Monday, December 24, 2007

The Death Of Santa Claus

It was Christmas Eve and I got up when I heard noises downstairs in the living room. I don’t recall how old I was; I may have been in my thirties for all I remember.

I only have a good memory for ex-boyfriends and the things they do that are just so patently wrong. Seriously, a mesh shirt? Is that a cry for help or something?

I was finally going to see Santa Claus. I tiptoed to the top of the landing. My little, or gigantic, thirty year-old, heart was pounding in my ears. Wouldn’t every one of my miserable friends be jealous when I told them this story? I peeked down the stairs and saw my parents putting gifts under the tree and eating Santa’s cookies. I wanted to scream We have other food in the fridge you big stupid heads because it hadn’t hit me; even with the seemingly incontrovertible evidence, Santa wouldn’t be coming. Not tonight. Not ever.

The next morning I didn’t say anything because my sister was two years younger and if I had confronted my parents in front of her they would have punished me. I had already been penalized for some of my other ItWasJustAJoke infractions:

-I threatened to stab her with a kitchen knife if she didn’t stop snoring. (they made me cut meat with a fork for a month)
-I forced her to help me slide raw eggs under our refrigerator to drive my parents crazy with the stench. (she eventually ratted me out)
-We’d go to malls and I’d tell her to get on the Up escalator with me and then I’d run back down while she burst into tears and had to go up alone. (and yet she kept getting on escalators with me)
-I’d wait until she was coming upstairs to our bedrooms and then jump out and scream at her. (come on, that shit never gets old)

I find it ironic that when we’re young we’re lied to with the approbation of the entire world about Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and why Mom and Dad don’t sleep in the same room. And then told never to lie to our parents. Are you kidding me? This is WHY I lied to my parents. I was paying them back.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, an organization made up of the United States and Canada, tracks Santa Claus every year. I can understand why Canada is tracking Santa Claus; they have plenty of free time on their hands. But the United States? People are gunning for us all the time. Shouldn’t we be tracking where Kim Jong Il drops off his plutonium? Or in which cave Osama Bin Laden is reading back issues of How To Kill Americans Digest?

It’s all over the news, this Santa tracking. How many 7 year olds are watching the evening news? Hello, is this thing on?

This was the quote of the week from NORAD “In the end, I hope that the Canadians and Americans are assured that NORAD is prepared to respond to threats as they present themselves and more importantly, to deflect and deter those attacks before they occur.”

Seriously, if they’re tracking Santa Claus, I’m not all that assured that they’re prepared to deflect and deter attacks from giant killer tomatoes, much less suicide bombers.

Recently, a teacher in the UK and a priest in California told children there was no Santa Claus. The teacher was fired and the priest had to issue a formal apology. Yet kids are encouraged to tell teachers who brought the semi-automatic weapon to school and Catholics are urged to go to confession three seconds after they’ve screwed up.

Let’s review:
- Kids tell teacher the truth + teacher tells kids the truth = Fired.
- Kids confess truth to priest + priest confesses truth to kids = Formal Apology.

I don’t have children of my own but I’ve dated four men who did. If any of the kids had asked me if the above fabled entities existed I would have lied and said yes. Once again, I’m part of the problem.

End of chat.

Reposted from December 2006

21 comments:

  1. I never believed in Santa but I played along until I was six because I thought my parents did.

    I've been tracking Santa on the NORAD site with my nephews for the last five years. Santa's ability to hit the exact same locations at the exact same times each year has made them totally jaded about airline travel.

    Merry XXXmas, whore.

    Love,

    Shecky Claus

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  2. Your continuous torture of your sister is why contract killers exist. Do not think for a minute that this is over... she's been saving her pennies for decades, and it's only cost-due-to-inflation price increases that have been keeping you alive this long! :-)

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  3. I first suspected Santa might not be real when my dad encouraged me to leave out beer and pretzels instead of cookies and milk.

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  4. Anonymous6:54 AM

    I shouted out to the whole third grade classroom, "You are all wrong! Every one of you! Your parents are NOT Santa Claus!" Then in my own self doubt went home and sheepishly asked my parents if, in fact, they actually were Santa Claus, to which they replied, "Yes." So then I was pissed at my parents for not only lying but letting me humiliate myself in front of the whole third grade class. Nice.

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  5. I hope you're still torturing your sister. It's one of the privelages of being the first born!

    Santa died for me when I was 7 and my parents decided to join a cult (Jehovah's Witnesses). Sad day.

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  6. I fugured it out fairly early, but went along with it for the parents sake!!! Plus, the extra gifts were nice.

    Merry Christmas!

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  7. Whore, backatcha.

    D2, the only good thing about childhood is torturing siblings and that whole not having to work thing.

    Traci, are you on the road? Traci is a very funny comic with a very funny blog. She also does all those caption updates for Us Weekly. Click on her name, she's a great writer.

    Oh merecat! The humiliation. Although NOW it's funny.

    Bee I'm gussing the JeeHo's don't believe in Christmas? Santa? Milk?

    Palm Springs, how in the hell did you get extra gifts out of that? NO FAIR.

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  8. No, Suzy, I'm home alone eating all the leftovers from our holiday party this past weekend. Brian has only been gone for 36 hours and I've already consumed a metric ton of mac and cheese. Of course, when he returns, I will tell him that I threw it all out.

    If anybody would like to leave Santa hummus and salami, give me a call. I'd rather him eat it than me.

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  9. Merry Christmas! Just stumbled across your blog over at humor-blogs.com and i'm glad I did. Keeping me entertained while I hide from the family! I would love if you would check mine out as well when you get a chance
    http://randomrageouts.blogspot.com

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  10. Traci, I LOVE hummus and salami. Although there's not a whole lot of food I don't like.

    Stars, thanks for stopping by my blog, I'll visit yours!

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  11. Anonymous11:50 AM

    I think I can add to the Christmas wonder. I was 8, the oldest of 5 children. My father was arrested for drunk driving on Christmas Eve. It was a small town. The policeman came to our house to get my mother to pick up the car and drive him home. We all waited in the house for them to come up the driveway. The car was filled with our Christmas presents. My mother said that Dad and the police were helping Santa and that's why the gifts were there. I didn't buy it it for a second but encouraged the younger ones to believe.
    Merry Christmas!
    Martha Jane

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  12. Leave the Santa tracking to us.... Have a great holiday

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  13. Merry Christmas! Just stumbled across your blog over at humor-blogs.com and i'm glad I did. Keeping me entertained while I hide from the family! I would love if you would check mine out as well when you get a chance

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  14. I'm a mom of 6 kids. We're kind of old school in that we actually do recognize the birth of our Saviour as opposed to all the secular stuff. We have used Santa in a tawdry and scandalous way though....to threaten that he'll leave reindeer poop in their stocking if they don't behave.

    We actually did leave something equally gross in my sons stocking two years ago as a warning.....it worked! The mafia has their horse heads. We have our reindeer poop threats.

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  15. When I was very young I woke up in the middle of the night and stumbled into the livingroom, all the lights blazing, and caught my Dad assembling a tricycle. He told me that Santa was SO BUSY delivering presents to all the kids that he asked my Dad to help him out by putting the bike together for him. I totally bought it for a couple more years. Even post-Santa I still found creeping downstairs at the crack of dawn and peeking at the pile that hadn't been there the night before magical. I'd give it all a quick once-over, just looking, and then go back to bed until full daylight. Somehow the looking was even better than the having.

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  16. elastic, I deleted my last comment since one of my readers pointed out that I blamed the wrong person for the spamming. Sorry Rick in Palm Springs, twasn't you.

    shieldmaiden, I agree, the looking and peeking is the most magical.

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  17. You are too funny! I have a feeling E will be just as nice to her little brother as you were (are) to your little sister.
    I believed in Santa even after my parents told me he wasn't real. Being I was raised Jewish, they told me when I was really young. I still lie to my kids and E told me she will be "checking all the presents for any signs that Santa did not really leave them".

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  18. Merry Christmas Suzy.
    I've missed you.
    I was an only child.
    So I terrorized my kids. And wife.
    I still have all of both.
    Love them dearly.
    Wish you hadn't told about Santa.
    Now my Christmas is ruined.

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  19. Merry Christmas, Suzy!

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  20. My son once wrote a letter to Santa where he made Santa sign for the cookies. (He was going to compare the signature with the writing on the presents). Your so right about all of that. My stepson cried when he found out Santa wasn't real.

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