Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Childhood Trauma, The Breakup of the American Family, and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"

As a child, I found the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" particularly disturbing. Here was a song, a mainstream holiday song no less, celebrating and implicitly condoning Kringle-ian infidelity! What the hell! Why is mommy kissing Santa Claus!!! Where's dad??? I don't think it'd be a "laugh" if he saw his wife messing around with some fat dude who's supposed to be delivering toys to well-behaved children! It's even worse because the music is all happy and buoyant like everyone's in on it (except clueless dad) and mom cheating is just the COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD!!! Oh yeah, baby, mom's a cheating hussy! And Santa's a home wrecker!!! WOO HOO!!! Good times everybody! Cue up those horns and pour me some more egg nog!!! What the hell!!! And what about Mrs. Claus alone at the North Pole? Did we just "conveniently" forget about her??? I don't know, I seriously believe this song may have been instrumental in instilling my life-long distrust of people. Of course, now that I'm older and I know what the song is REALLY about (parental fun and games) and what's REALLY going on, well... I think it's even more disturbing.

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