When I say this to people, they always do this sort of, “ha ha, yeah” and then, “no, wait, you really do?” to which I almost always reply, “well, yeah, he’s a pervy old white man who likes to have kids sit on his lap!”

People then question whether I’ve had some kind of traumatic experience related to this, to which I can only say, “not that I know of?!” But who knows.

 Today I found this site full of pictures of similarly traumatized Santa-haters. What bothered me about it was that all of the parents were like, “I thought it was so funny!” or “I made them sit on his lap anyway” or “It’s so cute; maybe next year will be better.”

Tell me again what you find amusing about forcing your child to sit on the lap of a strange, costumed man they’ve never met before?

I will resist the urge to speculate on how this widespread practice might lead to an increase in child abuse . . . after all, we are teaching children not to trust their instincts at an early age . . . so how will they know when it’s okay to say “no” to other creepy old men?

yeah, I know I have issues . . . but I’m just saying . . .