It’s the night before Christmas, St. Nick has a gripe,

No-smoking activists have ripped off his pipe.

Canadian publisher and anti-smoking crusader Pamela McColl has edited the beloved poem “A Visit from St. Nick” to remove all references to Santa indulging in the naughty habit.

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A judge in Austria ruled that crime does pay.

The manager of a Vienna bank stole gold bars and $240,000 some 19 years ago.

By the time cops caught him, only the gold and $82,000 in cash were left.

The gold went to the bank’s insurance company, but the cash remained with the country’s Justice Ministry, which recently decided it should get rid of it .

The bank said its insurer had covered its loss, and the insurance company said it didn’t want the money because the gold had increased in value and covered its loss.

So the judge said the robber could have it.

“To say he was surprised was an understatement,’’ said his lawyer.

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Fans of Weird but True will recall an item about a gorgeous 20-year-old Brazilian woman named Catarina Migliorini who planned to auction off her virginity to raise money for charity.

The auction has taken place — and the high bid was a whopping $780,000, placed by a Japanese man known only as Natsu.

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A British cellphone insurer has come up with a list of its strangest claims.

They include a woman who used the vibrator function on her phone to create an instant sex toy, which destroyed the device.

And a woman who accidentally baked her Nokia into a sponge cake.

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He’s a crook with a conscience.

A fox ran up to a woman in West Sussex, England, grabbed her pocketbook and ran off.

A few minutes later, the fox returned and dropped the loot at his victim’s feet.