“Horseback Riding” Kim Sends Holiday Greeting Card Amid Ominous “Christmas Gift” Warning

North Korea has declared it will send a “Christmas gift” to the United States but without specifying what the potentially menacing ‘surprise’ gift could be.

This after test-firing two short-range missiles on Thanksgiving Day, in a now familiar pattern of doing threatening things on American holidays.

And with that message this week came an early Christmas card of sorts — for what would make the 2019 holiday season complete without a photo of jolly old Kim trotting gingerly on a white horse through snow-covered fir trees?

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency released a photo set of Kim visiting Mount Paektu, while on horseback, also with his wife in the group. It follows a prior similar visit made in October. 

“According to legend, Mount Paektu is the birthplace of Dangun, the mythical founder of the first Korean kingdom some 4,000 years ago,” CNN reports of the potential symbolism. 

Hopefully Pyongyang is content that these photos are the only “gift” that the US public and Washington needs, given they’ve already spread holiday cheer and an avalanche of mockery online. 

The new threat of a “Christmas gift” however, appears conditioned on whether there can be positive developments in ongoing talks between Washington and Pyongyang. The North has lately accused the Trump administration of leveraging talks with Kim for mere domestic political gain, ahead of the 2020 election. 

“The dialogue touted by the US is, in essence, nothing but a foolish trick hatched to keep the DPRK bound to dialogue and use it in favor of the political situation and election in the US,” Ri Thae Song, a first vice minister at the North Korean Foreign Ministry working on US affairs, according to state media.

“It is entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select to get,” warned Ri. But again, someone should let the them know, this is all the gift the Western public needs:

Many fear that this latest threat could be a sign that North Korea is preparing to resume long-distance missiles tests, also amid a looming deadline set by Pyongyang on nuclear negotiations with Trump.

NK officials have said time is up by the close of the year. 

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State media posted the following comments with the release of the latest photos of Kim on white horseback:

“Kim Jong Un, the great leader of our revolution who opens up the period of a great leap for the development of the revolution, personally left the sacred trace in the revolutionary battle sites in Mt Paektu area… through knee-high virgin snow,” an English-language dispatch reported.

NEW: Kim Jong Un looked round the revolutionary battle sites in the area of Mt. Paektu, says KCNA.

Story and more photos up soon @nknewsorg – stay tuned.

(Photos: KCNA) pic.twitter.com/hxTfeNOt8u

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) December 3, 2019

“Riding a steed across the vast area of Mt Paektu together with the commanding officers who accompanied him, he recollected the bloody history of the guerrillas who recorded dignity on the first page of the history of the Korean revolution by shedding their blood in the vast plain of Mt Paektu,” it continued.

Meanwhile, speaking of prior holiday classics…