everyone should cancel the family gathering, I’m saying that people will need to make individual choices,” Fauci told host Bill Hemmer. “When you talking about having a congregate setting for dinner, [I’m saying] not cancel the family aspect.

“You have some Christmas dinners [where] people bring friends and others in who travel from different parts of the country. You could have 15, 20 people at a dinner,” Fauci added. “That’s really somewhat risky. You can do a modified version of that.

“You don’t have to cancel things, you can still spend time with your family. I’m just asking people to be careful when it comes to travel that may not be necessary, travel that you can avoid, and when you get together, try to make some limitation to it.”

Hemmer pointed out that Fauci himself will not be celebrating Christmas with his children for the first time in his life.

“I’ve heard and seen tweets saying, ‘Fauci says cancel Christmas,'” said the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Nonsense. I’ve never said that.”

Good to know. At least the kiddos won’t have to worry about Santa skipping his holiday routine this year.