It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Ok, so maybe it isn't. I know Christmas is still a few months away, but I actually saw some Christmas merchandise in a store recently (yeah, it was still September when I saw it) and I thought of this story.



"To the dismay of Christians, City Hall’s dignity is marred by an ungainly appendage between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year. A red trailer is chained to a parking meter on the east side of City Hall. A sign hanging slightly askew says “Santa’s Workshop.” Children are brought into the dimly lit room, most of them wailing and kicking, and have their picture taken with another bony Santa. This of course is an exercise for the parents, not the children, and Santa does a brisk business in Hartville. A small gray speaker mounted on top of the trailer plays a tinny “Rudolph” by Gene Autry and the Peanuts theme by Vince Guaraldi. Every thirty seconds Mrs. Santa invites the “kiddies” waiting outside to think hard about what they want her husband to bring them this year. On this fateful night Mrs. Santa was in rare form.

Not far away, about fifty people huddled together in front of City Hall with signs that read “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season,” “Put Christ Back in Christmas” and “Santa Didn’t Die for Your Sins!” The sun was nearly finished for the day, and shoppers scurried along with their bags. A line about fifteen feet deep formed in front of Santa’s place as parents tried to beat closing time. Deacon Wright, a former marine, and looking somewhat like Bull Conner at a civil rights march, led the way, encouraging his followers by chanting, “You can’t take our holiday!” [This is my interjection, but for the record "our holiday" is referring to the celebration of Christ's birth that the church moved up a couple of months to coincide with the Pagan festivities surrounding the winter solstice, so in a way it is the holiday we took from them...] “

They repeated in unison, “You can’t take our holiday" "It’s in our heart and here to stay!”

“Sound off, Jesus!”

“Sound off, he’s born!”

There are conflicting reports about how the fight began. [yes, how the fight began] Some say one of the elves asked the marchers to lower the volume of their singing. Others contend it was the nasally sound of Gene Autry that pushed the protesters over the brink. Whatever it was, the next day the headline on the front of the Daily News said, “Police Arrest Four in Skirmish with Santa.” Christmas is supposed to bring peace on earth, goodwill to men, but just the opposite happened at City Hall last night. Four protesters were arrested, then released after allegedly attacking Santa Claus at his holiday workshop. One elf was also slightly injured."



This story is so ridiculous it's actually pretty stinkin' funny, but then again its really sad at the same time.