Opinion: Santa gives me the ick. By Haley Debaron.

Why are kids forced to spend time with a gross old man? Trust fund baby Haley Debaron reflects on Christmas, her childhood, and Santa Claus. 
 
Before you get your hate mail ready, I just want to say I love Christmas, and this article is not in any way saying I don’t. There. Oh, and if you’re some goober who dresses up like Santa Claus at malls, yes, you’re a perv. I could end this right here and I think everyone would understand but my editor* is telling me I need to explain more because apparently, you’re too fucking stupid to get it.
 
Sorry. I apologize because that was a lot and you don’t deserve it. I hardly know you and I’m dumping my trauma on you, which isn’t fair. I’m trauma dumping probably because when my dad bought me this column at the Intergalactic Business Report, he warned me that writing this crap was the closest thing to therapy he was going to pay for anymore. Weird, right? Because in actuality, the closest thing to therapy that he paid for was for me to hook up with my therapist during our therapy sessions. Oh, I guess that’s why he added “anymore” on that.  
 
Anyway… When I was a little girl, I had a horrific experience meeting Santa.  It was probably the same thing many poor people like you (just guessing but not really) go through as children when someone takes you to the mall and you sit in line and then they throw you on the lap of some old creep who’s stinky and acts like he’s your grandfather or something. 
 
I should probably note here that my own grandfather is rich and doesn’t cosplay in malls. He does do a thing where he hunts humans in Indonesia or somewhere so maybe that is cosplay because he dresses up in this whole “hunter” outfit when he does it. (I’ve seen pictures, but there’s no way I’d go in a jungle or whatever and live in a tent for three days). 
 
Back to my story. Annabelle (not her real name because when you’re rich and you get a nanny and you don’t like or can’t pronounce her name you can just pick one for her) took me to the mall by accident. She didn’t understand that if people like me really wanted to do the whole Santa Claus thing there were other ways, like where he keeps his distance and it’s more like he’s a security guard at Hermes who lets you in. 
 
Dumb dumb Annabelle (I say that with love, like a nickname I would always call her) brought me to this horrible Santa station and I waited there with the other kids like I rode the bus or something. I waited. And I waited. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. For a minute I was like, what am I doing? I didn’t know what it felt like to be bored and not catered to and not brought to the front of the line. What was happening? I finally stood up for myself by screaming at Annabelle and demanding she have a good explanation for what we were doing there and why I was waiting. This is so funny when I remember it because the few times Annabelle defied me, I would always just go off on her till she either cried or got really really mad and said something in her language that sounded like they would be swear words. Sad news: she got fired eventually because an old man who could understand her told me: “Do you know that woman wants you dead?” Scary. But that didn’t happen on mall day, so dumb dumb Annabelle kept on working. 
 
When I got to the front and it was my “turn” (I still don’t understand this concept, but whatever), the gross old man beckoned me to, yuck, sit on his lap. I don’t need to explain how he smelled because you can probably smell it now if there’s a mall within a hundred miles of you. I guess people really liked this Santa because he had a real beard, and no, this story is not going to end where “he’s the actual Santa” or that maybe he was, or that it was ambiguous or whatever, because he farted like he had a French horn in his pants. Would the real Santa do that? Would someone’s old nasty ex-husband do that? Yes. Because that’s who he was, for sure.
 
Fart. And it was so loud, everyone could hear it. At least they said so when I pointed at him and told them he just farted on me. In all fairness, it’s really possible he didn’t, but I was a little girl and this man just looked like a human fart and maybe that’s why I smelled and felt it. Sometimes, when a cute child starts yelling that an old man did something, people believe her. Other times, when a cute child starts yelling that her nanny stole silverware they believe her too. And, just to really make my point, when a cute little girl says to her parents that the chauffeur’s mustache smells like Uncle Dominique’s “brown” drink, they fire his ass. Oh, and all this stuff works when you’re older too. It’s like you never have to stop using it just because you’re in your twenties or whatever. 
 
I can’t even remember what the purpose of writing this was. Something about the holidays I think.  But thanks to dad, none of that matters. The editors here don’t even read the stuff they publish and they’re all pervs anyway so who cares what they think? In conclusion, there should be a politician or someone fighting against everything I just wrote about. But they all get spooked that people will say they hate Christmas if they do. So lie down, cowards, and don’t fight back. Keep taking kids to the malls and have them freak out when they’re told the old man over there is going to decide whether you get what you want for Christmas. Great message, right? 
 
They told me when I’m done writing to just write “I’m done writing now. Goodbye.” I guess that’s a way to just be done with it. So, I’m done writing now. Goodbye. 
 
Haley Debaron. 
 
*Some drunk guy yelling at me over Zoom. 
 

Haley Debaron has a trust fund. It makes her rich. Probably richer than you and we don’t even know you. There’s nothing more to say really, than that. You can contact Haley at [email protected].
 

Tees that will give everyone the ick