Dreaming Of A Weird Christmas!

Christmas is nearly upon us, so the time is at hand where every mall has a Santa in residence, waiting for America’s boys and girls to sit on his knee and make their demands known. But while our own little angels are of course clean and fragrant, who knows what those grubby urchins in front of you are spreading! So this year several professional Santa associations are calling for hand-sanitizer to be installed at grotto entrances and have asked congress to put “Santa” on the priority list for H1N1 vaccinations. After all, you have to look after your elf (Telegraph).

Not requiring a flu jab, but in need of a facelift, was the 66’ fibreglass Santa that has been the centrepiece of Auckland, New Zealand’s Christmas pageant for nearly 50 years. With a droopy winking eye and a gesturing mechanical finger, the jolly red giant was beginning, in the words of one local, to “look a little creepy.” But not anymore, as NZ$100,000 have been spent refurbishing the big guy ahead of this Sunday’s grand unveiling (Reuters).

Someone definitely not in need of a facelift is the recently announced “Hunky Santa of 2009.” Los Angeles mall the Beverley Center first introduced their hunky Santas nine years ago, swapping abs and pecs for the beard and britches. This year north-pole toting poseur is James Ellis, who hopes to encourage people to live more healthily and wants to be a role model for kids by parading his festive physique in a fur-trimmed red vest (LA Times).

All of which is not the sort of thing you’re likely to see during Raleigh, North Carolina’s Christmas parade. So worried are parade organisers that the little ones might be confused by two people dressed in red that they have banned “Mrs. Claus” from participating in costume. They have even asked attendees not to wear Santa-hats in case it distracts attention from the “real” St. Nick (WXII12).

And further killjoyery (?) this week from the Employers Forum on Belief, which has advised company bosses that to close their office over Christmas might be construed as discriminatory, since non-Christian employees must use annual leave for their religious holidays. Instead of emphasising the holiday’s religious nature, say the EFB, management should focus on the cost-effectiveness of the closure as a majority of staff would be absent anyway (ILM).

However, the Scrooge of the week award must go to officials from Coccaglio, Italy, who chose the festive season to pay a visit to all foreign residents in the town and expel any whose residency permits were not in order. It’s not so much the crack down that marks them out as the name they gave to the initiative, “White Christmas.” Real subtle, guys (Der Spiegel).

But let’s not forget the true spirit of Christmas, commercialism. I mean what else can explain Bob Dylan’s decision to release a Christmas album? Bob’s collection of covers of Christmas fare, all done in the inimitable Dylan style, has the critics divided. There are those who hate it, and those who really hate it (Big Hollywood).

And if you have a certain someone who’s just impossible to buy for, here are some suggestions from 2008 of gifts to avoid (ExpertClick).

However nothing on that list comes even close in suckiness to this item. For the friend who has everything, why not make a donation to the Treasury in their name? Just imagine their face when, on that most magical morning, they unwrap your present to find that they have helped the economy by slightly reducing the national debt! Yes, Christmas is a time to think of the poor and needy, and surely no-one is more in need of funds than the dear old government, who has spent so much cash that their our grandchildren will still be paying it off (Guardian).

(Image: Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa.)