Bah Humbug

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And for the last two years it’s been me.

For the past two years, I’ve stopped shaving sometime in August and that has permitted it to get to near Santa length. I suppose that if I let it continue to grow, by the next holiday season I could get a job somewhere as a “real” Santa and go ahead kid, pull my beard. But I’ve been Santa a couple of times at Wal-Mart and I don’t like doing it very much. The children are either terrified of me (usually the younger babies who have never sat next to a huge beard) or worship me, and I’m not comfortable being their god either.

I have two sons, one is a cockeyed optimist and the other is a sarcastic pessimist. I am convinced the reason for this is one grew up believing in Santa and the other was told that Mommie and Daddy bring the presents. Kids have hopes and dreams anyway and hoping that Santa will bring them what they want is generally a good thing. If you don’t think so, watch A Christmas Story, the holiday movie that will air all day on one of the cable networks. It rings so true, because it is.

So if you forget about the Santa factor, and realize that your only hope is your mom and dad, who REALLY know if you’ve been bad or good and don’t let you forget about it -- well, you can see how the pessimist develops. Did you get my meaning oh daughter-in-law?

So why do I dress up like Santa? Because it’s FUN! When I go shopping, I usually ride around in the handicapped cart because of my disabilities. It’s fun to have kids at my level as they stare in awe at me and I smile and wave to them. It’s also a lot of fun with adults, as I will tease them about being naughty and/or nice. Today, A middle aged woman who was with her friends said a rousing “Hello Santa” and I replied “You better straighten up young lady, you’re on my naughty list…. and at your age you better be!” She loved it and everyone had a smile for the day.

I am, of course, completely insane and it’s a harmless way to express my insanity. The other night I was at the Wal-Mart check out register and after the cashier told me the total, I grumbled that it was “a poor excuse for Sam Walton’s family to pick my pocket every 25^th of December.” She cracked up and I lost yet another small bit of anger at Wal-Mart. But quite honestly, some of the things Wal-Mart has done in the name of “what would Sam do?” since his death would probably make Sam quite unhappy. An elder in his church, I doubt he would approve of keeping the store open on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.

I think a good philosophy came from the leader of a bible study group I once went to. He said “I don’t mind Santa having a holiday, I just wish he wouldn’t pick Jesus’ birthday.”

So as I write out of sight, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

The pecking order

Go into any chicken coop and feed the chickens. You will immediately learn that the biggest and strongest birds will get the first shot at the food. The weaker birds will have to wait for what’s left. And if they try to get some before the social order permits them, they will be pecked without mercy, often by many other chickens. The rooster is not involved in this very often, but when they are, the result is often death to another rooster.

My recent high school reunion reminded me a great deal about the pecking order and how traumatic and cruel people can be to the lower part of the order. I wasn’t very popular and was the butt of cruel jokes sometimes, but I was nowhere near the bottom of the order.

I happened to encounter, via Facebook, a relative of the person who was probably at the bottom of our school pecking order. I am advised that the person I am referring to has needed help to live for some time now.

I hardly knew this person at all. Yet when I transferred into my high school in the middle of my freshman year almost the first thing I learned was this person at the bottom of the order was, depending on the person telling me, weird, insane, a misfit, and more. Yet in more than three years of sharing a homeroom I never observed any of the wild behavior she was alleged to have.

This person, no doubt, had unspeakable cruelties aimed at her. She didn’t dare enter any of the activities after school. She was physically somewhat different and often ran away from the building after school was over. She was laughed at because of her funny running style. There wasn’t much she could do right in the pecking order but scramble around trying to get meager leftovers. The yearbook says she was in a club, but wasn't in the club picture. The most she ever got was pity or people ignoring her. I won’t go into the worst she got. . . except to say that every day produced some sort of sorrow. In the 3 plus years I observed her in my homeroom, she smiled exactly once when our homeroom teacher said something nice to her.

Today, there is a growing effort to stop bullying in the schools. It sometimes meets with success, but more often than not, it is ignored until it explodes into violence such as the many incidents of school shootings we have seen in the past decade. Or, more often, it results in the personal collapse of the victim.

The pecking order is based on status within the group. And sometimes our chicken-people are cruel to others simply to maintain their ranking. They look at the bottom of the order and do cruel things to avoid going there themselves.

This is abuse – child abuse given by other children. As a teacher, I continued to see it for many years. And I reacted with concern but not knowing what to do. I would refer it to principals and guidance counselors. Yet as I look back on my “busy, carefree high school days,” I now know that a few simple acts of kindness would have gone a long way. And I feel some guilt for not doing something as simple as that.

And as I wonder where our ability to treat people with such cruelty comes from, I think about the fundamentalist church. There is a “holy war” against, among other people, the divorced, the poor, those who have had an abortion, other religious beliefs, science, liberal politics, and so much more. And yet they believe that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. What an example of the benefits of salvation! They have placed themselves at the top of the pecking order. And they have produced a culture of hate as great as any jihad of Islam’s extremists.

As Jesus said: "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:1-5 RSV)