#6: T'was the Rant before Christmas...

Because, you know, all this Christmas Positivity is getting me down. So on Sunday, instead of watching somebody ELSE moan about Christmas, I figure I'll do some whining of my own. Because if these things have taught me anything, it's that Christmas is about complaining about things until someone takes pity on you.

And you know what I've realised really, REALLY pisses me off? Goddamn "Australian" Santas. You know the ones I mean. Stupid cartoons of Santa, wearing a singlet and shorts, chilling on the beach. He's not above wearing an akubra. . Occassionally, if he's feeling exceptionally crass, his sleigh will be pulled by kangaroos.

Just look at the smug fucker! Is our national identity SO flimsy that we have to plagerise a beloved cultural icon and bastardise him to within an inch of his life, just so that he can fit within the confines of a tired Australian cliche that's been beaten to death? Why, when we're already taking the leap of logic that says this fat bastard can make it around the entire world in a single night, do we feel the need to start bringing sense into all of it, and raise issues like the heat? Santa is travelling at Warp Seven around the globe, breaking ALL laws of time and space squeezing his fat ass down chimneys that don't exist, and we're meant to believe he can't cope with Australian heat? The sleigh doesn't have air conditioning? Most importantly, we're dealing with FUCKING MAGIC! At what point did someone think "Oh no! Santa's going to get heatstroke!" and bypass the hundreds of other logic leaps we were already accepting at face value?

And don't even get me started on that fruity looking elf. He's going to be devestated when he realises Santa came too early to drop him off at Mardi Gras. And if the ridiculous concept of a Santa dressing for the weather wasn't enough, we feel the need to butcher one of the staples of the whole damn mythology, MUTANT REINDEER, and importing flying kangaroos into the fray! Why? Now, I'll be the first to admit I've never understood where Santa's army of reindeer came from, but I've always kind of accepted they belong. Why then, do some dickheads feel that it's more acceptable to have him being whisked through the night sky by white kangaroos? Fuck you, Rolf Harris. This is all your fault. You and that stupid song. I feel it's a sad state of affairs when a country has such an insecure sense of self that they feel the need to shoehorn existing pop culture icons into an extremely narrow box, and truth be told, it's borderline offensive. Now patriotism is great and all, but is there really a need to be a total wanker about it? Should DC start drawing Superman in thongs when he's staging a rescue down under? Should Mickey Mouse be seen cooking a barbeque and downing a beer? Or can we, as a nation, create our OWN icons, and leave the others the fuck alone?

On a completely hypocritical note though, how fucking awesome is Mexican Santa? Because I think a Santa in a sombrero is something we could ALL get behind.