Crazy Down Under

Santa's in OZ, no not the Emerald City, but Australia, have been asked to replace Ho Ho Ho, with Ha Ha Ha. Now, before you fear that American Political Correctness (tm) has been exported down under, follow along. According to the News.com.au site (a related site to America's Fox News), the reason is because young children might be frightened by the deep laugh, and hearty gestures. Well, I guess I took the Aussies to be a bit tougher than that.

According to the spokeshole at the staffing firm that supplies a lot of mall santas, "The reason behind that is we find that in some cases the little kids can get a little bit scared of the deep 'ho, ho, hos' and we ask them to be mindful of keeping their voices to a lower level." Well, d'uh! Every young child is afraid of Santa at some age, it's only when the little tykes understand the haul he brings do they warm up to him. As is typical, a common sense approach seems to have been tossed out the window. At least they haven't replaced Santa with a "Father Holiday", or some other silly derivative.

Shoppers, parents and store owners seemed to be of the opinion that it's much ado about nothing. Indeed.