Santa Phobia

Santa, it seems, can be kinda scary. *

The happiest time of the year isn’t happy for everyone.

Holiday Shakes

If enough people fear a thing, we invent a word to describe it.  Christmas has its own laundry list:

Christougenniatikophobia: fear of Christmas

Syngenesophobia: fear of family / family gatherings

Heortophobia: fear of celebrating events

Ghabhphobia: fear of receiving gifts

Pediophobia: fear of lifelike dolls or toys (Annabelle, anyone?)

Selaphobia: aversion or fear of flashing lights

Tarandophobia: fear of reindeer

Agoraphobia: literally, “fear of the marketplace” – malls, stores, airports, etc

Doronophobia: fear of opening gifts

If you’re having a rough holiday season, hang in there.  It’ll be over soon and we can get back to other things that make us happy.   

 

Strange Santas

We’ve all witnessed this scene: the kid sitting on Santa’s lap in the mall, screaming and crying while Mom tries to get him to smile for a free Polaroid. 

Isn’t that a long way to go for a shitty picture of a bad memory?  

No wonder many are traumatized by the big red suit: 

Creepy Mall Santas

Scary Santas

Mall Santas of Reddit

 

He Just Don’t Get No Respect…

It really isn’t his fault, you know.  He tries hard and gets a bad rap.  I can hear him now:

“You all think Christmas just happens? You think all this good will just falls from the freakin’ sky? Well, it doesn’t! It falls out of my holly jolly butt!”**

Can’t you imagine Santa muttering and sputtering, a huge heavy bag on his back, reindeer shit on his boots,  soot in his nose, and thoroughly sick of us ungrateful brutes?  

If you’ve ever pulled a triple shift, you know it sucks.  You just wanna get home, crack a beer, and put your feet up.  Poor Santa…

He’d pen this Mastodon post: “Look, I’m a nice person – ask my wife.  I’m basically just a UPS delivery guy in a red suit these days.  Your awful Aunt Hattie’s constant griping isn’t something I have control over.  I can’t fix the salty canned ham.  I can’t shut up screaming toddlers.  What I CAN do is tuck a few doobies in the tree so you can tolerate it all.  Merry F’ing Christmas.”

Poor Santa – he’s become a scapegoat.  No wonder he only ventures out once a year.

Let’s give him (and ourselves) a break by being less naughty/more nice – at least until NYE?

*The banner image for this article is the first known photograph of a Santa (1872).   Good grief – who wouldn’t be freaked out?

**This is actually Lois Griffin from a Family Guy Christmas episode…but it fits.