I remember last year, there was a teacher in the uk, fired from her job, for telling the kids there that Santa wasn't real. Fired! Dismissed. Livelihood gone. And what for? Telling the truth! These were not 5 year olds either. They were 9! So... in teaching the kids about the real world, rather than going along with the lies and deception peddled by these children's parents, this person was punished. The parents of the kids involved were obviously outraged that this teacher could have said such a thing to their vulnerable babies. And why shouldn't they be? They'd rather that their children discovered for themselves the silliness of the idea and then chastise themselves on their own gullibility, rather than have it pointed out to them that their parents have lied to them all their lives about what they perceive as the happiest time of their lives each year, while quietly laughing at them with other adults, cloaked in superiority. What happens when you find the only people you thought you could trust unequivocally... turn into tricksters and deceivers?
Interestingly.... it would appear what happens is, kids hit the bottle and hard drugs, and then start ravishing each other! Starrman's dazzling topic entitled "Having children", cites that, "As many as one in 20 children aged 10 and 11 admitted taking part in a heavy drinking session in the past four weeks", presumably some neglected to reveal their own involvement, so that makes for quite a startling statistic. Kids are far from stupid, and having just found out that the presents don't actually magically appear, they then have to think about where they DO come from. The thought process may well go something like this.. "1 : Dad / mum doesn't make enough money to be able to afford this cos they're always arguing about money. 2: Yet i do have this. 3 : they bought me something they can't afford, and are arguing still about money. 4 : Its my fault they are arguing." Kids look for reasons, and being kids, often don't understand certain realities, so therefore attribute blame for things to themselves, and then carry the guilt. This effects self esteem, which in turn leads to alcohol and so on.
But wait, lets move back to the Santa mythos. I remember as a kid, my parents (who were, and one still is, religious nut jobs, and i do mean complete fruit bats!) lynched me for using the expression Xmas. They claimed that people who did that were "Taking The Christ out of Christmas", and that was after all what Christmas was intrinsically all about. What with all the symbolism i asked what i thought was a pertinent question. "Don't you think it's odd that Santa is an anagram of Satan?" I got in trouble for that! However, the Santa tradition had been maintained, right down to the leaving out of a couple of mince pies and a glass of sherry next to the chimney for Santa to enjoy after his delivery, for all the years i remember as a child. In fact if i close my eyes I can still see the old fireplace!
Curiously, it is illegal to eat mincepies in the uk as a certain Mr Cromwell banned them many moons ago. So, Santa, besides breaking and entering, is also committing an offence, (which in fairness is pretty much thrust upon him by the house owner), by eating the pies left for him in every house. Not just this, however, there is far worse to come. Consider the sherry. With a world population of 66,762,290,000 which, if we divide that by 4 to get the average number of households... = 16,690,572,500 glasses of sherry in one night, split over 24 hour and 39 time zones. Thats impressive amounts of drinking, even for a guy who grew up in a working mans town like Crewe! No wonder Santa is portrayed as fat! Yet this person, obese, binge drinking, law breaking, drunk driving as he is, is idolised by kids across the globe. An impressive role model indeed and one capable of creating quite an impression! Right up until a teacher, who should really be the role model, tells the kids he's just fictitious, and gets fired for it. Which sets up another good example of how the world works!
Of course, Santa's lack of abstemiousness will be dismissed as silliness, but i can't help but wonder if some of this does indeed permeate into the psyche of the next generation. The Christmas mythos itself has Jesus turning water into wine in copious amounts at a wedding. And i do mean copious! After all of the wine that was ready and prepared was drunk, which we have to assume will have been roughly estimated as enough to cover the guests, Jesus produces another 180 gallons! That might not mean much to some people, so i'll convert it into real money : 1440 pints, or 818 litres! On top of what was already drunk, which ostensibly has to be 2, 3, or more times more in quantity than the final top up the big J C lavishes on his guests. Again, another shining example for our children, and this one more often than not, is not cancelled out by a teacher doing their job, but in fact is propagated by them!
Do I have a solution? No! I merely wish to out this... this... perhaps unintentional, but nevertheless, Hideous subliminal we thrust upon the younger generation at this time of year. What you do with this news is your own business. My work here is done!
Ho ho humbug!
Alistair Mad Scotsman
2 Comments
The strange thing is a lot of times people cant recognize they are bingers.
In the midst of a fast paced, action filled lifestyle its easy to confuse having a good time with screwing up yourself.
Recreational drug and alcohol use often consists of gross overindulgence that isn't regarded as a problem by those concerned because it takes place only during weekends or other short strictly determined periods.
The spells in between are spent being an overcompensating straight-edging square, working hard, hitting the gym, taking your girlfriend to dinner and staying sober.
We binge eat, binge drink, binge drug and now binge sex has entered the pantheon of social dysfunction.
Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)