Why have children?

Amy Wellborn has the answer.

more at twiigs.com…

We wish our fabulous readers a wonderful, happy, and safe Christmas!

If you’re still shopping at this late date, you’ll need attitude at the mall. Truly, I shall never get back nor forget the two and one-half hours I wasted looking for parking at the mall 9pm on Christmas Eve…thank god now I live downtown.

To all frustrated, last-minute shoppers, here is your patron saint, and here is your anthem:

And here’s your Unicorn Chaser, the startlingly gifted and very likeable countertenor Nick Pitera singing O Holy Night. And yes, that is him.

I think he earns the “The Cuteness Abounds” tag, don’t you?

Didja ever wonder what it would be like to sit in Santa’s big chair and face hundreds of strange, possibly dangerous children daily, maintaining enough of a facade of geniality that the parents are still moderately happy to pay for the privilege of getting their kiddies’ picture taken with Santa? To be peed upon over and over again, to hear “I wanna iPod” over and over till one could strangle Steve Jobs with one’s gloved hands, to hold writhing, shrieking masses of life-force in your arms for adrenaline-pumping minutes at a time, lest they destroy expensive animatronic reindeer in the desperation of their heedless flight?

Wonder no more.

Colin Stevens, 44, film-maker
Hamleys, Regent Street, London

I am an alumnus of the Ministry of Fun Santa School in London. I can say ‘Happy Christmas’ in 12 languages. The first time I played Father Christmas, I thought, ‘So it’s come to this’ because I used to be a serious actor.

Wasn’t there a movie about this story? Or at least a Eugene O’Neill play?

Fred Holmes, 47, caretaker, Meadowcroft primary school
Painshill Park, Cobham, Surrey

I have been asked for a boiled egg, a Diet Coke, world peace and a live dinosaur… One girl told me all she wanted was to see her brother in pain. Sometimes you get lecherous mothers. A young mum once sat on my lap and asked if I would empty my sack on her bed. I think she’d been drinking. We once had a drunk elf who gave out the wrong presents, then fell into the lake.

Super bonus story: The Grinch is real, nabbed, and Bosnian.

Okay, this is raincoaster in charge of the Listmania today, not Glinda, so we know that the tastelessness factor is amped, relatively speaking. Just so you’re braced for some of the below, a roundup of some online Christmas games dug out from behind piles of old mittens and boots in the backs of dark closets all over the blogosphere.

And if you notice the prevalence of a certain source for some of these coolest of cool games, well, did you ever watch a Christmas special and wonder what happened to some of the characters afterwards?

Yes, the Grinch’s humble dog Max took the Whoville Express right to the top of the Office Supplies heap, garnering him a fortune of which his erstwhile master could only dream. Now, he spends his days dreaming up new ways to bring Christmas to every little girl and boy on the internet, even the grown-up ones.

Elf Bowling #1 through #7 (Nstorm)

Christmas Jesus Dress Up! Like paper dolls, only more heretical! (NormalBobSmith)

Shoot the lame Christmas junk! And you’ll really feel like shooting something with this music in the background! (Resn)

Alert Britney: North Pole Dancing (OfficeMax) Don’t you stick to it at those temperatures?

Reindeer arm wrestling (OfficeMax) Blitzen here has some serious ‘tude.

Shake the SnowGlobe and hear them scream! (OfficeMax)

Elf Yourself (OfficeMax)

Scrooge Yourself (OfficeMax)

Forget the cheerleader! Save the Snowman! (OfficeMax)

Snowball fight. A bit primitive, but classic (Zeeks)

Build a snowman (ChristmasGamesOnline)

Evil Santa generator (ScottsMind)

Christmas Tree Generator (Pyzam)

Christmas Disaster Generator (SecretTechnology)

Make a Flake (Snowflake)

Quiz: what movie is your Christmas most like? (Blogthings)

And, of course, the immortal: Subservient Santa (SimonsezSanta). Comes in kid-friendly or Naughty and Nice versions.

Is the rending of the space-time continuum.

To my great shock and horror, I have discovered that something is greatly amiss in the universe.  One of the bedrock principles of existence has been changed, thus triggering a destructive chain of events that will only end in the doom of mankind. Or something really bad like that.

You see, the new Scooby-Doo movies? 

Nobody ever gets a mask taken off.

You heard me right, my friends, the familiar refrain of “And I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you pesky kids” no longer exists in the Scooby-Doo canon.

The powers-that-be at Warner Brothers, who now own the franchise, have seen fit to alter a time-honored tradition.  Nay, eviscerate it. A tradition that I was raised on, and I expected to raise my son on as well.

But no.

Having entered that childhood epoch henceforth named “The Scooby-Doo Era,” I now find myself renting anything and everything with Scooby-Doo in it.  He will bypass Oscar-nominated fare to watch “Raggy” and a Great Dane consume large amounts of food as if it was the highest form of entertainment.  And hey, I guess to a five year old, it might just be.

I settled myself in to watch one “Scooby-doo and Zombie Island” or some such flick.  Throughout the whole thing, I kept wondering who was the dastardly person behind it all.  Who would be the one tied up in some rope at the end, with everyone gathered around and who would utter the famous utterance?

However, Warner Brothers apparently thinks that stuff is lame.  It’s too “old school” and now the ghouls and bad guys are real.  Real zombies, real worshippers of an Egyptian Cat god who sacrifice people and drink their blood in order to remain immortal.  I mean, this crap scared me.

I kept thinking, OK, any minute now they are gonna pull off those disguises!  Any second…. Really, any time now would be good… 

No.  The film leaves your child with the assumption that there are indeed zombies and blood-sucking cat-worshippers walking around. In Louisiana, no less. Zoinks!

It’s wrong, I tell you.  Just wrong.

No, I don’t mean scary. I mean SINISTER! Hearkening back to our Halloween Costumes of the Great Old Ones, this marvelously crafted portrait of Cthulhu, the best piece of eldritch and abhorrent Elder Gods art you’ll see this holiday season, is the work of Amy Rawson of Thirdroar and her boyfriend, which we found via the reliably bizarre Neatorama.

Ye knowest the drille: Captions in the commentes, Elder Signs in the pockettes.

And just for bonus points, here’s a Cthulhu Cthristmas tale
and some Cthulhu Ctharols.

By the way, we will be “keeping the season” with our friends in the early part of next week, so posting may be a bit slower and commenting a bit touchier than normal. It’s the “indigestion,” you know.