A Politically Correct Christmas

A Politically Correct Christmas

I’m not making up the following news story. I have been accused of making things up (and rightfully so) but I swear I didn’t make up the following item. It came right out of the November 15th MSN home page news headline:

Absurd Political Correctness?
In the wake of the Imus debacle where the shock DJ called female basketball players “Ho’s” it has been suggested that Santa himself is insulting and demeaning to women with his laughter: Ho Ho Ho. Groups promoting political correctness out of Vancouver, BC and Australia, recommend that Santa’s characteristic laughter be changed.

This story hit a deep chord for me as I thought how often my own wife has been subjected to insensitive, demeaning and politically incorrect statements. How could I have been so clueless?
It started on the very day we were married. We took vows of Ho-ly matrimony, spent our first night together at Ho-Jo (Howard Johnson) and the list goes on.

I resolved to do something about this, to be always politically correct starting this holiday in my home. I’d intended to surprise my wife by putting together our Christmas display so it would be ready when she came home that afternoon. It was a beautiful set up that we placed in the living room and included a big electronic Santa equipped with a motion detector. When someone approached, Santa’s belly would shake and he’d let out a loud “Ho-Ho-Ho.” Definitely politically incorrect.

I would no longer be blind to this political insensitivity toward women. I took Santa to my friend Phil, the electronic wiz. I told him what I wanted.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Phil said. “You been spiking the eggnog this early?”

“No, I haven’t, Phil. Can you do it or not?”

“Yeah, sure, nothing’s too dumb for me. Come back in a half hour.”

I gave Phil a half hour, picked up the altered Santa, went home and put together the display.
When my wife walked in later that afternoon her face lit up. She leaned over and kissed me.
“Oh, honey,” she said. “That’s so sweet. You put the Christmas display together. Thank you.”
She walked over and approached the decorations. Santa’s eyes lit up, and his belly shook. His voice was somewhat tinny as he let out an altered laugh:

“Heh-Heh-Heh”

My wife frowned. “What’s wrong with Santa?” she said. “He sounds like a moron.”

“Now he’s politically correct,” I replied. “And it’s Intelligence Quotient Challenged.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Patrick? Have you been spiking the eggnog this early?”

“Not yet, but we’re going to be politically correct from now on, dear. Moron is offensive to people of lesser intelligence. IQ Challenged is the correct terminology.”

She gave me a look, mumbled “whatever,” and left the room. This hadn’t gone as well as I expected. What did I miss? Then it hit me. Of course, how could I have been so blind? My wife loves Hawaiian music and her favorite singer is…you guessed it: Don Ho! She’s got all his records and tapes. No wonder she’s cranky, having to deal with that politically incorrect name on her music collection. Well not anymore.

I vowed to straighten this out for her and give her the gift of a politically correct Christmas. I would change the singer’s name to something not demeaning to women, a politically proper name.

I went into the music room with my label maker and took my wife’s music collection out of the cabinet. There they were, records, tapes and CD’s with that offending name of Don Ho. I got to work placing new labels over Don Ho’s name.
I’d finished with those when I reached the most difficult one of all. It was her favorite possession: an old-fashioned vinyl record album signed by the artist himself. She’d gotten it in Honolulu twenty-five years ago. Problem was that the offensive name was in very large letters across the album jacket and my labels would be too small to cover it.

I took scissors and was ready to cut out the name when my wife walked in. She took one look at what I was doing, dashed across the room and grabbed the scissors out of my hand.

“Don’t run with those,” I said, concerned with politically correct safety.

“Are you nuts?” she screeched. “What’s wrong with you? What are you doing to my records?”

“I’m making them politically correct.” I replied.
She looked at the new labels pasted across the singer’s name. “Who the hell is Dexter Huber and why is that name over my Don Ho records?”

“Well, sweetness, that’s a politically correct name with the same initials so you won’t get confused.”

My wife is attractive, soft and sweet, but for a terrible moment I feared she might actually attack me, stab me with those scissors.

Gathering the records, she put them back in the cabinet, locked it and took the key. She hissed at me between clenched teeth.

“Stay away from my records, got it?”

“Okay.”

“And another thing, get rid of that stupid Santa and get a normal one.”

Sure

Heh-Heh-Heh