You'd Better not Pout ...

Friday, 29 November 2002

Parental Advisory: this post includes information which may shatter your children's precious illusions.

Prime Minister John Howard has kicked off the Christmas season , by sending a seasonal message to the slaves of political correctness who wish to ban, or replace Santa, in childcare centre and primary school Christmas celebrations with something more to their taste, such as a clown in the traditional red nose and fright wig get-up, rather than a pretend sot with a false beard in the traditional red suit. Speaking of this move by several kindergartens and child care centres:

Mr Howard said the move was ridiculous and said believing in Santa was one of the wonderful things about childhood.

"I do believe in Santa," he told Melbourne radio 3AW.

"I'm no longer a child but I believed in Santa when I was a kid ... so therefore I believe in Santa."

"That (the ban) is absolutely ridiculous and can I say that any childcare centre, any kindergarten, that does that is being foolishly slavish to political correctness."

There certainly is something wonderful about believing in Santa as a child and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. It's a good way to turn working class kids into lefties, if nothing else. For some reason, working class kids only ever get visits from the really stingy Tooth Fairies, the crappiest eggs in the Easter Bunny's basket and the cheapest toys in Santa's voluminous sack. I have a memory (I hope it's a memory and not a confabulation) of asking my mother once why this was (at least in relation to Santa) and she told me that actually, the stuff that Santa brought was paid for by my parents. This sounded a little weird to me and the following year my grandmother was allowed to let me in on the truth, which was a lot more acceptable, in my view, than the previous explanation for the fact that some kids got ponies for Christmas and I got the Meccano number 3 set, which was that they had been better behaved than I throughout the preceding year. It's no wonder the rich get so far up themselves, when we think it's just a piece of harmless whimsy to promote this sort of thinking.

So I don't have any problem with the idea of kindergartens and child-care centres replacing Santa. Some kindergartens and centres have probably been getting by without him for years anyway - for example the Jewish ones. Although I suppose if they're going to avoid charges of political correctness, they might have to adopt him like the rest of us idiots. And a big Bah Humbug to everyone.