m2smart4u2000 wrote:
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, bob_brigante <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>> Friday Wall Street Journal
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/vg74a
>>
>> "There's all this forced cheer at Christmastime that we're all so
>> sick of, so it makes sense that there's a rebellion," says Maud
>> Lavin, editor of "The Business of Holidays" and professor of
>>
> visual
>
>> and critical arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
>>
> For
>
>> Ms. Lavin, the idea of a Bad Santa evokes photos of children
>>
> sitting
>
>> on a mall employee's lap and crying hysterically in fear. "Of all
>>
> the
>
>> things that were forced on us during the holidays, he's the one
>>
> that
>
>> could actually be scary."
>>
>> Mo Donahue, owner of Party Crashers Entertainment in Minneapolis,
>>
> got
>
>> the inspiration five years ago, when, in desperation, she hired an
>> unfamiliar actor for a holiday party. He showed up in a sulky,
>> unprofessional mood, and guests complained afterward that he
>>
> wouldn't
>
>> even say "ho, ho, ho." "They kept referring to him as this surly
>> Santa," Ms. Donahue says. "And I thought, 'That could be a really
>> funny idea.'"
>>
>> In 2002, Ms. Donahue began offering a Bad Santa for singing
>>
> telegrams
>
>> and party visits. It was slow to catch on the first year, she
>>
> says,
>
>> but since then about one-third of her Santa bookings each holiday
>> season have been deliberately cranky characters. Her Bad Santa,
>>
> whose
>
>> services start at $110 for 15 minutes, sings Christmas carols with
>> unprintable lyrics, breaks down in tears or perhaps throws gifts
>> across the room. Clients decide ahead of time how shocking they
>>
> want
>
>> his behavior to be. The company also offers a "trophy bride" Mrs.
>> Claus in a fur-trimmed red minidress and a blond wig. "It has to
>>
> be
>
>> the right crowd," says Ms. Donahue.
>>
>
> I TOTALLY LOVE CHRISTMAS BUT I CAN RELATE TO THIS.
> I was relieved to read that other families have fights over
> decorating the Christmas tree.
> I begged my kids to not fight this year blah blah, but after
> flipping a coin for who got to pick the tree this year etc
> I was singing
> to the tune of "rockin around the christmas tree"
> "fighting around the christmas tree have a rotten holiday"
> and to the tune of
> "I'll be home for christmas"
> "Buy me a gun for christmas, shoot me in the head blah blah blah
> blah blah blah blah, I wish that I were dead"
> I keep threatening to put coal in the stockings and buy myself a
> face lift instead of buying the kids presents, but i always cop out.
I don't enjoy Christmas that much anymore, it's become too much of a
commercialistic sham where we're supposed to bail out the badly run
businesses who have to make up for a year long of losses. Then it is
always difficult to figure out what to give my relatives as gifts since
they have about everything (except for expensive stuff that I'm not
going to buy them anyway) and I don't like to shop. I bet I'm not the
only one here who longs for the simpler, humbler Christmases of years past.
