Santa Bloody Santa: Making a statement about the commercialization of the holiday?????

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Santa Bloody Santa: Making a statement about the commercialization of the holiday?????

Posted: 12/14/2005 12:34:09 PM EDT

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10467190/

Macabre Santa display in NYC draws stares
Mansion scene includes knife-wielding St. Nick, Barbies with severed heads

The Associated Press
Updated: 1:55 p.m. ET Dec. 14, 2005

NEW YORK - It’s usually easy to tell where a person stands in the culture wars, but whose side is someone on when his Christmas decor is a blood-spattered Santa Claus holding a severed head?

Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos decked the front of their Manhattan mansion this year with a scene that includes a knife-wielding 5-foot-tall St. Nick and a tree full of decapitated Barbie dolls. Hidden partly behind a tree, a merry old elf grasps a disembodied doll’s head with fake blood streaming from its eye sockets.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Krupnik explained that his family thought it would be a fun way to make a comment about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas.

“It is a religious holiday, but they have turned it into a business. And it shouldn’t be,” he said. “We didn’t put it up to offend anybody. It was just something that came out of our imagination.”

More than a few people passing by the brownstone were a little puzzled about the message behind the massacre.

Peter Nardoza, 81, of Manhattan, shook his head and chuckled. “Sick, sick, sick,” he said. “What kind of a world is this that we live in?”

Ronnie Santiago, a deliveryman on his route, speculated that something bad must have happened once to the homeowner at Christmas. A few spectators wondered whether the campy gore would bother children.

The family is far from the only one making an editorial comment this year about how Americans celebrate Christmas, although it may be the only one doing it by depicting Santa Claus as a killer.

Pope Benedict XVI complained this week that Christmas festivities have been “subjected to a sort of commercial pollution.” Christian conservatives have launched campaigns to reintroduce a religious component to Christmastime decor in schools and public squares, chiding even President Bush this year for sending out cards wishing supporters a happy “holiday season.”

But despite the home’s gruesome exterior, some visitors appreciated it.

Bucky Turco, 31, of Manhattan, said the display captured how he felt when watching someone costumed as SpongeBob SquarePants promote products at Rockefeller Center.

“This is brilliant,” said Turco.

Walter Garofalo, a musician from Brooklyn who wandered by wearing a black bandanna covered in skulls, was awe-struck.

“I wonder if these people would let me use this as our next album cover,” he said. “It’s perfect!”

Posted: 12/14/2005 12:36:42 PM EDT

[#1]

~~ever such a dupe.~~

Or not. Sorry. Other one was a hanging.

www.jobrelatedstuff.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=416172

Posted: 12/14/2005 12:37:11 PM EDT

[#2]

What a numbnut.

Posted: 12/14/2005 12:38:38 PM EDT

[#3]

I love Christmas any way you slice it (pun intended).

I'd rather have it be commercial than gone.

Posted: 12/14/2005 12:52:11 PM EDT

[#4]

Looks like the guy from that horrid B- movie " Santa's Slay "

Posted: 12/15/2005 9:26:08 AM EDT

[#5]

"It is a religious holiday, but they have turned it into a business. And it shouldn't be," he said.

People can celebrate Christmas however way they want. Not everyone has to recognize the religious inferences of the holiday. Just another case of someone trying to promote their religion in America -- a place where we have no obligation to even recognize religion.

"We didn't put it up to offend anybody."

Oh really? Not even the people who have "turned it [Christmas] into a business?"

Posted: 12/15/2005 3:13:11 PM EDT

[#6]

Quoted:
"It is a religious holiday, but they have turned it into a business. And it shouldn't be," he said.

People can celebrate Christmas however way they want. Not everyone has to recognize the religious inferences of the holiday. Just another case of someone trying to promote their religion in America -- a place where we have no obligation to even recognize religion.

"We didn't put it up to offend anybody."

Oh really? Not even the people who have "turned it [Christmas] into a business?"

There are many of us who are sick of the commercialization project that Christmas has become (I really don't like having to prove to others how important that they are to me by the amount of $$$$ I spend on them), but I do not approve of bastardizing and demonizing the symbols even further to try and make my point.

I thought it was done in extremely poor taste.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Santa Bloody Santa: Making a statement about the commercialization of the holiday?????

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