Why Santa Hats?

What's the deal with everybody walking around wearing Santa Claus hats at Christmastime? I saw a gal walking around the supermarket pushing a grocery cart, wearing a Santa Claus hat.

I got in my banged-up car, drove out of the supermarket parking lot, and there was a guy working on an old Volkswagen, down on his back on the ground with a monkey wrench, with greasy hands and elbows------wearing a Santa hat.

What's up with that?

Leave it to Americans to cheapen, commercialize and make a fad out of being Santa Claus. We've become a nation of mountebanks and posers (for those of you college students who don't know what these words mean, check a dictionary).

It seems fitting that people wouldn't want to let only Santa dress like Santa. After all, we celebrate the birth of the Jewish Messiah born in Roman-occupied Palestine in the First Century by lionizing a fictional German fat man with a white beard who drives a wooden sleigh pulled by bovines, one of them named after a group of immigrants who ate each other (Donnor).

It all makes perfect sense to me.

There isn't a shred of historical evidence Christ was born on Dec. 25, in fact, they can't even agree on the year, 6 B.C? 3 A.D? Take your pick.

The holiday is achieved by an outlay of cash for merchandise, much of it made in China by slave laborers, purchased on credit with money yet-to-be-earned. The result of the gift, after unwrapping, is in many cases, momentary joy, followed a month later by apathy as the gift is either lost, broken or unwanted in the first place.

These yearly traditional purchases are made after jockeying for position in the parking lot of a huge box store (or mall) with other angry drivers, one of whom flips you the bird. Millions go through this ritual for weeks leading up to the 25th.

And to think, the only ones present at the birth of Christ were a few wise men, a kid with a drum, and some goats.

Merchants, seized with greed, began advertising Christmas earlier this year, earlier than last year, totally ignoring Thanksgiving. I've got an idea how we could milk it for more. Let's stagger the observances of Christmas, have different dates for different people, like we do with gas rationing.

All those whose last name starts with the letters A through G, celebrate Christmas on June 3.

Those with last names from H to P, September 30. Those with names starting with the letters R to Z, November 12.

This way, merchants could advertise Christmas all year long.

Santa's had this gig a long time, and it's become as big as the Jerry Lewis Telethon. It all started as the giving of a few simple hand-made toys (only for children) in the Victorian Age, to a gifting megalopolis today that our entire Roman-Empire-style economy literally depends on.

So, let's imitate Santa by cross-dressing like him.

It's enough to make you want to become a Muslim.

Copyright 2010 by SammonSays.com