As a kid, I loved Christmas: toys and lights and reindeer. But I was also vaguely aware that my mother hated Christmas, and I never quite understood why.
Now I am all grown up (and then some), and now I understand my mother's point. Blighted hopes. Overblown expectations. Social obligations.
Evidently my mother and I are not alone.
For some time now, television has been acting out against Santa Claus. Here's a very incomplete incident list, just off the top of my head:
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1966: The Grinch. Sort of the Antichrist version of Santa.
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1987: Married With Children. A skydiving Santa crashes on the Bundy family's roof, dies, and is carried away on a gurney, sleighbells jingling.
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1998: Just Shoot Me. “How The Finch Stole Christmas.” David Spade as the evil Finch spoils everyone's Christmas.
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1999: Futurama. Santa in the year 3000 is an evil robot (voiced by John Goodman) who kills everyone who hasn't been good during the past year. And that's everyone.
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2003: Billy Bob Thornton as Bad Santa. And Lauren Graham, who has a sexual Santa fetish.
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2009: Modern Family. Santa is a homeless ex-con who punches out Cam's hated rival.
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2010: Family Guy. Stewie goes to the North Pole to kill Santa. It turns out, however, that Santa is a haunted wreck who hates his own life.
From Graham Greene's “Travels With My Aunt”:
“'It's the festive season,' Major Charge said. He blew another raspberry. '”Hark! The herald angels sing,”' he said in a tone of savagery, as though he were taking some kind of revenge on Christmas Eve and all its impedimenta of holy families and mangers and wise men, a revenge on love, a revenge for some deep disappontment.”
Ho ho ho.
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