Ho! Ho! Ho!

A firm in Australia that recruits and furnishes Santa Clauses for stores and malls has instructed their Santas not to use the traditional "Ho! Ho! Ho!" for fear that it might offend women. They are asked to use "Ha! Ha! Ha!" It just doesn't get any stupider than this.

Not as easily satisfied, the Politically Correct crowd in this country will soon have Santa chanting "Lady of the evening, Lady of the evening, Lady of the evening."

I guess that the politically correct crowd has never seen the "Surplus Santa" on Lee Street in Greensboro. The local Army surplus store puts a big guy outside with the white beard and red hat dressed in camo. Barnum would be proud.

As long as I am on this Santa streak, here's one of my favorite Santa jokes. This one is for Ken Blitchington, the increasingly rotund US Airways pilot, who claims to be my only friend. An inspector from the FAA visits Santa a couple of weeks before Christmas to inspect his sleigh and make sure that it is airworthy. After inspecting his sleigh, the inspector climbs into the sleigh with Santa to go for a check ride. As Santa prepares for takeoff, the FAA inspector pulls a shotgun from his bag. Santa asks "What are you doing with the gun?" The inspector replies, "You are going to lose an engine on takeoff."
As Santa says in Australia, "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

As a man of stocky proportions, I have often played Santa during the holidays. Like any other self respecting fat guy, I have my own suit. We're po' folks. The only thing that I inherited from my grandfather was his Santa suit. Several years ago on the TV show "Evening Shade", Charles Durning was complaining about playing Santa. "They are always asking every fat white guy to play Santa. I'm tired of it! Do they run around at Easter asking every guy with buck teeth to play the Easter Bunny?"
As Santa says in Australia, "Ha! Ha! Ha!"