Word: clauses
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What color is Santa Claus? Some U.S. department stores are installing black Santas for their black customers. In Detroit's J.L. Hudson emporium, mothers and children have their choice of lining up for eight white Santas or two black Santas. But 75% of the blacks have chosen the white Santas. It is perhaps sad to impose racial politics upon the mythologies of children, but the reasons for the choices are intriguing. The simplest explanation may be that children have almost always seen only white Santas, thus the black man looks odd in the role. But maybe some...
...politicized person who has everything-including an Agnew wristwatch and a Spiro shirt-Santa Claus has several new possibilities in store. Those inclined to put the Vice President on the receiving end may look forward to a Spiro Agnew wastebasket, with decorations commemorating his crowning victories on the golf course and tennis court. A windup Richard Nixon box looks something like a toaster and contains a loose-jointed figure in the presidential image that dances to a tinkly Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay. Strangely silent, however, is the forthcoming Martha Mitchell doll, authorized by the Attorney General...
...lost on the business community. If you take little Tommy to see Santa at Jordan's, the cost for one print is $2.34. But naturally, grandma will want one, and so will Aunt Sally, so you buy the package of three for $5.50. And acting as Santa Claus, a parent must buy extra presents, and that means more profits for someone. Then you have your Santa Claus dolls, your Santa Claus outfits, and your Santa Claus statues for your front yard in Shaker Heights...
Even the Encyclopedia Americana recognizes the horror of it all. "The American Santa Claus is a corruption of the Dutch Sant Nikolaas," it says. In Europe, St. Nick-fraud though he may be-rides a white donkey or a grey horse, while in America he uses a bunch of reindeer and flies through the air. In Italy, the children wait for la Bafena, a female who must be at least partially liberated...
...also remember, however, the day I came home crying because fourth-grade classmate Randy Albright had told me there was no Santa Claus. He tried to be logical and endeavored to strain the credibility of it all. Randy argued that chimneys and omnipresence and other things that I answered to, but not very well. Then a week later, my father sat down with me and explained to me that there was indeed no Santa. It had just been a game. That Christmas Eve I took my first sleeping pill. I didn't bother pecking out the window before getting...