Time for annual Bad Apple Holiday Awards
It’s the most wonderful time of the year with much mistletoeing and hearts all a-glowing and being of good cheer. But nothing brings a warmer tinge to the holiday heart than the annual Washington Bad Apple Holiday Awards (aka, WABAHA).
What? You’ve never heard of this award? Well, my friends, the WABAHA is similar to the Razzie with the intended goal to seek out and award the stinkiest holiday stinkers around. Always in fashion and always fashionably late, the WABAHA goes where no bad apple has gone before – to the rotted core.
As a special treat, this year the WABAHA award committee went global. After all, why should only Washingtonians get all the glory?
Although last year’s WABAHA award centered on the fracas surrounding religious displays during 2006; in 2007, St. Nick was the bull’s-eye on everyone’s target leaving the committee with so many Santa bashings to choose from that lumps of coal are on backorder.
The semifinalists included a Montanan who hit Santa with a pie; Great Britons who lamented that the jolly old elf’s rotund physique sets a fat example to children; a Bremerton, Wash., resident who nailed Santa to a cross protesting commercialism and Seattle’s mayor who told tiny tinsel totters that global warming threatened to keep Santa and his reindeer from flying the friendly skies.
But these coal lumps were no match for the top three who elevated Santa-bashing to the beyond belief level. So, before I don my kerchief and papa slaps on his cap, here are the 2008 WABAHA winners plucked from the trazillions who vied for this award by truly being the scummiest of the holiday scum buckets during 2007.
Nov. 15, 2007 – Westaff, a Santa training company in Sydney, Australia, feared Santa’s traditional greeting of ho-ho-ho, “could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women.” Their Santas in training were told to bellow “ha, ha, ha” to the kiddies. “Give me a break,” Julie Gale who runs a campaign against sexualizing children, was quoted as saying.
Nah – we’ll just award the third-place WABAHA to the Westaff management and their Down Under hijinks – he-he-he.
Dec. 18, 2007 – Sandrama Lanny did more than whisper her Christmas list to Santa one afternoon at Connecticut’s Danbury Fair Mall. “The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted,” said a Danbury detective. Lanny, after hobbling away from the scene, was quickly found by police because the assailant was described as a female on crutches. She was charged with “sexual assault and breach of peace.”
Ms. Lanny, your wandering hands confiscated the coveted second-place WABAHA. May your nimble fingers find better things to do.
Dec. 19, 2007 – On this sleigh-filled night, a Spokane firefighter, dressed in Santa suit and white beard, was making the annual firefighters’ Santa run when an unknown object sailed through the sky striking him in the face causing a broken nose, two black eyes and a concussion. It was reported that over the years our heroes have been pelted with strange objects but this was the first time a firefighter was severely injured. True to the Christmas spirit, the injured Santa returned to his jolly duties. “We like making people happy,” he said. “It’s just unfortunate that this happened.”
This is a proud moment for our community because for the first time in its two-year history, the first place WABAHA goes to Spokane’s unknown scurrilous rapscallions who caused quite a clatter. To the scummiest of the holiday scum buckets, a lump of coal is too good for you; so, you better watch out, you better keep low, you better not doubt, I’m telling you, Joe … the Claus is comin’ to town!
The 2008 year promises to give the WABAHA committee myriad of holiday shenanigans to choose from for the 2009 award. But for now, to the 2008 WABAHA winners, a hearty congratulations to all and to all a good night!