‘Twas the Season

There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.
Robert Lynd (1879–1949), essayist

The commercialization of Christmas has nearly reached the natural end many expected -- cannibalizing itself. Merchants’ greed and commercialization of Xmas has placed Santa Claus, the ambassador of gift giving, to remote locations of the department store because the jolly fat man takes up too much real estate that can be used for shelves full of goods. We had to know it would eventually come to this. Fewer and fewer stores are hiring the jolly ol’ man.



In London, shoppers will not find a single Santa Claus house inside any of the hundreds of stores that line Oxford Street, the city's busiest shopping destination. In fact, with few exceptions, it is not easy to have a sit-down with Santa anywhere in the city, according to the New York Times.

Sitting on St. Nicks’ knee is out of the question these days too, because of insurance liability and sexual harassment charges. Kriss Kringle, like the late Rodney Dangerfield, gets no respect. According to the article, gangs or general street thugs even attack the seasonal philanthropist. The Misanthrope is not a fan of the money grubbing holiday (we much prefer Thanksgiving), but some tradition is nice, and respect for this symbol of the season should be allowed to ho, ho, ho without fear.

Our solution would be to regulate Christmas to every other year. People would look forward to it with a real zeal and passion. Today, we simply go through the motions and hope the holiday mood arrives. Unfortunately, the intense sad emotions the holiday season brings undoubtedly would be enhanced. The Misanthrope suspects the only answer is to do away with Christmas and focus on Thanksgiving.