Creepy Claus has reproduced

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/12/2018 (2779 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the festive season, kids, and I think my feelings would be best summed up by the heartfelt lyrics to the following popular song of the season:

“We wish you a Creepy Christmas/We wish you a Creepy Christmas/We wish you a Creepy Christmas/And a Creepy New Year!”

OK, you’ve probably never heard that song, but we sing it every year at my house — at least we have ever since my parents fled our brutal winters for the West Coast, and left behind a scary gift — a metre-tall plush Santa doll with a pale plastic face that makes him resemble one of those inflatable dolls you can obtain — or so I’m told — from unsavoury sites on the Internet.

One glance at the malevolent, open-mouthed glare on his face and you will understand why my daughter was moved to nickname him “Creepy Santa.”

Regular readers will recall that I immortalized Creepy Santa in a series of hard-hitting columns about how my wife and kids enjoyed hiding him in obscure locations around our home — the basement shower would be just one example — and then waiting for someone to stumble on the leering elf and shriek in holiday horror.

I know that you know exactly what I’m talking about here, because every (bad word) year I receive dozens of emails from Creepy Santa fans, who frequently include icky photos of their own stuffed Santa dolls, which they vehemently insist are Creepy’s long-lost relatives.

Somewhere — I have no idea where — there must be a dark, dismal factory dedicated to the production of Santa dolls that look like garden gnomes gone horribly wrong.

But that is not today’s festive point. Today’s point is that I probably would not have a career were it not for this disturbing red-plush gnome, which I am obligated to write about every year before Christmas unless I want to be inundated with angry emails from readers demanding to know: “WHERE’S CREEPY???”

Over the years, my job as a crusading newspaper columnist with naturally curly hair and steely-blue eyes has required me to drag Creepy to more events than you could shake a candy cane at.

For instance, Creepy has been to Olympic curling trials at Bell MTS Place, to the pool of a major downtown hotel to swim and sip tropical beverages, to Morden’s Chocolates for the pre-Valentine’s Day sugar rush, on-board a giant Amphibex icebreaker on the frozen Red River, and the patio of the Free Press News Café, where he and I were blasted in the face with a giant water-gun for a weather video on this paper’s website.

Whenever we ventured out in public, Creepy was the undisputed star, the one bemused bystanders couldn’t wait to meet. Whenever I am invited to speak in a school, the invitation typically stipulates that Creepy should come along as the staff and students are big fans of his work.

These days, however, the Creepster is semi-retired. As I write these words, he is parked on a comfy chair in our living room, alongside two of his… um… children. I can explain, I think.

You see the pinnacle of Creepy’s fame came a handful of years ago when he was kidnapped from our front porch — where his job involved scaring away random carollers and neighbourhood kids hoping to shovel the driveway.

As you can imagine, my wife and I were distraught. OK, I’m lying. The truth is we didn’t notice — at least, not until we started receiving anonymous manila envelopes every month in the mail.

Inside these mysterious envelopes were pictures of Creepy in exotic locations — marching in the Opening Ceremonies of the London Summer Olympics, for instance, or transformed into a swarthy seadog for Talk Like a Pirate Day — along with notes describing how much fun the little guy was having with his kidnappers.

Then, on Christmas Eve morning, a year after the kidnapping, I was lying in bed when I heard my wife scream. “HE HAD A BABY!” she howled. “HE HAD A BABY!”

When I asked who had had a baby, she simply handed me a small red and green Christmas basket, inside of which was tucked a miniature red Christmas blanket, and swaddled inside that was a tiny plush doll with an only-too-familiar face.

“OHMYGAWD!” I gasped at the time. “IT’S THE SON OF CREEPY SANTA!”

And it was. It was a foot-long replica of our abducted decoration, to which had been pinned the following note: “Hi, I’m J.C. Junior Creepy!”

A few days later, we walked into a restaurant for a party to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, and there, parked precariously on a stool at the bar with a glass of fizzy champagne in front of him, was Creepy Santa, none the worse for wear after a year on the lam, and refusing to say who had kidnapped him in the first place.

Attached to our long-lost pal was a helium balloon and a sign screaming: “Happy Anniversary! Looking forward to the next 30 years together!”

So we now have Big Creepy Santa, Baby Creepy Santa, and Middle-Sized Creepy Santa, which is a third creepy plush doll that was apparently given to us by a friend, although neither my wife nor I can recall where he came from.

All three of these evil-looking holiday gnomes are huddled together on a comfy chair, but soon they will be wreaking holiday havoc, because in a few days, our daughter will be home for Christmas, and my wife will hide these monstrosities in her closet or under her covers, which will result in our daughter being surprised and shrieking at the level of a nuclear blast.

For them, it’s the traditional way of welcoming Christmas. For me, on the other hand, it’s just a little creepy.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca