If you've been fortunate (or unfortunate depending on which way you look at it) to see me over the past week, you'll have noticed something slightly… different about me.
It's not my clothes; they're still tacky.
It's not my smile; it's still half there and half wrapped around a lemon engaging in indecent acts with a potato.
It is, in fact, my hat.
Photo by Matt Bonnington
You see, every year at Christmas, I decide that being a Jew, I should spread some sort of cheer. And short of modifying some of those cheap headset antlers to become a headset menorah and maybe lighting mysself on fire & getting arrested in the process, I don a Santa hat.
This year, the research is more troubling than I would ever want.
Less and less people are happy.
I know what I'm trying to achieve with this Santa hat wearing. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that I may look like an idiot. I expect that.
But if there's one thing you notice when you really pay attention it's that people are too caught up in their own superficial reasoning to constant go with the flow, to be more normal than anything… instead of being spontaneous and having some fun.
It's such a shame too because it's not a hard thing to have fun. Not in the slightest. I'm quite enjoying my Santa hat. It sits on the top of my standard trilby and makes me more festive.
A festive Jew for all seasons.
Christ, I sound like some sort of Christmas feast.
But getting back on topic, there really are less and less happy people this year than I think I've ever seen. Either people are growing up way too fast or something in their mind is stopping them from being silly… in even the slightest way.
It's such a shame. As of around a week before Christmas…
90% of the population who sees me in my Santa hat ignores it. That's expected. It's the stock-standard response from most people to ignore until confronted. Standing up and being counted for something different doesn't come into play with these sorts of people.
8% of the population frown, snarl, make aggressive sort of faces. Whether they're just people with permanent frowns or people with an axe to grind, I can't say. But if a spur of the moment Jewish Jester can't make them smile with some of the most basic yuletide cheer… there's probably no hope for them here.
2% of the population – the rest of my little approximated world that I see as I go by every day – that two percent smile. For the record, it's been a guy cheering out of a car as it drove by (he was the first), the clerks at my local video store, the girls at the salad place, the girls working at Bakers Delight in St. Leonards, a couple of random girls one of whom was pregnant, and children. One of the children even seemed curious why I was Santa.
It's 6.08. I'm on the train home from St. Leonards. My chest aches but it's probably just lots of gas. Santa's got gas, baby.
Oh yeah, and there's a guy across from me who looks like he's curious in the santa hat I'm wearing and he's just got to SMS his friend all about it!!!
Yeah. The Jewish Santa is here, baby.
Someone bring me some elf bitches for my own “White Christmas”. :P