• I think it maybe time to phase out the whole Santa Claus thing. Oh, I’m not talking about the real Santa, the one who lives – rather precariously on would imagine – atop the shrinking ice floes of the North Pole. True, the real Santa is not exactly a cover boy for the diet – and – exercise crowd, and Indonesian sweat shops look like something out of Silicon Valley compared to the dim, unheated warrens he forces his elves to slave in.
    But to me that just means that Santa is “old school.” Hey, he’s been around since the invention of the reindeer, so he must be doing something right.
    No, my beef is not with the original, it’s with the imposters. You know, the ones you find in the shopping malls, seated high on gaudy, over-lit stages, gamely smiling for the obligatory $15 Polaroid while a screaming child moistens his lap.
    Baltimoresun.com ran a touching photo feature recently called Santa Trauma. The pictures all feature a smiling Santa and a small, lap-bound child who looks like he’s being tortured by John Gacy.
    Between Santa Trauma and a companion site, On Santa’s Lap, there are maybe 20 pictures. In only tow of them does the child look remotely happy. (In one, Santa appears to be handing a little girl a wad of cash, so that could explain her good mood.) So, if you can make any sort of generalization about this (if you wont, I will) fully 90 percent of little kids who visit Santa are traumatized for life.
    I’m not blaming the mall Santa’s for this. By and large they seem like decent, well-meaning guys who enjoy spreading Christmas cheer in return for a little something to help pay the bills. It’s the system that’s broken. Asking a small child to climb onto the lap of a strange man who looks like he could have been pushing a shopping cart full of cans down the street the day before is in sensitive to the point of cruelty.
    I’d do away with the whole sit-in-the-lap thing, too. It’s never really worked out for Santa or the kids and it also runs counter to everything we’ve ever taught our kids about touching, or being touched by, strangers.
    By mellowing the Santa experience, I think kids will come away with a much more positive attitude toward Christmas.
    And it’s best if the y enjoy it as kids, because once they’re adults and the bills start rolling in…
    Well, let's just say that’s another kind of Santa trauma.