My initial reaction was disappointment upon realizing that the tree wasn’t a red-black tree with all the black nodes colored green. On the other hand, though, I suppose a red-green tree would involve a lot more duct tape.

Also, regarding the alt title text: removing the root of a heap is only O(log n). Quit whining about Billy taking the root present; it’s not as though a heap would’ve allowed him to take anything else. Maybe next year I’ll make you solve a graph coloring problem to figure out who gets what; maybe O(n log n) suddenly won’t seem so bad when your Christmas morning is NP-complete!

*rimshot*

And for those of you who buy into the whole “War on Christmas” nonsense, this one goes out to you (possibly NSFW, as if you’re at work today anyway):

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, [...] For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

– Jer 10:2-4

Of course, not to be outdone, the Puritans hate Christmas entirely:

For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county.

– Records of the General Court, Massachusetts Bay Colony, May 11, 1659

Just in time for Hanukkah! Or Channuah! Or anything else matching /(H|Ch)an{1,2}uk{1,2}ah?/.