Merry Riff-mas: Santa Claus
Comedians on the corniest time of year
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For comedians, Christmas is an easy target. After all, it’s a holiday ostensibly about love and good feelings, but its most visible characteristics are conspicuous consumption, forced cheer, awkward familial interaction, and just a smidgen of sanctimoniousness. What’s not to laugh about? Decider asked several local and touring comedians to share some of their favorite holiday memories, and (surprise, surprise) what we got was nothing less than a litany of abuse, disappointment, thoughtless gifts, and general schadenfreude. In the second of our three-part series, the comics riff on Santa Claus.
Ruby Collins: There's a regular at Sugar’s strip club who we call “Santa” who has a long gray beard all year long, and he does Santa at Christmas for kids—but you know, he also comes into the strip club. A grown-up customer of Sugar's dressed as Santa with strippers on his lap is an image I'd like to eliminate from my memory, and yet at the same time I'm glad it's there.
Kevin Nealon: I used to work at a department store Santa in San Diego when I was 24. The temperature in the parking lot was in the mid-90s, with another 10 degrees added inside the Santa suit. Most of the kids that sat on my lap were from Tijuana and spoke no English. The parents would yell from behind the red ropes what the kid wanted. One grimy little kid peed on my lap.
Lucas Molandes: Christmas is that time of year—especially these days with the bad economy—when they always say bank robberies are going up. In the news there's always a story where some guy dressed as Santa robs a bank. You'd think that bank employees must at some point just say, “Okay, if Santa comes in today, we're hitting the silent alarm immediately.” It's kind of like racial profiling, but on Valentine's Day, there's never a robber dressed as a giant heart, or Jesus robbing banks on Easter.
Eric Krug: I’d much rather not make my kids believe Santa is some mythical man of joy, only to later crush their spirit by informing them Santa is actually some overzealous mom who trampled a Wal-Mart employee on Black Friday.
Kerri Lendo: When I was a kid I was like, “How does he go to all those houses in one night?” and my parents were like, “Time zones.” One time my friend said she saw Santa in her house, and I wanted to sound cool, so I said lied and said, yeah, I'd seen Santa too. I didn't feel cool later when I realized it was bullshit. I felt less cool a lot.
Seth Cockfield: I questioned Santa long before I questioned God. I was eight or nine, in third grade. That's when I started doing badly in school. In Catholic school, you'll do bad if you start questioning everything. Independent thought is not in the syllabus.
Lynette LaMonica: My uncle told me [there was no Santa] when I was 7 years old. I cried all night. He got in trouble. Soon after that I found out that God wasn't real either. It was a one-two blow.
Decider: Which was more traumatizing?
LL: Santa, for sure. After that I could take anything. With God, I was like, “Yeah, that's a disappointment, but I'll get over it.”
Decider: Which was more traumatizing?
LL: Santa, for sure. After that I could take anything. With God, I was like, “Yeah, that's a disappointment, but I'll get over it.”
