Jolly Old Saint Badonkadonk

So . . . is Santa's butt a thing? Seems like everywhere I turn lately, I'm finding Santa wagging his big old booty at me.

Sometimes, he plays it off all innocent:

 no, no, I was just working out with my Jane Fonda aerobics video.

Other times he's coy:

 I'm just ringing my bell and rummaging my toy sack… but if you think I need a spanking…

But it's when he's just flagrantly flaunting that I find upsetting.

 Oh my! The dog's gone and nipped my trousers! Looks like they'll have to come off…

Actually, on second thought, in my travels, I have noticed a definite link between Christmas and exposing your bum. 

I guess old Santa just got tired of all the other Christmas ornaments having all of the fun and wanted to play along. 

Go home, Christmas Bear, you're drunk.

So Hurry Down the Chimney Tonight

At first glance, this Stay-Puft cabin wasn't all that remarkable. Sure, there are the inexplicable Christmas lights in the shrubbery and the molecular homogeny of building materials, snow and plant life, but nothing particularly Christmas Awesome-worthy.  

In fact, I passed by it a few times before I took a real good look at that jolly little fella popping down the chimney…and realized it wasn't Santa at all, but just one of the demons from Jacob's Ladder dressed up to look like Santa.

shudders upon shudders

Christmas Eve Tragedy

Little Sally knelt down for evening prayers on Christmas Eve. "Dear Jesus," she squeaked, in her perfectly innocent little voice, "please bless Mommy and Daddy and Paws and tell Santa that I've been very good and for Christmas this year, I would like . . . "

But she never finished her wish list because her head suddenly popped off.

Paws is unimpressed

Whoah, what, it's December already?

Welcome back and merry December to you all. Mrs. Elfenstein and I have a brand new little Elf, and admit we've been a wee bit too busy with burping, feeding and changing diapers to focus too much on the many wonders Christmas has to offer.

Thankfully, we collected plenty of material in the off-season. So much. So, so much. Like this fella in the back of a truck in July.

Santa? Santa, are you OK?

So without further ado, let's kick off the 2013 Christmas season!

Put Your Butt on Santa's Face

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

 

What's Christmas without a party? Family and friends and neighbors and festivities and food and Christmas decorations and twinkling lights and presents and laughter and booze and tension and calls from drunken ex-husbands and overtired children and vomit found Christmas morning in the backyard and the occasional fisticuffs, ah, the memories...

 

The prepared host or hostess must take great care to accommodate every guest's needs, and play the role of addiction enabler at every opportunity. From offering your dieting Auntie another slice of pie to preparing your drunk Uncle another Manhattan, the prepared host or hostess should also make sure that any guests who prefer to char their own lungs with poisonous gases are able to do so with an appropriate amount of cheer.

 

I offer to you the Santa Ash Tray. Fill your holidays with mirth, and Santa's mouth with nicotine residue. Tap your ashes directly into his big blue eyes and rest your Pall Mall on his cute button nose. This thing's made of plastic, so it's sure to melt and leave charred black craters all over old Kris Kringle's face.

  



Merry Christmas, everyone, and to all, a good night.

Sometimes I am Rigid About Details

Anatomy lesson! The white part of the eye is called the sclera.

It's the fibrous protective layer that keeps all of your eye goo safe and free of dirt and lint and stuff. It's typically white, unless you have jaundice. What it typically isn't, is blue. Now, this is the second character we've seen this year with an azure gaze: Admonitory Santa had Blue Sclera Disease, too.
By the way, it's called Osteogenesis imperfecta, it's a horrible disease and I'm not making fun of people who have it. 

Sure, ok, these things are mass-produced, generally in factories in countries where Christmas isn't even celebrated. I get that. But I've also got to imagine that regardless of whether you know who Frosty is or not, you've seen human eyes before.

And yes, Frosty isn't a human being, granted, but he isn't from Arrakis, either. He's meant to be human-like. Human-ish. Human-esque.

He is also supposed to have two eyes made of coal, and any other interpretation is clearly diverging from the originating song. I blame the 1969 animated version for this blatant use of artistic license.  Frosty originally had two coal eyes, but when he came to life, they got all googly. More expressive! the animators cried. Heresy, says I. Two eyes made of coal.

Is that a mandolin he's holding? What is that?

+1 for the ceramic Joseph photobomb, too.

The Elusive Douglas Fir-maid

Very modestly covering herself with pine needles just as we get to the nether-regions, this sturdy lass isn't so much atop the tree as growing out of it. Or maybe it's growing out from her. Like her arms do from the sides of her head.

But modesty be damned once we get above the waist! This mama is letting it all hang out. And judging by her grin, not feeling sheepish about it one bit. Any why not? Why not, indeed.

Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus, and He Uses Protection

Oh look, there’s Santa and a candy cane and a French horn, and . . .

What is that background made of? It looks like glittered . . . latex? There’s a little springy coil in all around the  . . .

Oh.

Oh.

That’s just precious.

I sure hope this isn’t second-hand.

What Happened to the W Key?

Nothing says “Christmas” like an ornament celebrating the Tandy 1000 with 16-color CRT monitor. Draped in wire lights and a big red bow, this technological breakthrough is forever memorialized . . . um, there seems to be a key missing from the keyboard . . . and uh, some, uh . . .

On the bright side, red is really festive.

A Face Only Mrs. Claus Could Love

Just look at those blue eyes. Santa must have been a lady killer in his youth. And judging by that nose, a hockey player or a boxer.

Every year we put this up, I like to think that someone crafted an entire tube of Santa face out of clay, and this is just one slice of many. Kind of like Meat Face, but with Santa. And it’s not made of meat. This is a good thing.

Santa and the Dead Girl

This large placard of an ornament was lovingly crafted with sand beads pasted on a board and edged with red yarn. Kris Kringle leans in over the chair where a little girl who has recently perished lies, lifeless and limp. He waves a doll over her slumped form, perhaps enticing her to rise again like Lazarus. An alternate theory has been posed that the doll is actually a cursed effigy, an instrument of black magic with which Santa strikes down bad children. Either way, Christmas was not merry for poor Alice.

On the first day of Christmas Awesome, my true love gave to me…

Mrs. Elfenstein and I decided to brave the snowstorm to take a road trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and to price out a new sofa today. When we got to the furniture store, though, it was really tiny and pricey and pretentious, and she felt all weird about going in. Then I felt all weird about going in because I knew she felt weird, so we decided to instead hit the nearby Goodwill we had passed on our way in.

Score!

They had 6 to 10 shelves worth of Christmas ornaments. Two Black Santas, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ornament, and a wasted-looking homemade, felt snowman. Also, there was a baby Jesus, an archangel, and a whole crapload of Wise Men all missing their right arms, all on the same shelf together.

We were able to replace the Pope John Paul II ornament that is curiously missing (along with Old Troll and the styrofoam snowman family – where the heck are they?), which pleased Mrs. Elfenstein immensely, but the crown jewel of the trip was Santa’s Mail Maw:

When we went to check out, the cashier was a kindly lady who declared Santa’s Mail Maw to be “cute” and lovingly placed him in the bag. She seemed unsure whether placing the Pope in Santa’s mouth was OK or not, but then got the Spirit and gleefully announced that “it just makes me so happy; I can put anything I want in his mouth!”

Oh, I know, Goodwill lady, how I know . .