Christmas time is frequently thought of as (if you celebrate Christmas) a joyous time of year, filled with family, gifts, songs, decorations, and (less often) actual religion. If you don't celebrate it, it's just freaking annoying. But I celebrate Christmas and I've always loved this time of year. However, during this particular brainstorm of mine that sprung from boredom (don't they always?), I realized that there sure are a whole lot of downsides (not including the religious ones) to this holiday and everything that comes with it. Here's my list of things that Christmas has corrupted:
1. The Name "Rudolph" Has Completely Died Out
Right, so this is really a shame. No more are parents naming their young sons (or daughters, to each his own) Rudolph for fear that they will get beaten up on the playground for being "Santa's little b*tch". Wait, 8-year-olds don't really use that word, do they? OK, maybe they'll just have to sit through other 8-year-olds singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" year round, and that's just unpleasant for everybody. Heaven for bid they should catch a cold and their nose actually does get red. Oh the humanity! Anyways, the distinguished and somewhat decent name, Rudolph, has been reduced to a song, a stop-motion animated children's movie, various greeting cards, and millions upon millions of seasonal kindergarten craft projects. A darn shame.
Rudolph Valentino. Ruined forever by a reindeer...
2. Real Home Invasions Ignored By Children
Say a little munchkin on Christmas eve has just fallen asleep with sugar-plums dancing in their head and the whole shebang. Say the parents are also completely asleep with credit-card balances dancing in their heads. Say this young family's house doesn't have an alarm system. Tisk tisk. Say an evil gang of burglars (named Grinchy, Salty, and Scope) breaks a window and tumbles their fat behinds in through the window making a modest racket. Say the parents are heavy sleepers and don't hear a thing. Say the little tot wakes up, hears the noise of obvious human motion downstairs, but falls back a sleep with a huge grin on their face because "Santa's coming tonight" (and he is somehow theoretically exempt from breaking-and-entering or trespassing). So now, Grinchy, Salty, and Scope are the new owners of a MacBook, digital camera, cappucino maker, several sweaters, and a plethora of Justin Beiber themed merchandise, all neatly packaged in red and green.
Pictured: a practiced criminal.
3. Mall Santas
I have been thinking about this for a while now and for the life of me I can't see anything redeemable about mall Santas. Honestly, I can't even think of one thing that could possibly justify their existence. They basically exist so that parents can dress up their offspring in ridiculously shiny or velvety outfits and stuff them kicking and screaming onto the lap of an old guy in a red suit for a single photo that they can pass around at their family Christmas party and say "look how darn cute this is" while everyone rolls their eyes. Now that isn't even a pro, but here are the cons:
- Those mall Santas get minumum wage and have to sit in a hot Santa suit dealing with snotty children all day for the good part of two or three straight weeks. Plus, some are probably pedophiles, in which case, they probably like their job...
- The kids involved in this horrendous practice in culture don't enjoy it either. They are either too young to even know what's happening and go through the entire ordeal screaming as if their world was caving in on them, or they are old enough to know that it isn't the real Santa because there is one at every single mall they go to (plus countless different ones on TV) so they have lost all interest in these imposters.
- Those photos are grossly overpriced.
Let's face it, the world would be better (not even happier or more harmonious, just better) if they didn't exist.
Pure evil.
4. Reindeer Are Seen As Silly, Prancing Sled-Animals
This whole Christmas thing has de-butch-ified Reindeer to the point where nobody can take them seriously anymore. If you tell any children, foreigners, or idiots that reindeer are real animals, they'll look at you in shock and say "wait, so those antlered things that fly Santa around are real?!" I just feel sorry for all of those hardcore reindeer herds that live in the arctic if they ever hear about their stigma, they'll just never live it down. They aren't dangerous or anything but they certainly don't wear bells all the time and have silly names like "Prancer", "Cupid", or "Blitzen". I just have to say that Santa's reindeer must all be either females or castrated males because male reindeer lose their antlers in the winter. So reindeer in the Santa context have had their manhood taken away both literally and hypothetically.
Ridiculous vs. not ridiculous.
5. A Sub-Par Genre of Entertainment
Anytime an actor has found that they are no longer A-list (and quite possibly no longer B or C-list) they are really restricted to Lifetime or Hallmark movies, narrating documentaries, or (you guessed it) Christmas movies. The Christmas movie market has become one of those genres that gets put somewhere between slasher flicks and porn. Producing such gems as Eve's Christmas and Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus, these are the films that actors make just before they finally do "Dancing With The Stars". I, of course, am not referring to the big-budget Christmas movies that Hollywood spits out once a year (like Polar Express or The Grinch) but you know the movies of which I speak (type) of. Frankly, if this genre didn't exist, these sub-par actors would never be seen or heard of again, which is where we want them. Yes, Steve Guttenberg, I'm talking to you. The same goes for the music industry. Haven't released an album in a while and you're afraid you'll drop off the face of the map completely? Release a Christmas album! You'll remain in people's periferals (although slightly irritatingly) until you can release that virtuoso album that has been 10 years in the works. Good luck with that.
Just go away.
Isn't Christmas magical?
Poof.
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