12.23.05
Hypochrists Unite!
-- OR --
Christmastime for Hitler
Be it for tax breaks, a caring spirit, or good ol' fashioned guilt, our thoughts and deeds often turn towards those less fortunate 'round this time of year. This year however, it's not the homeless denizens of New York, the impoverished wee ones of Nigeria, or the war ravaged citizens of Iraq whom I feel for most. This year, my heart goes out to the marketers.

OK, not really.

But I've gotta admit, with all the mixed messages they get from consumers during the year-end gift-giving season, it's tough. As swarms of shoppers flock to the big box stores and malls of America, a confluence of anti-commercialism, anti-secular Christmastime forces has descended upon us once again. And this year, it seems as though they've cranked up their sore-throated squawks to a fever pitch. First off, take the quasi-underground Santacon movement, also known as Santarchy, Santa Rampages and the Red Menace.

For the past twelve years at Christmastime, packs of naughty St. Nicks have stormed cities across the globe, suited in garish red regalia. Besides quaffing hooch through their cotton-ball beards and causing a bit of merry mayhem, their mission is muddled at best. Some say that Santarchy (which according to legend, was launched in '94 in San Francisco and has ties to Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk as well as the subversive Cacophany Society) is steeped in anti-commercial sentiment. BBC Radio 4's Arthur Smith participated in this year's Santacon event in London (Download the mp3), during which a horde of Kris Kringle kooks converged on a pub in Victoria Station. Once fully loaded, the crimson-cheeked mob proceeded to gallivant around the city stirring up what one Santa deemed "a bit of trouble."

As featured in the radio feature, during a meeting with the "top brass" of London's Santacon to map out this year's raucous route, one Santarchist explained to Smith, "We are here to rescue our particular period in the year, the festive season, from commercialism." Still, according to what can be gleaned from Smith's first-hand account and reports of other Santacon events, the Santa charade is little more than an elaborate excuse to get wasted and annoy the common folk, as opposed to a legitimate protest (kinda like Camp Casey).

Consider some plans for this year's rchistic frolicking here in the states. Houston's itinerary included eating and imbibing at a chain restaurant called Buffalo Wild Wings, hitting a hip clothing store, and proceeding to buy drinks at La Carafe, the Char Bar, and State Bar. Organizers of Santacon in its hometown of San Francisco told participants to "Bring toys, mistletoe, beer money, lube, Santafication tools (to make others into Santas), wear comfortable shoes - because Rudolph got drunk again and can't cart your sorry ass around."

Something tells me there are no designated sleigh drivers at Santacon.

It remains unclear how patronizing PJ McFiddlesticks, shopping for thrift store duds, purchasing toys and "lube," and buying mass quantities of alcohol constitutes as antiestablishmentarian behavior, much less anti-commercial activism. Then again, after a couple Apple Martinis and a few orders of Buffalitos™, who knows what kinda crasantazy antics might ensue!

Actually, it appears that some of the only anti-commercial activism that occurred at this year's Santacon took place in New Zealand, where according to a 12/17 Yahoo News story, "A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus costumes, many of them drunk, rampaged through New Zealand's largest city [Auckland], robbing stores and assaulting security guards, police said Sunday." Evidently, the dyslexic Santas mistook the roly-poly globetrotter as a violent looter, and besmirched his reputation by "overturning garbage containers, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on buildings" as well as nicking beer and soft drinks from a convenience store.

Perhaps the Christmas Nazis could take a hint from the Santarchists. As in Christmases past, we've heard and seen plenty of these Tannenbaum tyrants lately. Led by the talking heads of TV shout fests and call-in radio shows, and egged on by rabid groups like the American Family Association, the Christmas Nazis are infuriated by the fact that big name retailers like Wal-Mart, Old Navy and Sears have forsaken the baby Jesus by attacking patrons with such blasphemous phrases as "happy holidays" and "season's greetings." According to the American Family Association site, these "anti-Christian and anti-Christmas" companies even have the gall to "to substitute the phrase 'Holiday or Dream trees' instead of 'Christmas trees' in their promotions." How dare these stores fail to recognize that the birth of Christ is the reason for our seasonal materialistic consumption!

Perhaps it's about time the anti-holiday Hitlers got off their arses and took to the streets Santacon style. Instead of simply boycotting the businesses that insist on secularizing the most sacred commercialization of Christmas, the Christmas Nazis should wrap themselves in swaddling clothes, get drunk on the blood of Christ, and march in lock-step on a pilgrimage to the nearest mall's North Pole display. Once there, they should cast out the evil lap Santa, and replace him with a long-haired man dressed in a robe and sandals: a fitting representation of our Lord, from whom all XBox blessings flow.

I find the convoluted goals and actions of both the free-spirited Santarchists and the puritanical Christmas Nazis amusing. The Santacon movement, perhaps fittingly so, seems especially nebulous. As featured in the BBC's Santarchy piece, Smith notes, "some see an intellectual dimension to Santacon," relating it to artsy Dada-like movements of the of 50s and 60s. During his talk with Smith, Dr. Andrew Hussy, Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Wales, described Santacon as yet another social movement inveighing against the obligatory nature of giving Christmas gifts "nobody really wants." Yet, even Smith, a Santacon participant, admits in his piece, "At no point though did I ever really have a handle on what it was all about, nor I think, did anyone else."

Other members of the press appear to be equally befuddled. As noted in the Yahoo News report on the Kiwi Santa shenanigans, "Alex Dyer, a spokesman for the group, said Santarchy was a worldwide movement designed to protest the commercialization of Christmas." But as quoted in a 12/19 story on New Zealand-based news site, Stuff, Dyer "said Saturday was not an anti-commercialisation protest," adding, "People do Santarchy in other countries, sure, and for them maybe that's their aim, but with us we're just dressing up as Santa and getting drunk. We just like booze." At least he's honest, which is more than can be said for other Santarchists who seem to fancy themselves 21st century Abbie Hoffmans.

Santarchy is based on an antiestablishmentarian, sometimes anti-commercial philosophy, yet its members act on this by doing what everybody else does at Christmastime: they get shit-faced and buy presents. How shocking. Then you've got the Christmas Nazis, who have become so lost in the traditional tailspin of their Jesus-juice fueled rants, they've come out on the other end, insisting that the very entities who have perpetuated Christmas as a mere excuse for materialism, greed and gluttony must acknowledge Christ as the reason for that materialism, greed and gluttony! Huh?

If the evolution of Santacon from antiestablishmentarian pranksterism to mainstream costume party, and the bastardization of Christmas crusades from anti-commercialism to commercialism in Christ's name only is any indication, marketers have a real money-making opportunity. Marketers would do well next year to co-opt these empty quests for righteousness by organizing special promotions catering to both groups.

The Lowbrow Lowdown Lackeys have conjured up a few ideas:

  • Ho! Ho! Holy Night! at the Crystal Creek Mall! Sexy Santas ride Christ's lap for free!

  • Wal-Mart's Shackled Santa Weekend! Get your Santa gear on and get lootin' at Wal-Mart this Friday thru Sunday. No arrests -- you break it, you buy it! Complimentary Michelob Ultra and Doritos in Prancer's North Pole Prison!

  • Mangia in a Manger at The Olive Garden! A sumptuous trio of lamb, chicken and beef served on a tasty French fried potato haystack. Wash it down with a naughty-but-nice Myrrhtini™!


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