HO, HO, HA?

This blog entry by Andrew Sanchez

The story: "Ho-ho-ho is a no-no"

The analysis:

A Santa Clause recruitment firm Westaff, which has office in the United States and Australia, told its Christmas trainees that the traditional festive greeting of “ho, ho, ho” would be banned and replaced with “ha, ha, ha.” I chose this article because is shows how even the most innocent of characters like Santa Clause can be censored. I mean, wow! I understand there are regulations on T.V. and radio, but Santa Clause? The firm was worried that the traditional “ho, ho, ho” would frighten children and would seem derogatory toward women. A month later after the recruitment firm issued its new regulation, a Santa Clause was allegedly fired for not complying with the new holiday greeting; he was also let go for the singing of “Jingle bells.”
When children hear the traditional Santa Clause greeting of “ho, ho, ho,” do they instantly think of prostitution? I don’t think so. Perhaps if Santa went around calling kids “nappy headed hoes,” I would understand the outrage, but I don’t understand why anyone would want to change the traditional greeting to something so politically correct. I mean, “ho, ho, ho” is everywhere. It is the classic Santa Clause utterance, and it can be found inside books, Christmas cards, and just about anything Christmas and Santa Clause related. Children will eventually come across it in one form or another. What is the next step? Will we remove it completely? Ridiculous! So now with “ha, ha, ha,” can we say that it is evil? “Ha, ha, ha,” is always tied to villains when they get away with any illegal activity. Everything is getting to politically correct so as to make everything bland.
I do not believe that this phrase is of any danger to children or women. These organizations are taking the traditional “ho, ho, ho” completely out of context: it is the P.C. (politically correct) police trying to impose their views on society, to gloss over the real problems of society by masking it under a cloud of “everything’s just fine!” I have heard the term “the pussification of America” associated with this case. The P.C. police are ruining it all.
It first began when little league baseball associations began giving every child a trophy regardless of the outcome of their season. What happened to competing for the 1st place trophy and being competitive? And that’s certainly not the end of it. This past October, some schools went so far as to not allowing children to dress up and they were not allowed to call Halloween, Halloween. They had to call it harvest day. G-Damn it! Next thing you know, little boys are going to be told that they are not allowed to pee standing up. Enough of my ranting and back to Santa,
It’s bad enough that we cannot say Merry Christmas without worrying about offending groups of people who do not celebrate this particular holiday. The P.C. police are starting to water down our customs and culture, to homogenize everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if my grandchildren’s grandchildren will no longer celebrate some of the holidays we take the joy in celebrating. Christmas may very well be a thing of the past one day, a phantom holiday that once existed.