Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: Santa Claus (The Concept)

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highsanta.jpgThe Baby just turned three, and she’s really into Christmas this year. She loves seeing the lights on people’s houses and decorated trees. Every now and then, she’ll just say “It’s Christmas time!” because she’s so excited about it. It’s adorable.

Except for the whole Santa thing.

I’m not sure who’s to blame, but I’m guessing it’s her day care. Because all of a sudden, she says things like “Santa’s coming!” and seems to actually “believe” in Santa, in the Traditional Holiday Special sense. Up to this point, The Wife and I strenuously avoided any mention of Santa as much as possible because we both think it’s dumb, outmoded, and just wrong.

Yes, there is something precious and heartwarming about a tiny tot professing his/her belief in Santa. The problem is, it’s a belief in something that’s total bullshit. Would it be just as cute if I convinced The Baby to believe in a 10-foot-tall head of lettuce with arms and teeth that shat presents out of his butt-hole? Because that’s about as true as the whole Santa deal.

Santa Claus dates back to a time when the average schmoe actually
believed in ghosts, witches, and other mysterious, malevolent things. The world was a harsher
place. Go look up the original, Germanic Santa Claus stories–they are
truly horrifying. Because Santa never came alone. He was always trailed by trickster demons who plagued the naughty kids. And in those days, virtually everyone was naughty.

You wanted your kids to behave? You told them they’d get presents if they were good, beatings from a goat-legged goblin if they were bad. Just like the local priest told them they’d go to heaven if they shut up and plowed the field for their feudal lord, and go to hell if they didn’t.

Santa Claus isn’t make-believe, like when a little kid plays dress up or pretends s/he’s an airplane. It’s a lie. I don’t like lying to my child. I understand the temptation to do so, like when The Baby wants more junk food and my first inclination is to say We don’t have anymore. But that doesn’t teach her anything. What does teach her something is saying, You can’t have anymore because you’ve had a lot already and we’re eating dinner very soon.

Lies are easy, the truth is hard. But what’s even harder is one day, I have to tell my kid there’s no Santa, just because everyone else thought it would be cute to see a little kid believe in medieval nonsense. Thanks, World.

Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: Santa Claus in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

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santaandrudolph.jpgLast week, I referred to the original Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as “an unbridled triumph”. I stand by that assessment, but my friend Shaun reminded me of one unpleasant factor in that otherwise spotless holiday classic: in it, Santa’s a huge jerk.

Exhibit A: Santa visits Donner and wife once Rudolph is born. He sees Rudolph’s shiny nose. A nervous Donner assures Santa that this is just a temporary thing. Santa’s response: “I certainly hope so!” Rudolph’s about three minutes old at this point, you insensitive clod!

Exhibit B: Rudolph’s shiny nose is revealed at Reindeer Practice. The other reindeer freak out and make fun of him. Pretty uncool, but hey, they’re just dumb reindeer. But Santa tells Donner he should “be ashamed of himself”. Ashamed of himself! “How dare you sire such a monster!”

Exhibit C: Santa’s intolerant hiring practices. The head elf in his workshop has a severe anti-dental bias, as evidenced by his irrational prejudice against Hermey, the tooth-loving elf.

Exhibit D: When the elves sing their song for Santa, The Big Man waves his hand, Mike Francesa style, and simply says, “It needs work, I have to go.” The he storms out, leaving Mrs. Clause to apologize and do damage control.

Exhibit E: When intolerance drives both Rudolph and Hermey to run away from the North Pole, who goes after them? Not Santa. Clarice and Rudolph’s mom attempt to find them, and almost get eaten by a Bumble in the process.

Exhibit F: After all of this, Santa impresses Rudolph into service as part of his reindeer gang, because suddenly the shiny-nosed freak proves useful. Most folks would’ve told Santa to go fuck himself, but Rudolph puts aside his ego so toys can be delivered.

In summation, Santa Claus in Rudolph: huge dick. Your honor, the defense rests.

Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: UPS

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I bought something on eBay for The Wife for Christmas. Something expensive, something I couldn’t just go get at a store. I bought this thing very early, knowing that shipping would take a while. I instructed the shipper to send said item to my place of business, because I knew I wouldn’t be home during usual UPS delivery hours, and because I didn’t want The Wife to discover a Mysterious Package on our doorstep.

All of this would’ve proceeded without a hitch, if the package had been shipped via anyone but UPS, who are apparently criminals. Or morons. Or criminally moronic.

oldupstruck.jpgThe package was supposed to arrive at my office yesterday. When the day wore on and nothing had arrived yet, I tracked the package. It was listed as having an Exception. And the Exception was, RECIPIENT HAS MOVED.

That came as news to me, since I’ve had my current job for a while, and our office has not moved one foot in that entire time. So I called up the UPS people, and they told me the UPS delivery guy must have gotten confused because the delivery address didn’t have my company’s name. Even though I get shipments all the time sans company name.

Apparently, my company is served by the most literal UPS delivery guy on the planet. It’s very nice that UPS is giving jobs to autistic people, but maybe they shouldn’t be delivering packages.

UPS customer service told me I had two choices: get in touch with the shipper and tell him to add the company’s name to the delivery address, or pick it up myself at a local facility. Said facility is literally blocks from my house, so I chose the latter. A minor inconvenience, but problem solved. Or so I thought.

When I got home, just to make sure the package was back in the facility, I tracked it again. This time, it had another exception, saying the delivery guy had tried again, I still had “moved”, and the package was on its way back to the shipper. In California. (In case you don’t know, I live about as far away as you can get from CA without entering another dimension.)

So I called up UPS again to try and figure out what happened. Between the online tracking and the phone reps I’m getting a lot of conflicting info, I said, so just assure me that I can pick this thing up at my local facility, I said.

Yes you can, said the UPS rep.

That’s the UPS facility in Queens, right?

Frighteningly long pause. Um, no, the facility in San Jose.

Why is it going to a facility in San Jose? Unless there’s a San Jose in Long Island.

Will you hold, please? Cue the awful hold music.

Five minutes, the UPS rep is back on the line, telling me that the package is schedule to pull a Biggie (aka go back to Cali). But he will attempt to contact the local facility and get them to intercept that before it happens.

An hour later, I got a call back from said local facility, which informed me the package was already “in processing” to go back to the shipper, and there was nothing they could do about it. Maybe you can order a new one and get the shipper to refund your money?

No, I can not do that, I said.

So this package took a week to get to me, but the second they couldn’t drop it off–at the place where I work, where the receptionist knows who I am–UPS gets rid of it like it’s covered in mad cow disease. And I had to tell The Wife, Hey, I ordered you something awesome for Christmas! But it may not get here until Memorial Day.

Just wanted to let everyone know, if you have any choice, please consider NOT using UPS. I mean, provided you’re ordering something of value that you’d actually like to receive at some point. And don’t want to RUIN YOUR CHRISTMAS.

But if you want a lot of inexplicable fuck-ups and unhelpful advice, they’re the place to go.

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants