Holidaze

It appears that the holidays are upon us whether we like it or not. In the case of this little girl, she does not. So I should probably wish people around the globe a happy holiday and shit like that, but instead I have decided to analyze the specific terror captured in the face of this little girl.

I came across this pic whilst dicking off at work paroozing the insites and discoveries of Boing-Boing. It truly is a directory of wonderful things. I linked this page from southflorida.com that had about 50 pics of children shitting themselves with fear while on the lap of some hapless santa. Two things occured to me while I rolled in laughter at childhood terror from years gone by. One, I don't think that the mass population draggs their children to the local santa "North Pole and Elfatorium" any more, to immortalize the year with a hokey picture of little Johnny or Sally squirming on the lap of a grown man in a red fat suit and preposterous beard. Two, I think that the core of the childrens' fear is at its heart the same horrific terror that wells in their little minds when confronted by clowns, carnies, anamatronic guitar playing gorillas and the like.

This primal fear of grown men masquerading as fantastical characters upsets them so, primarily because the situation forces them to understand the truth. Truth being that there is no santa, there are only strange men in fat suits at the mall. They recoil as their dreams and idyllic notions of sugar plums wither on the vine of cold, flourescent reality.

"Sorry, little tommy, life's a bitch... get used to it." Is what santa really imparts to the children as they sit on his public lap. This realization for a child can be quite a shock, as they are primed and running at full bore cracked out on candy canes and egg-nog, little minds racing a mile a minute hoping and lusting for whatever toy or game has manifested itself as their deepest wish. They cannot be ready for the shock that hits them as a rum drunk fat man bellows holiday phrases into their tiny ears. This intense situation inevitably becomes too much for the child, hence the almost mandatory "freak out".

To some this may be a sad and coldly scientific approach to understanding the "True Meaning of Chirstmas", but fuck those who hold fast to the tattered image of winter wonderland and elfin handy work, rather Butt Fuck them. Why am I so, jaded you say? The fact is that I am not jaded, I simply think that people are missing the point. In fact I think the whole phenomenon is a wonderfully rare situation, because it presents a situation where the exact moment when child if brought face to rosy cheeked face with the mortal truth can be immortalized and preserved for our enjoyment.

How many times can you be photographed as a revelation sets in? The whole scenario is perfectly suited to produce the "face of true understanding" as I like to call it. Just stare at the horror and panic in this child. Truly a magnificent sight, and ultimately hilarious.

I guess the true meaning of christmas is that kids really are funny little bastards.