These Are My Festive Unmentionables

Oh, it’s a most wonderful time of the year – a brief couple of weeks in which one can get away with saying things like “Hark,” “Excelsis!” and “Troll the ancient Yule tide carol” and not even be detained for mental evaluation by the Straight Jacket Society. The Christmas lights are up and the Christmas music is playing merrily in the hallowed halls of the shopping malls. If you are an adult, it’s the season to be cultivating your stomach ulcers by means of shopping-induced stress, if you are a child, ‘tis the season to be freaked out by Santa.

Upon visiting two local shopping malls within the last week, I have been somewhat distressed by their Santas. The Santa in the mall where I work is home-made, and it has a face-mask that has no eyes. As if that weren’t freaky enough, he is perched precariously on a ledge three storeys up and has a sign dangling from his neck that states ‘Suicidal Santa’ in large black letters!! The other mall’s Santa wasn’t wearing any underpants and had its trousers around its ankles in such a manner as to declare, “These are my festive unmentionables.” Now I’m not judging; I’m just saying that I am concerned.

And you should be too because these shopping malls are blatantly threatening the long-standing “wholesome” image of Christmas.

Our ancestors spent their lifetimes sitting round the fire smoking dagga plants the size of Christmas Trees in order to cultivate this far-fetched festive fantasy ("Hey! To guide the sleigh, let’s add a socially awkward reindeer…(smoke)… that has a freakish glowing nose…(smoke)… with GPS!") until it was absolutely ludicrous, or as we say in Christmas terminology, “perfectly feasible” - a jolly old man named ‘Santa’ who lives in a fantastical Toys ‘R Always Us place that’s inhabited by thousands of elves who frantically wrap children’s presents all year round in an attempt to ward off the cold temperatures and a nagging suspicion that their outfits are somewhat ridiculous.

Q) What keeps the elves going as they relentlessly wrap presents 24 hours a day/364 days a year?
A) Santa plays rap music over the loud speaker system.

Which brings me to my point; rap music should NEVER be played outside of the North Pole. But since we’re on the topic of wrapping presents, let me address the question many of you stressed-out parents are thinking right now, which is: 'How do I get my hands on one of those Christmas Tree-sized dagga plants?' Just kidding; responsible, law-abiding parents such as yourselves would NEVER be thinking that. The question foremost in your minds is, ‘How am I going to get through 94 straight hours of wrapping Christmas presents without getting 8 rolls of sticky tape and my pet cat/dog/hamster stuck in my hair?’

The answer, folks, is simple... wear a Noodle Hair Protector! This brilliant item was originally invented by the Japanese (who, coincidentally were also smoking dagga plants when they came up with this invention) to keep your hair back when eating noodles, but I think it also would work perfectly to keep your hair out of the way when you’re wrapping presents. 

Alternately, don’t even wrap the gifts and tell the kids you used invisible wrapping paper – after all, almost everything we tell kids about this season is utterly unbelievable anyway. To repair the wholesome image of Christmas, I recommend also telling your kids that the Santa with his trousers round his ankles is wearing invisible underpants.