SIDE SALAD - Everything crunchy is good.

CALENDAR OF DISTURBING SANTAS,
DAYS 10-15

The calendar for the past two years has had its ebbs and flows, its yins and yangs, it's Justins and KFeds. But it has never - ever - had such huge gaps in between postings. This one sets a new standard for negligence. And, you know, I couldn't be more proud.

The reason I can tell that the neglect has hit an epic levels: the FOS (Friends of the Salad) have been kind enough to send me e-mails with suggested Santas. Which, you know, I really appreciate, but after about 6 days, I start to feel like they're acting more like greeters at the finish line of the Special Olympics.

My name is Jeffy. I make the fwies.

DING FWIES ARE DONE! Would you like an apple pie with dat?

Anyway, I appreciate all the help. Y'all are invited to continue as my spotters in the great Santa benchpress. It's not you, it's me.

So to start things off for DAY 10, we have this suggestion from Willie Drye, author of Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935:

Macabre Santa display in NYC draws stares
Mansion scene includes knife-wielding St. Nick, Barbies with severed heads

NEW YORK - It’s usually easy to tell where a person stands in the culture wars, but whose side is someone on when his Christmas decor is a blood-spattered Santa Claus holding a severed head?

Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos decked the front of their Manhattan mansion this year with a scene that includes a knife-wielding 5-foot-tall St. Nick and a tree full of decapitated Barbie dolls. Hidden partly behind a tree, a merry old elf grasps a disembodied doll’s head with fake blood streaming from its eye sockets.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Krupnik explained that his family thought it would be a fun way to make a comment about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas.

“It is a religious holiday, but they have turned it into a business. And it shouldn’t be,” he said. “We didn’t put it up to offend anybody. It was just something that came out of our imagination.”

More than a few people passing by the brownstone were a little puzzled about the message behind the massacre.

Peter Nardoza, 81, of Manhattan, shook his head and chuckled. “Sick, sick, sick,” he said. “What kind of a world is this that we live in?”

And Santa said, "On Slasher, On Dahmer, On Gacy, On Bundy!"

For DAY 11, Jolie the psycho supergoddess offered this interesting take from the New York Times on a Jolly Old Elf that smells like tuna:

Where Sleigh Bells Gurgle, Santa Swims With Sharks

NEWPORT, Ky., - Calvin Freeman, age 4, has a question for Scuba Santa. "Do you only have nice sharks in there?" Calvin asks, pointing to a toothy, 270-pound tiger shark swishing past Santa's underwater sleigh. "Because some sharks chew people's legs off. They're bad sharks."

"Ho-ho-ho!" Scuba Santa laughs, then sucks a low, bubbly breath of air from his tank. "Ooh, yes, these are all very nice sharks!"

And that shark there, Calvin... her name is Judith. She's swimming next to Howell the hammerhead... He's the one with Jason the suckerfish on his back....

Sorry. Couldn't help the inside-baseball New York Times-in-turmoil subreferences.

We'll hit the oxygen tanks and resurface the Trieste now.

For DAY 12, we turn a tad interactive. If you define helping Santa and his elves fart out the melody of "Silent (but deadly) Night" on a rooftop as interactive.

So tender and mild.

Which brings us up to DAY 13 (thanks, Kasey Kasem).

If this Santa asks if you want a bear for Christmas, answer in the negative.



DAY 14 takes us to the world of greeting cards:

I love how the reindeer has to "hold it." Because, you know, that's what reindeers do. They also stand up when they go.

What really tips this off as being unrealistic: He's standing too close to Santa. A real reindeer would give himself a good five feet of distance between himself and Santa.

It's a guy thing.

Anyway, we arrive at our procrastination destination: DAY 15.

Remember kids...

...guns don't kill Santa. High-powered rifles with night-vision Bushnell 12x scopes do.

PREVIOUS ENTRIES:

DAY 1: Santa gets his gin 'n' juice on.

DAY 2: Can you hear me now?

DAYS 3-6: Smack, robbery, whack, Alice and Nuge.

DAY 7: Give the Jew girl toys.

DAY 8: Santa at Budokan.

DAY 9: Not exactly like hanging mistletoe.

Posted by Jeff at December 15, 2005 07:36 AM