Out In The Cold With Bad Santa

With the festive season forced in our faces everywhere we turn, one struggles to escape the image of a kind, old, pot-bellied man; a throwback to a gentler era. But something’s not quite right in 2015. That near-universal symbol of holiday celebration, fond childhood memories and exuberant glee, the man behind the beard, is nothing but a seedy sophisticate.

Enter Bad Santa, and I’m not talking a mild case of misdeeds, but bad to the bone.

In fact, I was recently in a hospital emergency room awaiting treatment for a twisted elbow, the result of an almost catastrophic wine tasting accident, when a screaming woman was admitted with a severe case of pogonophobia.

While the average reader of this publication may struggle with the term, there’ll no doubt be a few intellectual types giving themselves a knowing nod of self-important pompousness.

For those of you who don’t know, the phrase, which comes from those mad Greeks, boils down to a clear and present fear of beards.

This year has been one underlined by dark and disruptive events. Indeed, almost all my nerves are frayed by the mere thought of Trump or another Bush in the White House. If you think the zombies in The Walking Dead are frightful, US politics are completely over the edge.

Just as bad, however, is the painful trendiness we’ve had to endure at the hand of the bearded hipster. But at least the tribe has spoken and the hipster has finally been hounded out by the ‘yuccie’, leaving Santa in a dangerous crossfire, and most certainly off the A-list.

My views on these Millennials, who now account for about 25 percent of the consumer public, are undoubtedly mixed. They rent (I, on the other hand, rant).

What future do we have at the hands of these prepubescent tech fiends who are so busy on YouTube, Tinder and Twitter that they can’t dream the good dream of condo ownership, never mind a small slice of timeshare? Even though we’ve survived yuppies, and now hipsters, this new breed of Millennials has struck fear in to the heart of commerce.

In fact, my holiday angst is now in full throttle and the very thought of Christmas, in addition to a terminal case of pogonophobia, is simply too much for my frayed and flawed psyche.

Maybe this year’s holiday will be put out in the cold. Maybe Santa has joined those jilted hipsters in some remote location, far from reality television and crossed off the nice list. And while brand men are temporarily rejoicing from the rooftops with evangelical glee, the empty void of the emerging millennial market can only signal a continued disruption to surreal estate.

Yeah, hipsters were indeed a sad breed that preferred renting, but at least they contributed towards rental yields – a sort of property play – which is more than I can say for those glass-eyed Millennials.

So, what does 2016 have in store for us? What will be in; what will be cast out and which ridiculous neologisms (yep, another one from the Greeks) will be added to the Urban Dictionary – and ultimately Merriam Webster? My mind boggles and somewhere in the distance a bartender named Rudolf is lining up shots.

Merry Christmas indeed, and to the Millennials I wish you the longest and loneliest of nights.