- Flower Mandalas by David J. Bookbinder
- Flower Mandalas at Cafepress.com
- Clare Goodwin’s Mandala Page
- Judith Cornell’s Mandala Universe
- The Mandala Project
- Robert’s Creek Mandala Gallery
- Wilson A. Bently, the Snowflake Man
Santas across Australia have thrown their jolliness by the wayside in protest of a new instruction that they say “ha, ha, ha” instead of the traditional “ho, ho, ho.” According to The Daily Telegraph, Santa is “a rebel with a ‘claus.’”
Westaff, a Santa training agency that supplies Santas to hundreds of stores across Australia, has told its trainees that “ho, ho, ho” could frighten children and be considered derogatory to women because of the connotation of the word “ho.”
Westaff’s Santa coordinator wrote in an email explaining the company’s position, “Part of our advice to our Santas is that they should be mindful of children having their first Santa experience. “We ask our Santas to try techniques such as lowering their tone of voice and using ‘ha, ha, ha’ to encourage the children to come forward and meet Santa. We wish you and your family a very merry Christmas.”
After some Santas quit the training program over the issue and others expressed dismay at the language change, Westaff said that the ultimate choice of what greeting to proffer is up to each individual Santa.
posted December 1, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Canada Post gives children Santa’s mailing address so they can send their Christmas letters, and according to them, his postal code is “H0H 0H0″. I wonder, are they going to have to ask him to change that so as not to offend?
posted December 5, 2007 at 3:11 am
Seriously.
“Ho ho ho” has been around a LOT longer than the negative meaning it has today. What kind of MORON would be offended by it?
Seriously.
Ray Bradbury predicted the “war on imagination” in his book Farenheit 451 and others. Read it.
posted December 5, 2007 at 6:23 am
I say an animated film on the Catholic cable channel EWTN about St Nicholas of Myra, the 4th century historical figure behind Santa Claus. In this film even as a teenager Nicholas laughed “HO-HO-HO”.
So if indeed the historical St Nicholas laughed “HO-HO-HO” that is good enough for me and should be good enough for anybody.
posted December 5, 2007 at 10:14 am
Personally i think a loud, deep “ha ha ha” by a big man with a red face and a white beard is just as scary as him saying “ho ho ho.”
posted December 6, 2007 at 8:18 am
So clean up the language of those who can’t pronounce “whore” – why pander to people who don’t speak english properly? What the hell is your school system doing?
posted December 8, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I’m trying to think of the life experiences that could lead a child to imagine Santa is heartily saying Whore whore whore!”
posted December 8, 2007 at 8:20 pm
A child would never think anything about Santa saying ho!, ho!, ho!. They say it on TV, on their videos, in their Christmas books, but the minds of some adults are so smashed they read dirt into anything. So Ray Bradbury predicted “war on the imagination” in one of his books. Some people have already started that haven’t they? Remember the cartoons?
posted December 9, 2007 at 12:25 am
OK, a solution – thanks to Curly. By decree of the elves and reindeer let it be known throughout the world that from this day forward and forever more Santa will be heard saying,
“Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!”
Oh yeah?! Well they could have decreed he say “NEE!NEE! NEE!”